Harpsichord News

Larry Palmer is a contributing editor of THE DIAPASON.

Status of the Handel House Museum (London)

The establishment of a London museum to honor the life and works of George Frideric Handel has been subject to a rollercoaster series of advances and setbacks since the establishment of The Handel House Trust in 1991. Plans to purchase the early 18th-century terrace house at 25 Brook Street, Handel's home from 1723 until his death in 1759, fell through when an anticipated grant from the British Heritage Lottery Fund was withdrawn because a large matching endowment could not be raised within the required time period.

To rescue a part of the project the Co-operative Insurance Society, owners of the property, proposed that the Trust should create and run a musuem limited to the upper stories of 25 Brook Street and its neighboring house, allowing the ground floor to be used for commercial ventures. This solution would  provide space not only for the historical recreation of Handel's main room on the first floor, but also allow an area for the exhibition of the ever-expanding Trust collection, a temporary exhibition space, and an area in which to perform music.

To prepare for the museum,  construction work has begun: installation of an elevator, strengthening the main floors, and soundproofing the rooms. The owners have also offered significant future financial support.

The Handel House Trust has acquired the Byrne Handel Collection, consisting of several hundred objects. These include a letter from Handel to Messiah librettist Charles Jennens, a Thomas Hudson portrait of Jennens, an autograph leaf from the oratorio Esther, Mozart's handwritten arrangement of a Handel fugue, Mainwaring's 1760 Handel biography with annotations by Jennens, and many other books, scores, and works of art.

Modern replicas of Handel's harpsichords by William Smith and Ruckers have been delivered to the Trust by harpsichord makers Michael Cole and Bruce Kennedy.

A capital campaign to ensure the opening of this museum (projected for  the fall of 2000) has been reinstituted.  I invite our readers to join in this effort by sending contributions to The Handel House Foundation of America, Inc. c/o James B. Sitrick, Coudert Brothers, 1114 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10036-7703.  Gifts are tax deductible under IRS code 501(c)3.

A surprise in the news

Dominique Alice Browning, editor of House and Garden Magazine, was profiled in the Dallas Morning News (May 17, 1998). Browning's recipe for her ideal vacation caught my eye: "A combination of hiking, reading and doing a new skill like playing the HARPSICHORD . . . by the water." Her regret: "Not having become the conductor of an orchestra."

Some spring recital programs:

George Lucktenberg played the dedication concert for the Philip Tyre double harpsichord at Kamehameha Schools, Honolulu, HI (March 12, 1999). His program: Passacaille in C, L. Couperin; Suite in A minor, Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre; La Couperin, La Régente, La Leclair, La Sylva, and La Mandoline, Forqueray; La Felix, La Cazamajor, La Forqueray, Medée, Duphly; Sonata in E, BWV 1016, for violin and harpsichord,  and "Brandenburg" Concerto 5, J. S. Bach.

Ian Pritchard, Senior Recital, Warner Concert Hall, Oberlin Conservatory (April 3, 1999): Toccata, Picchi; Capriccio sopra Il Cucho, Toccata Nona [1637], Frescobaldi; Suite XIX in C minor and Tombeau Blancrocher, Froberger; On the Cut [1999], Manu Vimalassery; Ubik [1997], David Pritchard; Concerto in D minor, BWV 1052, J. S. Bach.

Larry Palmer, presented by Dallas Goethe Center at the Episcopal Church of the Incarnation (April 9, 1999), playing his Franco-Flemish double harpsichord by Richard Kingston. Preludes and Fugues in D, BWV 874, and B-flat, BWV 890, J. S. Bach; Seven Innocent Dances [1996], Rudy Davenport; La Couperin, F. Couperin; La Rameau, J-P Rameau; Passacaille in G minor, Georg Muffat; Menuet (Thérèse), Massenet; Dance, Delius; Gavotte from Capriccio, Richard Strauss; Concerto in D Major, BWV 972, Vivaldi-Bach.

Harpsichord Technique: A Guide to Expressivity

When Nancy Metzger's harpsichord method was published in 1989 it quickly became the tutor of choice for many of us who attempt to instruct "other" keyboardists in the subtleties of the harpsichord. It is a pleasure to report that the second edition of this fine instruction book is even better than the first! At exactly the same number of pages, it has, nonetheless, a completely different, easier-to-read type, frequent revisions of the text to aid in clarifying various matters, and a much-reduced complement of pieces to play (three, as opposed to eleven in the first edition).

To compensate for the smaller number of harpsichord pieces, an added Appendix lists recommended pieces and editions.

