Harpsichord News

Christmas in August

For a Texan yearning to make a summer escape from the hot, humid city to the coolly refreshing mountains of New Mexico, generally an August reference to Christmas would signify the request for both red and green chile sauces as accompaniments to those very special New Mexican blue corn enchiladas! However, for a musically employed person, the same word well might serve as a reminder that it is high time to finalize those repertory choices for the fall and winter programs for which one is responsible.

Additions to our list of such musical possibilities may be found in a recent publication from Concordia Publishing House: volume two of Christmas Ayres and Dances: Sixteen Easy to Moderate Carols for Organ, Chamber Organ, Harpsichord, or Piano, by J. William Greene. (Greene is a name already familiar to readers of this column: for information about his first volume of similar seasonal keyboard arrangements, see The Diapason, June 2015.)

Probably the most popular of the newly published works will be “Antioch Carillon” (Joy to the World) and “Bell Fugue” (Jingle Bells), the two pieces that serve as bookends for the 43-page volume. Concerning the “Bell Fugue,” I contacted the composer to ascertain whether or not there might be two naturals missing from the score? He responded that indeed he did wish to have naturals before the Fs on the fourth beats of measures 25 (bass) and 33 (treble). So, dear readers, write these corrections into your own scores after you purchase them, and play what the composer prefers rather than the pungent cross-relationships indicated in the print.

Most extensive of the new pieces is the eight-movement Huron Suite (‘Twas in the Moon of Wintertime) known today as Huron Carol, a personal favorite song from my childhood days. As one begins to study this work I would suggest starting with the fourth movement, “Sarabande,” in which the melody is most clearly outlined in the top voice. Having this haunting tune in mind will serve the player well when confronting the unfamiliar appearance of the first four pages comprising the suite’s “Prelude.” Totally notated in whole notes without any metric indications (except for some slurs that aid in defining the harmonic groupings), this notation emulates 17th-century French lute (and sometimes harpsichord) notational practices—in a sense, presenting the player with a written-out improvisation on the melody and its implied harmonic structure.

Through the gracious generosity of our reader Thomas D. Orr, I had received a pre-publication copy of Dr. Greene’s Partita. It was particularly pleasing therefore to find that the composer had accepted (along with my accolades) the suggestion that an octave lowering of the right-hand notation in the score’s emotional highlight, its final segment, the “Tombeau de Jean de Brébeuf,” would allow the somber sounds to capitalize on the more resonant mid/lower range of the harpsichord, thus expressing sonically the elegiac intent of this “Tombstone” piece, a genre found in several 17th-century prototypes by composers Louis (or, perhaps, his brother Charles) Couperin and Johann Jakob Froberger.

This downward octave transposition also serves as an introduction for a general point to consider when performing these pieces: since they are designated for such a varied set of keyboard instruments it is quite possible, in some measures, to thin the texture when playing on a harpsichord (while observing the composer’s notations exactly as written if performing on piano or organ). Extended chains of parallel triads do not usually work well on our instrument since its sustaining “pedal” resides in our fingers. Thus, when a harpsichordist’s finger releases a key, the damper immediately drops down onto the string (unlike the piano’s ability to prolong the resonance that continues because the dampening felt remains suspended above the string as long as the damper pedal remains depressed).

The composer himself suggests some sonic adapting for the notation found in his spare and lovely setting of the chant Conditor alme siderum (Creator of the Stars of Night) in which the entire two-page piece is constructed above a sustained E-flat pedal point—perfectly suited to an organ, but requiring fairly frequent re-striking of the bass note when played on other, non-winded keyboard instruments.

The remaining tunes to be encountered in this new publication comprise Es kommt ein Schiff geladen (A Ship There Comes A-Laden—Passacaglia); Come Now, O Prince of Peace (Ososô Ayre and Sarabande); Personent Hodie (On This Day Earth Shall Ring), a rollicking Tambourin and Bourrée dedicated to the aforementioned reader Tom Orr. Although this listing does not total an exact 16 separate works, as the title indicates, if one counts the individual titles as printed, there are actually 17 individual movements. Should this added numerical disparity be disturbing in any way, perhaps one might simply count the Double of this final Bourrée as a requirement for a properly ornamented performance of the piece, thereby arriving at the eponymous given number. This solution almost certainly should provide a truly Merry Christmas to one and all, both literalists and free thinkers (even in August)!

For the gift list (including self)

The late British composer Stephen Dodgson (1924–2013) was particularly celebrated for his idiomatic writing utilizing plucked instruments, especially guitar and harpsichord (and, in one unique example, Duo alla fantasia for Harp and Harpsichord, composed in 1981 for harpist David Williams and me). That Stephen should write idiomatically for our keyboard instrument is scarcely surprising since his wife is the harpsichordist Jane Clark.

It is a particular pleasure to recommend the first complete recording of the first four books of Stephen Dodgson’s Inventions for Harpsichord, each set comprising six individual pieces, for a total of 24. A fifth book, also comprising six Inventions, is not included in this release, just issued by Naxos (9.70262) as the debut disc of the young Russian harpsichordist Ekaterina Likhina. Recording sessions took place in September 2016 at the Musikhochschule in Würzburg, Germany, where Ms. Likhina has been studying with Professor Glen Wilson (who served as producer for the project).

Playing throughout the 1:11:37 duration is first rate as each set of six displays its various moods. None of these individual movements exceeds four minutes, 58 seconds, with the majority of them timed between two and three minutes. The harpsichord, a resonant French double built in 2000 by Detmar Hungerberg of Hückeswagen, Germany, is based on a 1706 instrument by Donzelague of Lyon, France. (This information is not included in the material accompanying the disc; it had been submitted but there was insufficient space to include it, one of the few drawbacks of the compact disc format. I am grateful to Jane Clark and Glen Wilson for providing this addendum.) Both of these gracious colleagues also contributed the disc’s illuminating program notes brimming with unique information: Jane Clark shares her special perspective on the development of her husband’s affinity for the instrument, while Glen Wilson shares his rationale for the recording’s pitch level (A=415) and temperament (based on Neidhardt 1724), a well-tempered tuning that “reflects Dodgson’s instinctive sense of C major as the center of a natural tonal universe.”

You might wish to order multiple copies of this disc for distribution to friends who “already have everything.”

Reflections of an American Harpsichordist: Unpublished Memoirs, Essays, and Lectures of
Ralph Kirkpatrick

In a second book devoted to archival material written by her uncle, the iconic harpsichordist’s niece Meredith Kirkpatrick extends the scope of Ralph Kirkpatrick’s autobiographical materials included in her 2014 publication Ralph Kirkpatrick: Letters of the American Harpsichordist and Scholar, giving readers the first printings of her uncle’s own texts covering the period from the young artist’s teaching and performing at the Salzburg Mozarteum (beginning in 1933) and continuing with fascinating information about his affiliation to Colonial Williamsburg and his pioneering development of the musical offerings in that reconstructed historical venue. This new book gives us, in his own words, vivid vignettes of Uncle Ralph’s concert career in Europe, Africa, and the United States, his definitive and path-breaking scholarly work as he wrote the biography of Domenico Scarlatti, as well as organizing the catalogue of that composer’s extensive sonata output, which resulted in the “Kirkpatrick numbers”—those identifiers that are still in use.