The heart of Metzger's method remains the thirty pieces originally published in  Méthode ou Receuil de Connaissances elementaires pour le piano forte ou clavecin attributed to J. C. Bach and F. Pasquale Ricci (Paris, 1786). As the author writes, "Because these works blend absolute simplicity with thorough musicality, they are . . .  ideal vehicles for the application of the principles presented . . ."

Topics covered in Harpsichord Technique include harpsichord touch (beginning with proper hand position and super-legato), style brisé,  articulation, the differentiation of good and bad notes, and an excellent discussion of the elements of rhetorical playing, dance rhythms, and rhythmic alterations such as inequality and variable dotting. As conclusion Metzger offers a chapter concerned with musical expression: "prose and verse in baroque music: in which we beat time at the harpsichord (verse), in which we rhapsodize at the harpsichord (prose), and the stylus phantasticus."

Whether one proceeds from beginning to end of this well-organized method, or picks and chooses from the pedagogically-sound examples, Nancy Metzger's book will aid immensely in the journey toward artistic expression at the harpsichord. Published by Musica Dulce, orders may be addressed to 6827 Coachlite Way, Sacramento CA 95831.  Information is available via email from [email protected]

Features and news items, as well as suggestions for topics to be featured in these columns, are welcome. Address them to Dr. Larry Palmer, Division of Music, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX 75275 or, via email, [email protected]

A Bach year roundup

Miscellaneous items received (and collected) by the
Harpsichord Editor during the Bach anniversary year 2000:

* Advertisement for the Lufthansa Festival of Baroque
Music (London, 5 June'14 July): "For 74 years Lufthansa has been
moving people around the world. Now we'd like to commemorate a fellow
German who's been doing it for slightly longer. Bach's music has
been moving people for over 250 years. . ." [found in the publication
Early Music from the Early Music Network UK].

* Harpsichordist Bradley Brookshire presented
Bach's Art of Fugue at Merkin Concert Hall in New York City on the last
day of 2000. Unusual was the simultaneous projection of a computer-generated,
digitally projected score scrolled across a large screen at the rear of the
stage, above the harpsichordist. Supertitles (!) explained the contrapuntal
devices utilized by the composer ("Theme in Tenor in Inversion,"
etc.). These addenda to Bach's plan were conceived and executed by
computer specialist James McElwaine.

* A spate of Goldbergs: in England, Gary Cooper played
Bach's Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 (Mar 4) at Tudeley Church, Kent, site
of twelve magnificent stained glass windows by Marc Chagall, and home to an
extensive early music concert series. At Oberlin (Ohio) Lisa Goode Crawford
presented the set in Kulas Recital Hall, Oberlin College (Feb 8). Larry Palmer
played half of them (Aria, 1-7, 14, 21-22, 25, 27-30, Aria) in Marvin Chapel,
Tyler (Texas) on Sept 21, a repeat from his 31st annual faculty recital at Southern
Methodist University, Dallas (Sept 11): music BY and ABOUT J. S. Bach,
including Schumann's Fugue III on BACH (played on the harpsichord),
Hindemith's Sonate II for Organ, March of the Night Watchman (from
Bach's Memento) of Widor, Ricercar on the Name BACH by Waldemar Bloch,
and Bach's Prelude and Fugue in C, BWV 547.

* In Savannah (Georgia) the exact 250th anniversary of
Bach's death (July 28) was commemorated at the Evangelical Lutheran
Church of the Ascension with this program played by Gene Jarvis: Italian
Concerto, BWV 971, Partita in B-flat, BWV 825 (harpsichord); Toccata and Fugue
in D minor, BWV 565, Passacaglia in C minor, BWV 582 (organ). Dr. Irene Feddern
played three organ chorales (By the Waters of Babylon, 653; Rejoice Now,
Beloved Christians, 734; O Lamb of God, 618), and Quoniam tu solus sanctus from
the Mass in B minor was sung by baritone Christopher Roper, with Pam Titus,
horn.

* LARGELY BACH, three concerts of music by Bach, his
friends and family, played on 18th-century period-style instruments, took place
in Beloit (Wisconsin) at Beloit College (Sept 27, Oct 23, and Nov 8) featuring
the Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble, the Roosevelt-Fuerst Duo (violin and
harpsichord) from Freiburg, Germany, and harpsichordist Max Yount, professor of
music and music department chair at Beloit.

* Hundreds of compact discs celebrated Bach during
2000: among the finest, the continuing series of Bach cantatas in stellar
performances on period instruments, led by Masaaki Suzuki, with his Bach
Collegium Japan (available on BIS Records). Suzuki's performances are
consistently among the most satisfying to be heard on recordings, for they are
both intensely involved and historically-informed, presented without extremes
or dogmatism, yet securely based on scholarly foundations.