These piquant autobiographical writings, now held in the Yale University Archives, further document Kirkpatrick’s outstanding Yale teaching career that began in 1940 (the same year composer Paul Hindemith joined the distinguished faculty) and continued until Kirkpatrick’s death in 1984 (although the written materials extend only through the year 1977). 

Meredith Kirkpatrick’s “Part Two: Reflections” presents the reader with soul-baring Kirkpatrick essays: “On Performing,” “On Recording,” “On Chamber Music,” and “On Harpsichords and Their Transport.” Part Three offers essays by RK: “Elliott Carter’s Double Concerto (ca. 1973),” an honest evaluation of this most difficult of contemporary major works for harpsichord (and its partner, the piano); “On Editing Bach’s Goldberg Variations,” “RK and Music at JE [John Edwards College at Yale],” “The Equipment and Education of a Musician (1971),” “Bach and Mozart for Violin and Harpsichord (ca. 1944)” [particularly illuminating because of RK’s long-time duo-partnership experiences with the violinist Alexander Schneider], and “The Early Piano” [as transcribed from a BBC Radio Broadcast of 1973].

Part Four presents texts of lectures given at Yale (1969–71): “Bach and Keyboard Instruments,” “In Search of Scarlatti’s Harpsichord,” “Style in Performance,” “The Performer’s Pilgrimage to the Sources,” and last, but not least, “Private Virtue and Public Vice in the Performance of ‘Early Music’.”

A generous selection of nine private photographs from the editor’s collection shows images I had not encountered previously, while four additional pictures credited to the Yale Music Library Collection, while not new, contribute effectively to a chronological visual portrait of Kirkpatrick, from early youth to elder status.

Appendices include a list of personal names in the text with biographical references, publications by and about Ralph Kirkpatrick, and a complete Kirkpatrick discography. Additionally, there is a comprehensive general index for the volume. 

Published in 2017 by the University of Rochester Press as part of its Eastman Studies in Music series, this 211-page hardbound book, in tandem with Meredith Kirkpatrick’s earlier publication, presents another pathway to understanding the stellar contributions of the most influential American harpsichordist of the mid-20th century after Wanda Landowska. Brava, Meredith Kirkpatrick, for your painstaking archival researching and editing. Here is a book to treasure, and another one to share with fellow lovers of the harpsichord and its history.

One more stocking stuffer

Do not overlook Mark Schweizer’s novella The Christmas Cantata, a gentle and heartwarming St. Germaine Christmas Entertainment, published by SJMPbooks in 2011. If you have not read this one, or, heaven forbid, not yet encountered the inordinately delightful world of Mark’s Liturgical Mysteries, you are missing 12 of the funniest and most enjoyable comedic offerings since Monty Python or Fawlty Towers!

Italian Christmas: 

Fiesole Revisited

Reader Mark Dirksen, business manager for John-Paul Buzard Pipe Organ Builders of Champaign, Illinois, wrote in response to the Christmas excerpt from my Salzburg memoir in our December 2016 Harpsichord News column:

. . . I am writing to acknowledge your lovely reminiscence of a Christmas Day in Fiesole in 1958 because it uncannily mirrors my own.

In 2004–05 my wife and I were fortunate enough to go on a “pilgrimage to an unknown destination.” That academic year took us on many adventures: mission work in South Africa and three glorious months living in Paris to mention just two highlights.

Christmas found us in Florence. It was a lovely December day in mid-Italy, just such a one as you describe, and we motored up to Fiesole, having been told of the glorious views. And lo! There was that same Monastery and the same Chapel, with Christmas Day Mass in progress: the monks, a handful of parishioners, and two very blessed Americans. It was truly a Christmas to remember­—followed by a lovely picnic lunch beside the Arno in a plaza all to ourselves. Thanks for bringing that memory back!

Paul Wolfe Remembered

Born in Waco, Texas, in 1929, Paul Wolfe grew up in the small town of Hico (a unique name that he used as a prime element of his e-mail address). Only 16 when he graduated from high school, Paul continued his education at the University of Texas (Austin), earning his undergraduate degree at 19! A fine pianist, he became interested in the harpsichord and was counseled to study the instrument with either Ralph Kirkpatrick or Wanda Landowska. Paul chose the latter option, and, together with Rafael Puyana and Irma Rogell, had the distinction of being in the final group of students to be taught by the iconic artist.

For an interesting and comprehensive report on Wolfe’s Landowska years and his career as a harpsichordist in Europe and the United States, I refer our readers to the feature article, “Mamusia: Paul Wolfe Remembers Wanda Landowska” (The Diapason, October 2012, pp. 23–25), copiously illustrated with ten rare photographs. Author Craig Smith, currently a freelance writer on music and the arts, was formerly a classical music critic for the Santa Fe New Mexican and a longtime friend of Paul Wolfe. When I invited Paul to reminisce about his Landowska years at our final Southern Methodist University summer harpsichord workshop in New Mexico (Summer 2008), he agreed to speak to the class, but only if Craig Smith were engaged to be the “host questioner” for the interview.

My own fondly remembered friendship with Paul Wolfe came about when Nick Fritsch of Lyrachord Records decided to transfer to compact disc and reissue Paul’s path-breaking harpsichord recordings made in the mid-1950s for Expériences Anonymes. Rightly concerned that many listeners in the 1990s might not understand the colorful sounds and frequent changes of registration available on earlier revival harpsichords, Nick commissioned me to write an essay, “When They Had Pedals,” to be published together with Paul’s original extensive notes on the music. As a consistent attendee of the Santa Fe Opera I travel every summer to that most wonderful arts mecca; so, during one of these annual visits I was able to make an appointment to meet and speak with Paul Wolfe concerning the reissue project.

He liked my essay, I enjoyed his company, and consistently, through the ensuing years, we continued to share quite a number of delightful dinners or lunches at several of Santa Fe’s better restaurants. Later in that tradition it was settled that our favorite spot was SantaCafé, where, on a shaded dining patio, Paul could order his favorite lunch—an all-beef frankfurter on a bun, with sauerkraut slaw, jalapeño mustard, and rosemary potato chips, Santa Fe’s take on New York-style cuisine.