* Richard Troeger continued his engrossing and
rewarding traversal of Bach's keyboard works played on the clavichord
(Lyrichord) with volume 2 (the Seven Toccatas, LEMS 8041) and volume 3
(Inventions, Sinfonias, Little Preludes, LEMS 8047).

* Memphis organist and choral conductor John Ayer has
recorded The Art of the Chorale, An Organ Anthology (Pro Organo CD 7064, CD
7119), on which his superb choirs sing chorale settings (many by Bach) followed
by organ settings from various composers (Buxtehude, Hanff and Walther to
Mendelssohn, Reger, Langlais, Manz, Near, and William Lloyd Webber). Bach organ
works included are Komm, heiliger Geist (BWV 651), Aus tiefer Not' (686),
Vom Himmel hoch (606), Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland (659), and Vor deinen Thron
(668).

* If transcriptions are your delight, Shawn Leopard
and John Paul have recorded the complete Bach Keyboard Trio Sonatas played on
two Lautenwerke (gut-strung harpsichords) built by Anden Houben (Lyrichord LEMS
8045).

* From his archives, Baltimore harpsichordist Joseph
Stephens has issued two compact discs of recital performances: Live from the
Cathedral Joseph Stephens, harpsichordist, Plays Bach (AMR 19971003) and Music
for Two Harpsichords (Stephens with Lloyd Bowers), available from Dr. Stephens
[email: [email protected]].

* Do not neglect to read Christoph Wolff's
up-to-the-year, state-of-the-art view of the composer in THE 250th anniversary
biography Johann Sebastian Bach, The Learned Musician (Norton; ISBN
0-393-04825-X).

News items and features are welcome for these columns.
Please address them to Dr. Larry Palmer, Division of Music, Southern Methodist
University, Dallas, TX 75275. Email:
HYPERLINK<mailto:[email protected]&gt; <[email protected]>.

Larry Palmer is harpsichord editor of THE DIAPASON.