Paul’s association with and eventual marriage to Brigitta Lieberson (also known as Vera Zorina) brought him into a highly artistic family that included the composer Peter Lieberson and his wife, the irreplaceable mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, both of whom thus became Paul’s stepchildren. Mental vignettes of his love for two pet dachshunds and his racy sports car driving at “Presto” speed, my memories of Paul are those of a vibrant and charming human being who was blessed with a fine musical talent as well as a quiet gift for warm friendship. No longer playing the harpsichord, Paul turned to writing as an artistic outlet. The resulting novel Choices (2006), a racy story of intrigue at a fictitious Italian music festival (cleverly dubbed Lospello by the crafty author), is a good read for those not offended by adult situations and language.

And now his hands and voice are stilled: Paul passed away on Christmas Day 2016, the last of Landowska’s American students. The two Lyrachord double-disc albums, When They Had Pedals, issued in 1998, comprise works by Frescobaldi and the English virginalists (LEMS-8033), played on Wolfe’s 1907 Pleyel instrument, and
G. F. Handel’s Suites 3, 8, 11, 13, 14, and 15 (LEMS-8034), performed on the well-loved Rutkowski harpsichord Wolfe purchased in 1958.

Masterful Froberger by Glen Wilson

Referencing admired compact discs brings us to 23 Suites for Harpsichord plus Tombeau and Lamentation by the 17th-century composer Johann Jacob Froberger, recorded by harpsichordist Glen Wilson. American-born, a Juilliard graduate who studied with Albert Fuller, then a favored pupil of Gustav Leonhardt (1971–75), Glen Wilson has pursued his stellar career in Holland and Germany. The music heard on this two-disc album from Naxos provides more than two hours of evocative and individual harpsichord playing. I recommend this set highly and suggest that referencing Wilson’s extensive 15-page online essay (in which he sets forth his well-researched ideas that form the bases for the performances on Naxos 8.573493-94) will provide all readers a fascinating study of both composer and player.

An Internet search for “Glen Wilson Harpsichordist” will lead directly to his website: www.glenwilson.eu/. After chuckling at the home page’s whimsical drawing “Flying Harpsichord” by Emma Wilson, age 7 (1997), click on Articles and Sound Clips to access Article 6 (the Naxos-connected one). Also of immense interest and import is Article 1, “The Other Mr. Couperin,” in which Wilson, a deft and determined musicological sleuth, presents the probable answer to a dichotomy that has puzzled me for a number of years: why is Louis Couperin’s harpsichord music so much more polished and interesting than his compositions for the organ? Read Wilson’s quite remarkable online report and consider his well-reasoned conclusion!

A Recital Program by J. William Greene

Finally, in a fortuitous e-mail, I received a program recently played at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Lynchburg, Virginia, by J. William Greene. Readers of this column may remember encountering Greene’s winsome compositions for organ or harpsichord, especially his Christmas Ayres and Dances (see Harpsichord News, June 2015, p. 11).

In Part One of his recital the artist played a Peter Fisk single-manual harpsichord (2011), tuned in meantone. Works performed were by Frescobaldi, Dirck Janszoon Sweelinck (son of the better-known Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck), Delphin Strungk, Dieterich Buxtehude, and (to continue our previous theme) the Suite XXVII (27) by J. J. Froberger, a formerly incomplete set of pieces now fleshed out to suite-length, thanks to several recent discoveries of additional source material. This suite begins with the short, but extremely pictorial Allemande, “written to document a marine tragedy that took place on the Rhine [River].” (A facsimile of the original manuscript is to be found in the Froberger/Wilson article cited above.)

For Part Two of this imaginative program, Dr. Greene offered four Couperin preludes from L’art de toucher le clavecin (recently the focus of Harpsichord News), and the artist confided that he added Prelude Four as an encore! The remaining selections were J. S. Bach’s Ouverture, BWV 820, Carlo Antonio Campioni’s Sonata II in E Major, and Fandango by Padre Antonio Soler. The harpsichord was a Frank Hubbard French 18th-century double-manual instrument from 1979, tuned in a well-temperament.

I am certain that a “Zugabe” [Encore] was well earned, and could only wish that I had been present to hear this decidedly unusual harpsichord repertory. Bravo!

A posthumous gift from Gustav Leonardt

It is now six years since Gustav Leonhardt departed this mortal coil on January 16, 2012, but his idiomatic arrangements of J. S. Bach’s solo violin and cello suites, partitas, and sonatas have recently been published by Bärenreiter-Verlag. This new volume presents an unexpected New Year’s gift to those of us who had feared that the master harpsichordist’s transcriptions of some of the composer’s most beloved music might have been burned along with the bulk of his personal correspondence.

Issued in the familiar-looking blue Bach Edition as Suites, Partitas, Sonatas Transcribed for Harpsichord (BA 11820, ˇ39.95) the idiomatic arrangements have been prepared for publication by Leonhardt’s friend and student Sieba Henstra, who has contributed a comprehensive editorial commentary. Skip Sempé’s eloquent preface quotes Bach contemporaries Jacob Adlung and Johann Friedrich Agricola, both of whom wrote about Bach’s own keyboard performances of these works that were originally written for bowed string instruments. Sempé concludes by quoting Leonhardt’s own words from the Dutchman’s notes to a 1976 recording: “I think that Bach would have forgiven me for the fact that I have set myself to making arrangements of his works; whether or not he would have forgiven the way I have done it, remains, of course, a moot point.”

The following 135 pages of music comprise the violin sonatas in D minor, transposed from the original G minor, BWV 1001; in G major, from C major, BWV 1005; three Partitas, in E minor, from the original B minor, BWV 1002; G minor, from D, BWV 1004; and A major, from E, BWV 1006. The cello suites in E-flat, BWV 1010, C minor, BWV 1011, and D major, BWV 1012, are transcribed without a change of key; and two individual movements, an Allemande in A minor, from Bach’s Partita for Flute, BWV 1013, and “Sarabande in C Minor” from his Suite for Lute, BWV 997, are likewise both transcribed in their original keys.

It has been an unmitigated pleasure to play through these magnificent pieces and a special joy to have another musical connection to a great mentor and friend­—the opportunity to play Leonhardt’s harpsichord-friendly version of the extensive D-Minor Ciaccona for Solo Violin (which sounds magnificent in its higher G minor key) and to compare it with the thicker, more pianistic arrangement by John Challis (his 1941 manuscript found at the Library of Congress, still unpublished). I recommend this new volume to all harpsichordists who love Bach’s music, and I wish for each player the unique joy of experiencing yet another addition to our ever-expanding keyboard repertoire.

G. L. dubs me his “Doctor-Father”

An excerpt from a letter received from Professor Leonhardt, dated Amsterdam, June 3, 2003:

Dear Larry,

. . . Fond memories bring me back to Dallas’ SMU [Southern Methodist University]. Do you know that you started my series [of honorary degrees]? Followers were Amsterdam, Harvard, Metz and Padova . . .

With all best wishes,

Yours ever,

Utti L.

A lengthy backstory is involved, the culmination of many years of varied experiences with Leonhardt.  

I first visited Haarlem, the Netherlands, during the summer of 1958 when fellow Oberlin organ major Max Yount and I drove through much of northern Europe following our junior year at the Salzburg Mozarteum. We spent several days in the charming Dutch town, attending events sponsored by its annual Summer Academy. Four years later, after completing doctoral study at the Eastman School in Rochester, New York, I was hired for my first academic position at St. Paul’s College, Lawrenceville, Virginia, a small school where I taught for two years as a replacement music professor while the incumbent was pursuing his doctoral studies. Following that first year of teaching I returned to Europe during the summer break to attend the first of my two Haarlem summer academies. The year was 1964, and my purpose was to join the three-week class of intensive harpsichord studies with Professor Gustav Leonhardt.

Three years later I returned to Haarlem, full of ideas and solutions that had been developing since that first encounter with Leonhardt’s teaching. By this time I was fully convinced that his examples of number symbolism and its hidden truths in many Bach works were indeed correct as well as fascinating. We had a very full repertoire assignment for that summer of 1967, and many of the participants in Leonhardt’s classes were too reticent to volunteer as players. I was not afraid to play for him, so I was invited to do so quite frequently. And, since I was staying with a friend in Amsterdam this time around, it happened that I usually arrived at the train station about the same time as my professor. We would have coffee together as we made the short trip to Haarlem, and I came to know Leonhardt as a delightful travel companion, as well as an inspiring teacher.

After my 1970 move to teach in Dallas there were quite a few opportunities to hear Leonhardt during his various concert trips to the United States. As a member of SMU’s faculty senate for 12 years, eventually I was named chair of the Honorary Degrees Committee. Perusing a list of past recipients I noted that artists, musicians, and women seemed to be few and far between in the honors lists, so I proposed three names to the senate: Georgia O’Keeffe, Leonard Bernstein, and Gustav Leonhardt. My faculty colleagues were enthusiastic about all three of them. 

The university president, however, not so much. There was a rule that each honors recipient had to appear in person to receive the degree. Georgia O’Keeffe let it be known that she did not need the honor, but would be happy to accept it if it were bestowed in a balloon over Albuquerque. I suggested that a video could be made of such an event, one that would surely arouse far-reaching interest throughout the entire United States. The president nearly had apoplexy, and that idea was scuttled at once. Leonard Bernstein was already scheduled to be in Dallas to conduct a benefit concert in SMU’s McFarlin Auditorium on the next day following commencement. In this instance I suggested that his degree ceremony be postponed until that evening, when it would make sense to bestow Lennie’s honor during the concert’s intermission. Again, it was too radical an idea, and Bernstein’s honorary degree also was denied.

Leonhardt already had concert commitments on the date of the ceremonies for 1982, but he communicated to SMU’s administrators that he would be delighted to arrange his schedule to accept his first doctorate the following year. Thus it was that on May 21, 1983, I had the proud honor of reading Gustav Leonhardt’s doctoral citation, ending with the time-honored statement, “In recognition of his consummate artistry and service to the world of music, Southern Methodist University is proud to confer upon Gustav Leonhardt the degree Doctor of Music, honoris causa.” 

Shortly thereafter he suggested that, from henceforth, it need not be “Dr. Leonhardt” or “Dr. Palmer,” but, in friendship, the time had come for us to use first names, even the diminutive “Utti” that his close friends were invited to call him.

As part of Utti’s commencement weekend in Dallas he gave a solo recital (which included his transcription of the D-Minor Violin Partita), conducted a harpsichord masterclass for our students, and served as the much-appreciated speaker for the evening ceremony during which each School of the Arts student walked across the stage to receive the diploma signifying a degree that had been granted that morning at the all-university ceremony. Utti had found a 17th-century English poem about a hard-drinking British university student, a word picture that soon had his audience convulsed in paroxysms of laughter. We had many post-ceremony requests for that text, but we never procured a copy of it. I still wonder if, perhaps, Utti, who had a very droll sense of humor, might not have composed the poem himself?

At any rate, I found it amusing, as did he, that a student should become the “Doctor-Father” for his teacher, the whole concept of which has to do with the thesis advisor for the philosophy doctorate in German academia. It has occurred to me that, in writing this long-overdue memoir, my delight at the publication of Leonhardt’s lovely Bach transcriptions may be the final award for such a brilliant “thesis” and should require the time-honored repetition of the words, “Welcome to the company of scholars.” But of course, he had been in that company already for a very, very long time.

2017 Harpsichord News columns: a guide

January: According to Janus: columns published in 2016; the East Texas Pipe Organ Festival 2016: two vignettes; possible future topics.

February: The A-Team: Antoinette Vischer and her commissions of contemporary harpsichord music.

March: Lessons from (François) Couperin: hints for harpsichord pedagogy using his L’art de toucher le Claveçin.

April: Where next? More pedagogical repertory suggestions.

May: An Italian Christmas; Paul Wolfe; Glen Wilson’s Froberger CD.

June: Harpsichord maker Richard Kingston: a tribute for his 70th birthday.

July: Celebrating Scott Ross; a performance practice letter from Beverly Scheibert, Early Keyboard Journal #30; remembering Isolde Ahlgrimm.

August: Christmas in August: reviews of J. William Greene’s Christmas Ayres and Dances, Book 2, a new CD of Stephen Dodgson’s Inventions for Harpsichord, and Meredith Kirkpatrick’s book, Reflections of an American Harpsichordist, essays by her uncle, Ralph Kirkpatrick.

September: Recital programming: sample program notes by LP from a harpsichord recital at the East Texas Pipe Organ Festival, 2012.

October: From the Harpsichord Editor’s mailbox: four new keyboard scores by Carson Cooman; John Turner’s discovery of a lost cantata (with harpsichord) by British composer Alan Rawsthorne; and Mark Schweizer’s 14th Liturgical Mystery.

November: From A to Z: Aliénor retrospective in May 2018 and SMU’s Meadows Museum Zurbarân Exhibition celebrated musically at the 1762 Caetano Oldovini organ.

December: Remembering Zuzana Ru˚žicˇková by Robert Tifft.

Buried Treasures: 

The Harpsichord Pages 

in Retrospect (2006–15)

Once upon a time (well, twice actually, in The Diapason issues of January 1974 and February 1979), we offered cumulative indices of harpsichord-related matters in the journal, from Philip Treggor’s first harpsichord column (October 1967), through December 1978. Treggor continued his responsibility for harpsichord news until December 1968. Following his resignation, harpsichord submissions were managed by the magazine’s Chicago staff until September 1969, at which point I took over at the invitation of Editor Frank Cunkle.

As it has been 36 years since we have offered a third cumulative listing of harpsichord-centered writings, it may be time to offer this “backward” look, covering the past ten years. I cannot begin to count the number of instances in which the previous retrospectives have been of use to me: so much so that I keep these indices filed next to my bound copies of the magazine. If this present list proves useful to you, please let me know. I could then plan to complete indexing the years 1979 through 2005. Our January issue includes the journal’s composite index of the previous year; this would be a logical target date for continuing such offerings.

In the following citations, the title or subject appears first, followed by the month and year of publication, page number(s) in parentheses, and author. My contributions are indicated by the letters LP; other, less-frequent contributors, by their full names. I have added a few articles not specifically published under the Harpsichord News rubric. Categories sometimes overlap, particularly those of Personalities
and Obituaries.

Instruments and Builders

William Dowd: An Appreciation, Jan 09 (22), LP; The Earliest Surviving English Spinet by Charles Haward [c.1668], July 09 (12, 14), Charles West Wilson; Harpsichord News: ARTEK Goes German, July 15 (13), LP; Autobiography of a Clavichord (Dolmetsch-Chickering 2006), Dec 15 (12–13), LP.

Repertoire and 

Performance Practice

Mozart and the Harpsichord: An Alternate Ending for Fantasia in D minor, K. 397, Nov 06 (20), LP; “Entartete” Music: Hugo Distler and the Harpsichord, Aug 08 (22–23), LP; Harpsichord News: Chris DeBlasio Dances, Soler, Scarlatti, Lully, the Borrel Manuscript, May 09 (14), LP; Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s English Suite at 100, Dec 09 (36–37), LP; The Chopin Bicentennial at the Harpsichord, Feb 10 (23), LP; Addenda to Chopin, Aug 10 (11), LP; A Harpsichord Piece by Henri Mulet, Aug 10 (11), LP; Mulet Petit Lied—a complete facsimile, Jan 11 (12), LP; Harpsichord Works of Asiko Hirabayashi, Nov 10 (12–13), LP; J. S. Bach’s English and French Suites with emphasis on the Courante, May 11 (24–25), Renate McLaughlin; Gathering Peascods for the Old Gray Mare: Some Unusual Harpsichord Music Before Aliénor, Dec 12 (27–29), LP; Soler’s Fandango: new edition from Ut Orpheus and recording by Diego Ares, Dec 13 (12), LP; Multi-Media Mozart—Words, Notes, and Sounds [Harpsichord News], Feb 14 (12–13), LP; Christmas Music for Harpsichord, Oct 14 (12), LP; Going [J. William] Greene—Music for Harpsichord, June 15 (11), LP; Pedaling the French: A Tour de France of Revival Harpsichordists 1888–1939, Aug 15 (10–11), LP; Harpsichord Plus: The Accompanied Harpsichord Music of Jacques Duphly, Nov 15 (10), LP. 

Personalities in the Harpsichord World

Helmut Walcha, Oct 07 (28–29), Nov 07 (21–23), Dec 07 (21–23), Paul Jacobs; Oscar Peterson, Feb 08 (12), LP; Gustav Leonhardt (anecdote, footnote 3 in AGO National Convention Review), Nov 08 (27), LP; Pavana Lachrimae: A California Tribute to Gustav Leonhardt, Aug 12 (18), Lee Lovallo; Crazy about Organs: Leonhardt interview from 2000, Nov 12 (20–22), Jan-Piet Knijff; Gustav Leonhardt—a Letter to the Editor from Hellmuth Wolff, Jan 13 (3); Mamusia: Paul Wolfe Remembers Wanda Landowska, Oct 12 (23–25), Craig Smith; Janos Sebestyen, May 12 (12–13), Robert Tifft; Harpsichord in the News: Mahan Esfahani, Jory Vinikour, Frances Bedford, and a 1615 quotation from Trabaci about the status of the instrument, July 12 (10, 12), LP; Remembering Irma Rogell (and a review of Martin Elste’s book Die Dame mit dem Cembalo), April 13 (11–12), LP; A Triptych for Rafael [Puyana], May 13 (11–12), Betina M. Santos, Jane Clark, and LP; Virginia Pleasants Turns 100, Feb 12 (11); Harpsichord Playing in America after Landowska, June 11 (19–21), LP; Ralph Kirkpatrick Centennial, June 11 (13–14), Gavin Black; Remembering Wm. Neil Roberts, Sept 11 (12–14), LP; Joseph Stephens—In Memoriam, Sept 14 (15), LP; Remembering Hilda Jonas, Dec 14 (11), Glendon Frank and LP; Remembering George Lucktenberg, Feb 15 (11), LP; Remembering Richard Rephann, Mar 15 (25), Allison Alcorn.

Pedagogy and Technique

Dear Harpsichordists: Why Don’t We Play from Memory?, Sept 11 (24–25), Paul Cienniwa; Continuo (On Teaching), Nov 11 (15–17), Dec 11 (11–13), Jan 12 (16–17); Gavin Black; Recital Programing, Aug 12 (13–14), Gavin Black.

Reports on Harpsichord Events

Southeastern Historical Keyboard Society 2006 Meeting in Rome, Georgia, June 06 (12), LP; Westfield Center 2006 Conference, Victoria, British Columbia (includes mentions of Colin Tilney and Edoardo Bellotti), Dec 06 (29), Herbert Huestis; Boston Early Music Festival 2007, Sept 07 (22–23), LP; East Texas Pipe Organ Festival 2012: A Harpsichordist in Aeolian-Skinner Land, Feb 13 (20), LP; Continuo: the Art of Creative Collaboration—Westfield Center 2013 Conference at Pacific Lutheran University, 2013, July 13 (20–21), Andrew Willis; Historic Keyboard Society of North America 2013 meeting in Williamsburg, VA, April 14 (10–11), LP; HKSNA International Conference in Montréal and Aliénor Competition, Aug 15 (10–11), LP; Broadening a Harpsichordist’s Horizons: Remembering 2014 ETPOF, Sept 15 (11), LP. 

Reviews of Books, 

Music, and Recordings

A Guide to Musical Temperament (Thomas Donahue), reviewed by G. N. Bullat, June 06 (16); Guilty Pleasures: Mark Schweizer’s The Soprano Wore Falsettos, Choices (a novel) by Paul Wolfe, CD of Landowska reissues, DVD: Landowska—Uncommon Visionary [Harpsichord News] Mar 07 (10), LP; Peter Watchorn Plays Bach’s WTC I [Harpsichord News] Aug 07 (12–13), LP; Fernando Valenti’s Scarlatti recordings, Feb 08 (12, 14), LP; Peter Watchorn’s Isolde Ahlgrimm, Vienna, and the Early Music Revival and a published score for Richard Strauss’ Capriccio Suite, June 08 (12), LP; The Best Medicine—a review of Schweizer’s The Diva Wore Diamonds, Aug 09 (10), LP; New Harpsichord Music, Oct 09 (18–19), John Collins; a new compact disc set of Bach’s Six Partitas, and the publication of A Medici Harpsichord Book from Ut Orpheus, April 12 (12), LP; Joys of Re-Reading: Blue Harpsichord, Early Music mystery series by James Gollin, and more, Aug 14 (11), LP; Harpsichord News: Words and Music—Ralph Kirkpatrick Letters and Frank Ferko Triptych, April 15 (12), LP. 

Obituaries

Daniel Pinkham (d. 2006), Feb 07 (8); A Pinkham Memoir, Mar 07 (20), James McCray; Albert Fuller (d. 2007), Dec 07 (10); Remembering Albert Fuller—Trombones in Dido and Aeneas?, Feb 08 (14), LP; Fenner Douglass (d. 2008), June 08 (8); Thomas Dunn (d. 2008), Mar 09 (10); Virginia Pleasants (d. 2011), Feb 12 (11); Gustav Leonhardt (d. 2012), March 12 (10); Christopher Hogwood (d. 2014), Nov 14 (10); Bruce Prince-Joseph (d. 2015), July 15 (10); Paul Jordan (d. 2015), May 15 (18–19); Roger Goodman (d. 2015), Sept 15 (10); Alan Curtis (d. 2015), Oct 15 (10).

Esoteric Ephemera

Nineteenth-century harpsichord citings: Bizet and a Chopin student [Harpsichord News], Feb 08 (12), information from John Carroll Collins reported by LP; Historic 20th-Century Harpsichordists in Hungary, Italy, and the Czech Republic [Harpsichord News], Feb 08 (12), Robert Tifft; Bytes from the Electronic Mailbag: Fandango, Misspellings of the Word Harpsichord, April 14 (10–11), LP; November Musings: Blessed Cecilia (In Honor of Isolde Ahlgrimm’s 100th Birthday), Nov 14 (12), LP; A mystery, a cautionary tale: Mark Schweizer’s The Maestro Wore Mohair and Simon Menges’ misadventure [Harpsichord News], Oct 15 (12), LP.

And Something New: Mysteries
with Musical References

The American expatriate author Donna Leon (born in New Jersey in 1942) has published 24 books in her series starring Commissario Guido Brunetti of the Venetian constabulary. Number one, Death at La Fenice (1992) introduces the soprano Flavia Petrelli who is singing Violetta in Verdi’s La Traviata at the venerable opera house. German maestro Helmut Wellauer dies before the final act of the opera, and Brunetti finds that he has a complicated bit of detecting to do before solving this clever crime.

For Acqua Alta, book five in the series, Leon brings back this soprano, a “favorite character because of her voice.” By the novel’s end Flavia is off to sing her first Handel opera, a plot twist chosen so that, should Petrelli return in future books, Leon would be able to write about her best-loved music. In real life the author became closely associated with American conductor Alan Curtis; together they created an opera company, Il Complesso Barocco, to perform rare works by Handel and other baroque composers. References to harpsichord are found on pages 201–2 of Acqua Alta, and again on page 229 when Flavia’s companion Brett chooses Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony for listening rather than harpsichord music, the “plunky sound of which would snap her nerves.”

Volume 24 of the Brunetti stories arrived in 2015: Falling in Love is set in La Fenice again, this time with Petrelli starring as Puccini’s Tosca. Music figures prominently, the plot is gripping, and I particularly enjoyed a comment on page 154, where Brunetti is reminded of a CD shop owner who opined that “the weirdest customers were people who liked organ music. ‘Most of them shop at night,’ his friend said. ‘I think it’s the only time some of them ever leave their houses.’”

Further “baroquery” is to be found in Leon’s standalone novel The Jewels of Paradise (2012) which features a musicologist and a plot driven by the legacy of Italian composer Agostino Steffani (1654–1728). Highly recommended for all fans of mystery novels and baroque music. Finally, dear readers, should you come across references to the harpsichord, please send me the citations! ν

Comments are always welcome. Please submit them to [email protected] or by post to Dr. Larry Palmer, 10125 Cromwell Drive, Dallas, Texas 75229.

Lessons from Couperin

It was not until my first academic sabbatical semester in the late 1970s that I took the time to learn all eight of the preludes published in the remarkable method, L’Art de toucher le Clavecin (1716–1717) by François Couperin “le Grand,” organist, harpsichordist, and Ordinaire de la Musique at the Court of France’s Louis XIV. My scholastic harpsichord study had not been lengthy: a year of intense lessons with Isolde Ahlgrimm (with as much practice as possible) at the Salzburg Mozarteum (1958–59) followed by two of the revelatory three-week summer courses with Gustav Leonhardt in Haarlem (1964 and 1967) comprised the sum total of formal guidance at the instrument.

Ahlgrimm was an inspiring mentor: fluent in many languages, at the time learning baroque dance from Vienna State Opera ballerina Rikki Raab, and fresh from her path-breaking Bach cycle for Philips, the Dutch recording company. My first repertoire assignments from her included a few pieces by the English Virginalists, several short selections by the Austrian composer Paul Hofhaymer (rushed into the schedule when I was tagged on extremely short notice to fill in as harpsichordist for a 500th anniversary celebration in Radstadt, the composer’s birthplace), and signature pieces by Couperin (Les Baricades mistérieuses and B-minor Passacaille), plus, for the year’s finale concert, Bach’s A-minor English Suite. The Mozarteum’s harpsichord was a tank-like Maendler-Schramm double, joined at the end of the year by a new Sperrhake, its size, as Frau Ahlgrimm noted, larger than many of the rooms in which she had slept!¹

Leonhardt’s seminars covered more repertoire: multiple suites by Louis Couperin and Johann Jakob Froberger, plus the big Bach masterpieces, as well as other German and Dutch pieces, all offered with a great deal of mind-changing ideas about number symbolism, rare manuscript variants, and the valuable lessons gained from his Martin Skowroneck two-manual harpsichord, my first encounter with an historic copy instrument, an experience that determined my future preferences and resulted in my first William Dowd instrument, completed in December 1968.

By the time of that first sabbatical leave I had moved to Dallas to take over the harpsichord program begun by James Tallis (who, sadly, died in 1969 at the beginning of his second year on the Southern Methodist University faculty). Our harpsichord class had blossomed: students were legion; majors and minors filled my load, which also included teaching ten organ majors. Organist colleague Robert Anderson had a full studio of twenty major students. As I look back at those years of vibrant organ and harpsichord enrollments I reflect on the irony of it all: while trying to hone my teaching skills I was besieged with candidates, but by the time I was experienced and, hopefully, had something valuable to teach them, the number of students in these majors had begun its national downward trajectory.

During the years when organists made up the majority of harpsichord students (two semesters of harpsichord study were required for the master’s degree in organ) one could expect some level of knowledge about Baroque performance practice, legato playing, and other organistic skills. With the decline in number of majors, but aided by the welcome encouragement of my colleague, superb pianist Joaquin Achúcarro (who encouraged his brilliant piano students to study harpsichord and/or organ, thus following the Maxims of the composer Robert Schumann), one was required to introduce most basic Baroque stylistic concepts and techniques, and here we arrive at the discussion of these remarkable Couperin examples.

I adopted the eight preludes as the required foundation for harpsichord study. Every subsequent harpsichord student began with Prelude One (C major). Many of the advanced players found it extremely difficult to make music of something they regarded as a simple exercise. Couperin’s fingerings, promoting his new-found style of finger substitution as a basis for producing a fine legato, are relevant today, although getting a contemporary player to forego the constant use of a pivotal thumb is a difficult task for both student and teacher. (I do not forbid thumb use, but make its use less “ordinary.”) 

Prelude Two (D minor) seems light years advanced in difficulty. (I continually wonder how Couperin’s students fared? Probably they had a better teacher!). So, instead of assigning it next, I move to Prelude Four (F major), which seems a more logical successor to Prelude One. (It even begins with the same mordent and follows that with a similar bass note one octave lower). This piece, however, adds a wonderful introduction to the sliding of the second finger from A-flat to A-natural (as in the penultimate measure’s bass line).

I then move back to the Third Prelude (G minor), which provides a lesson in listening. There is one totally wrong note in the original engraving of this piece, a note not corrected in the 1717 second printing. It is the unique rare example in which one can prove that the note is incorrect! (I had, in my devotion to the text, played it wrong for quite a long time before I was led to the truth at a Bernard Lagacé masterclass.) The proof that the bass B-flat on beat four of measure 16 should be C, a whole step higher, is shown by the guide note in the original print which clearly indicates a C. Perhaps this is the reason that the composer and engraver did not bother to change it in the subsequent edition? Engraving another whole copper plate, after all, would have been extremely tedious and expensive.

But what a lesson this makes: nearly all of us are far too bound by the printed notes in a score. It is rare, in my experience, that any piece of music is totally accurate. Printing errors, human errors—they do exist. So, by using this splendid example during lessons, I assign the piece and wait to hear what will ensue. Will the student hear an ugly sound on that beat, note the sequence deviation in the bass pattern, and at least question it? Or not?

Usually “or not” wins! And what a teaching moment that becomes, when I can simply say, “Use your ears! If it sounds wrong, it probably IS wrong, especially for music of this tonal style!” Having the original printed error to buttress the argument (and sometimes it did turn into an argument: “How could you be sure?” “Change a note in the score? How awful,” et cetera)—that was both valuable and necessary. Then we point out the offending measure and bless the fact that the incorrect note came at the change of staves (quite possibly because of this change, in fact). Lesson learned: listen and be vigilant, even when playing from Ur- or Ur-Urtexts!

Finally, in the ordering of the first half of these eight pieces, the Second Prelude in D minor provides a triumphant conclusion and a well-earned sense of achievement when its technical challenges are mastered.

Usually from that point on I leave it up to the student to select an order for the “final four” pieces, having often wondered why Couperin put them in his chosen printed sequence? The pieces do increase in difficulty, but my reaction to the order of the final two usually leads me to play Number Eight (E minor) before Number Seven (a stately French Ouverture Prelude in B-flat Major), especially if I am programming all of the pieces and interspersing them with quotations from the lively dialogues the composer has provided in his Observations. Of these bon-mots my absolute favorite is typical: “A reflection: Men who wish to attain a certain degree of perfection at the harpsichord should never do any rough work with their hands. Women’s hands, on the contrary, are generally better for harpsichord playing . . . .”

What a wonderful response should your significant other try to shame you into doing yard work or other (non-practicing) manual labor!

About editions: I prefer the Alfred Masterwork Edition, edited by Margery Halford. It provides the full text in French with an English translation in a printing that has no obvious errors (save for Couperin’s, as noted above), and one that is refreshingly both “Made in America” and inexpensive. Performance suggestions, printed in light gray, may be helpful for some ornaments, but Mrs. Halford and I have had a long-term disagreement about the performance of the so called “passing appoggiatura”—basically a passing note, especially in the figure of the descending third. The editor once admitted that she likes my interpretation of these petite notes as unaccented passing tones, but asserted that there was no documentary evidence for performing them in that manner (i.e., before the beat, not on it).

About the time that I was learning these pieces, that is, the late 1970s, a number of players, independently, began treating these notes as passing tones. Among them were Leonhardt (several years after the classes with him) and other luminaries; all of us just happened to start doing it independently. I am pleased to share with our readers that the world did not come to an end (at that juncture), and that Robert Donington, in the second revised edition of his The Interpretation of Early Music (W. W. Norton, 1992) clarified the “passing-ness” of those little notes with his Postscript to Chapter 18 (page 228), as well as his citing of Leopold Mozart and a French writer, Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Dictionaire de musique, Paris, 1768), who clinches the argument with his native authority (page 227). 

Other than that, and not warning of the wrong note in one of her many footnotes, the Halford edition is a fine one. A caution: one to avoid is the 1930s German Breitkopf edition of L’Art (edited by Anna Linde), in which many of the fast note groupings have been changed to reflect correct mathematically barred patterns, but thereby lose their graphic, semi-improvisatory visual invitations to “play fast, and fit them in as you are able.” If you want a true 18th-century feeling, choose one of several facsimile editions, but only if you wish to deal with soprano and alto C-clefs. Both Broude Brothers and Fuzeau have published reprints of the original 18th-century copper engravings.

I continue to love Couperin’s exceptional contributions to harpsichord pedagogy and frequently play them as the warm-up musical pieces they were intended to be. In retirement from academe, I continue to instruct several mature students; even those who are currently teaching music themselves are required to traverse François-le-Grand’s stylistic and basic introduction to their new and unfamiliar instrument. Only after they have learned to control these beautiful sounds are they permitted to proceed on to other Baroque and subsequent pieces that drew them to the harpsichord in the first place.

In Memoriam: Paul Wolfe 

(1929–2016)

The last of Wanda Landowska’s American students passed away in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on Christmas Day. I am gathering material for a more detailed memoir of this gentle man and fine musician. If any reader has information, vignettes, or pictures of Paul, I would appreciate receiving your contributions for a memorial tribute to be published next month.

Notes

1. For more information on Ahlgrimm’s teaching, see Kim Kasling: “Harpsichord Lessons for the Beginner,” The Diapason, March 1977 (also reprinted in Peter
Watchorn’s fine book, Isolde Ahlgrimm, Vienna and the Early Music Revival, Ashgate Publishing, Burlington, Vermont, 2007).

From the Harpsichord Editor’s mailbox

Four recent harpsichord scores 

Carson Cooman (born 1982) is a prolific composer who writes accessible music. He serves currently as Research Associate in Music and Composer-in-Residence at Harvard University’s Memorial Church. A surprise packet containing four elegantly printed scores by Cooman arrived in my mailbox recently. All are “for keyboard” (in the composer’s notes, appropriate instruments are listed as pipe organ, harpsichord, clavichord, lautenwerk, harmonium, reed organ, piano, or electronic keyboard). All are published by Zimbel Press (www.zimbel.com) and distributed exclusively by Subito Music Corporation (www.subitomusic.com).

All four are well-suited to the harpsichord: textures are consistently spare (ranging from two to four voices), and Cooman indicates that long-held notes should be restruck ad libitum on instruments that have a faster sound decay.

Of the four pieces my personal favorites are Three Renaissance Dances, op. 1079, and Prelude, Fughetta, and Allegro, op. 1064, both composed in 2014. The Dances—Pavane (Adagio), Tordion (Vivace), and Allemande (Andante espressivo)­—are faithful to the rhythms and chords expected in the 17th and 18th centuries, and the order of the movements guarantees both variety and interest. Comprising only five pages of music, these dances will not be boring to an audience.

Cooman’s Prelude, Fughetta, and Allegro is “loosely inspired by Johann Sebastian Bach’s Prelude, Fugue and Allegro, BWV 998—a late composition seemingly intended for harpsichord, lute, or most especially, the lautenwerk [a ‘lute harpsichord’]—apparently a personal favorite instrument of Bach,” to quote the composer’s introductory notes. Dedicated to the instrument maker Steven Sørli, these three movements in E-flat major, C minor, and E-flat major are beautifully crafted and could make an interesting pairing with Bach’s work. Use of the harpsichord’s buff stop would suggest the sound of the gut-strung “lute-harpsichord.” Cooman also mentions that “equal temperament is neither expected nor required” for this music.

The two additional scores in the packet are Ricercari, op. 1014 (2013), “inspired by the keyboard music of the early and mid-17th century.” The work consists of one page (3-voice texture) dedicated to Kimberly Marshall, two pages (2 voices) for James Woodman, and a final two pages (4 voices) for Peter Sykes.

Number four, Toccata sequenziale sopra “ut re mi fa,” op. 1063, dedicated to the New England instrument maker Allan Winkler, is a contemporary work inspired by the early Italian keyboard toccatas of Frescobaldi and his followers. In the style of the 17th century, this six-page piece is meant to be played freely, and it comprises both the longest and most harmonically adventurous of these Cooman compositions.

A musicological detective story

Knowing my deep appreciation for well-plotted mystery stories, dear colleague and longtime friend harpsichordist Jane Clark sent me the journal of The British Music Society (aptly named British Music, Volume 38, 2016, #2) in which John Turner’s article “Thank you, Norman Dello Joio! A Voyage of Discovery” appeared in print (pages 24–32). Turner traces the twists and turns that led to his finding of a major musical score by Alan Rawsthorne (1905–1971). The composer’s manuscript was destroyed together with many other pieces and musical instruments during the November 1940 Luftwaffe bombing of his lodgings in Bristol. Unexpectedly, a copy of Rawsthorne’s Chamber Cantata for Voice, Strings, and Harpsichord (1937) was found among the papers of Southern California composer Halsey Stevens (1908–1989), whose legacy is now archived at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

The link between the UK and the United States must have been the harpsichordist Alice Ehlers (1887–1981) who played the keyboard part at the premiere of the Chamber Cantata in 1937. Ehlers, an early student of Wanda Landowska, immigrated to the United States in 1938, where she was, for many years, a fellow faculty member together with Stevens at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. Turner surmises that it must have been she who brought her copy of the cantata score to the United States, where, somehow, it became part of the Stevens Collection. (My quick look at Frances Bedford’s Harpsichord and Clavichord Music of the 20th Century provided the information that Stevens composed a two-minute solo harpsichord work for Ehlers—La quarte-vingtaine—in 1967, the year of her 80th birthday!)

There is much more concerning this exciting rediscovery of a “lost” Raws-thorne composition as well as a reference to Walter Leigh’s delightful Concertino for Harpsichord and Strings, which Turner posits may well have been familiar to the cantata’s composer. The connection to American composer Norman Dello Joio is also explained in his article, together with a reference to this American composer’s 1980 solo harpsichord work Salute to Scarlatti and the welcome news that “the first modern performance of the rediscovered Rawsthorne work took place on October 29, 2016, at the Royal Northern College of Music, with Harvey Davis at the harpsichord.”

Mark Schweizer’s 14th
liturgical mystery

It was The Diapason’s editor Jerome Butera who sent me a review copy of Mark Schweizer’s first liturgical mystery, The Alto Wore Tweed. It was, I suppose, not surprising since I had written several columns concerning “Murder at the Harpsichord” (citing mystery novels with a harpsichord connection, not referring to recitals by students or colleagues). My Schweizer review was published in the July 2003 issue of our favorite magazine (on pages 8 and 10), from which I quote:

Here is the answer to all your gift needs: buy a copy of this slim paperback for every person on your Christmas list. Any 144-page book that manages to include references to Charles Wood, Charpentier, Mendelssohn, Hugo Distler, bagpipes, an anthem text in which “Holy Jesus” rhymes with “moldy Cheeses” and “Martin Luther’s Diet of Wurms (the only Diet of Wurms with the International Congress of Church Musicians Seal of Approval)” gets my vote for book of the year.

Well, here we are, 14 years later, at liturgical mystery number 14, and I have read every one of the intervening volumes, each of which has produced a similar (or greater) sense of euphoria, merriment, and admiration for the author’s continued droll sense of humor, ability to create madcap plots, and sheer ability both to instruct and to entertain.

The newest, The Lyric Wore Lycra, which clocks in at 192 pages (like most of us, it has added a little extra heft around its middle), still maintains the Raymond Chandler sub-story set in distinctive typewriter script, is still replete with welcome musical references, and still displays the author’s ability to poke gentle barbs at liturgical matters, the current ones involving Fat Tuesday and Lent, all side by side with several dead bodies and, thus, enough crimes to be solved by sleuth Hayden Konig, police chief of St. Germaine, North Carolina, and part-time organist-choirmaster of St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in that small village.

And yes, it is gift-worthy in the extreme, available directly from St. James Music Press (www.sjmpbooks.com). (Request an autographed copy if you wish.) My package of two copies arrived within three days, so the book accompanied me to Santa Fe, where I shared news of its July publication with my hosts, also devoted Schweizer fans. They rushed away from our dinner table to place their order immediately, and they, too, had their books in hand, ready to be read while on their vacation.