“Feast of the Gods,” the 282-page program book of the Boston Early Music Festival listed a bountiful smorgasbord of musical offerings from which each visitor to this biennial early music extravaganza could construct an individual menu. Stellar offerings at prime afternoon, evening, and late evening times carried the cachet (and financing) of the Festival proper; ancillary events, sponsored (but not paid for) by the BEMF organization, included a plethora of “fringe” concerts (I counted a total of 79 this year) as well as the displays comprising the exhibition, where much of the business of early music is conducted.
Inexpensive housing was available once again at the spartan, but convenient, “Little Building,” an Emerson College dormitory, ideally located on Boylston Street at Tremont, across from the Boston Common. The Cutler Majestic Theatre, home to BEMF opera productions, is just around the corner; the Radisson Hotel, site of the exhibition, only several blocks away. A congenial group of players and visitors met and conversed each morning at the bountiful breakfasts, included with the modest room charge.
“Fringe” concerts are often good indicators of the quality of early music performance around the country: a few of the groups selected from venues far distant from Boston were the Chicago-based Trio Settecento, with harpsichordist David Schrader; Colorado soloists from the Chamber Orchestra based in Denver, with harpsichordist Frank Nowell; and two groups from Texas: the University of North Texas Baroque Orchestra and Singers (Lyle Nordstrom, director), who presented two programs, and Fort Worth-based Texas Camerata, with rising (Lone-) star soprano Ava Pine, drew another capacity audience to its program at Emmanuel Church’s intimate, but resonant, neo-Gothic Lindsey Chapel, the site of many festival events.
After the Camerata performance on Wednesday afternoon I was eager to sample some music produced by others, starting with my first-ever attendance at a BEMF late-night program, German keyboardist Alexander Weimann’s “Apollonian” themed concert at New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall. A technically difficult banality by the singularly named composer, “Tubel [London, 1789],” featured fast cross-hand passages at the harpsichord. Pachelbel’s Aria Sebaldina (Nürnberg, 1699), on a chamber organ, was played so percussively that the chiffy Gedeckt stop sounded more glockenspiel than flute. Mozart’s “Jupiter” Symphony, in Weimann’s transcription for fortepiano, was an amazing tour de force of notes, but left one thankful for the composer’s orchestration. While lyric passages worked beautifully on Paul McNulty’s splendid Anton Walter-styled fortepiano, fast and full episodes were amazing, but unsatisfying.
A short Thursday morning walk to the north end of the Common, past Freedom Trail Revolutionary-period costumed guides and their clients, led to the Paulist Center where clavichordist Judith Conrad played an hour of Music for the Holy Grail by Juan Bautista Cabanilles on a triple-fretted clavichord by Andreas Hermert (Berlin, 2003) after an instrument by Georg Woytzig (1689). The concert, a benefit for the Iraq Family Relief Fund, gave one the opportunity to acquire a “Clavichordists for World Peace” tee shirt. Who could resist? Ms. Conrad’s informal presentation of the Spanish master’s learned counterpoint, intermingled with kinetic dances appropriate to the Valencian ecclesiastical rubric for Corpus Christi celebrations (“twelve dances on the altar” required) delighted her capacity audience of 30 in the intimate third-floor library.
An overflow audience greeted Long Island’s Stony Brook Baroque Players in the Radisson exhibition room of The Harpsichord Clearing House. Arthur Haas’s student ensemble was this year’s winner of Early Music America’s grant for bringing a student early music ensemble to BEMF. In a program based on the Follia, 19 players showed their prowess in a variety of pieces by Uccellini, Marco da Gagliano, Dario Castello, Falconieri, Merula, and Locatelli. Mezzo-soprano Christine Free captured the text-driven moods and poignant heartbreak of Monteverdi’s Lamento d’Arianna. Nine players sizzled in Vivaldi’s Follia Variations (Sonata XII, RV 63), with fine continuo support from harpsichordist Tami Morse and baroque guitarist Jim Smith.
The superb BEMF Orchestra, out of the pit and on stage, played Thursday’s 8 o’clock sell-out concert in Jordan Hall. Presenting orchestral music from the operas of Jean-Philippe Rameau and a complete performance of The Judgment of Paris, a pastoral by John Eccles, the best baroque band in the land displayed its musical precision and exquisitely fine tuning. Under the leadership of festival co-directors Steven Stubbs and Paul O’Dette (playing baroque guitars and theorbos) and concert master Robert Mealey, the group didn’t miss a musical nuance. The ecstatic audience insisted on an encore, a reprise of the Tambourins from Rameau’s Dardanus.
The same orchestra starred in Jean-Baptiste Lully’s 1678 opera Psyché, receiving its North American premiere performances. Strong keyboard continuo realizations by Kristian Bezuidenhout (harpsichord) and Peter Sykes (harpsichord and organ), with the plucked strings of O’Dette and Stubbs, stellar strings and woodwinds, and most inventive percussion playing, including the “human” wind machine (a whistle) manipulated by Marie-Ange Petit anchored a spectacular production. Memorable stage moments, many accomplished by “deus ex machina” arrivals and departures, proved remarkably modern in concept (the solo singers wore seat belts as they were flown from or to the fly space above the stage). The sudden appearance of an adult L’Amour (replacing the young Cupid), through a double mirror, elicited a collective gasp, as did the evocative red lighting of the scenic underworld.
So many motives in Thomas Corneille’s opera libretto seemed to foreshadow works to come: the forbidden questioning of a lover’s name and a swan boat exit (Lohengrin); constructing a suitable palace for the gods (Rheingold); a vengeful queen raging in coloratura (The Magic Flute); or a required trip to Hades to rescue the beloved (Orfeo): even though hearing this work for the first time, one felt quite at home in operatic territory. A unit set served the action well: high hedge-ringed garden, fronted by a wrought-iron fence and ornate gates. The eight folding panels were opened and shut as needed by four footmen. Baroque gesture, appropriate choreography, vibrant costumes: I heard more than one listener remark that the “Festival had got this one absolutely right.”
Karina Gauvin stormed her way through the vocal histrionics of the jealous Venus. Carolyn Sampson was a sweet and vocally secure Psyché. Boy soprano Frederick Metzger negotiated the part of young Cupid with aplomb. Three black-clad Furies (Zachary Wilder, Jason McStoots, and Olivier Laquerre), in black wide-bustled gowns à la Mary Todd Lincoln, were appropriately demonic.
Earlier on Friday the organ took center stage in an all-day mini-festival, The Organ as a Mirror of Cultural Change. The morning sessions, at historic Old West Church, celebrated the 1971 C. B. Fisk organ (with its handsome Appleton case), in music of France at the time of Lully, with compositions by d’Anglebert, de Grigny, Chaumont, Dandrieu, Corrette, and both Louis and François Couperin. Two Lully overtures (transcribed from the operas Bellerophon and Cadmus) celebrated BEMF’s poster composer. The stylish players were Jan Willem Jansen and William Porter.
The afternoon sessions, Signor Buxtehudo and Monsieur Böhm, were held at First Lutheran Church, where the 2000 Richards, Fowkes & Co. organ, in a slightly more resonant space, served well in compositions by Dieterich Buxtehude and Georg Böhm, intersected by Kerala J. Snyder’s illuminating talk “What’s New in Buxtehude Scholarship?” Dr. Snyder relayed the good news that the post-1685 account books of St. Mary’s Church (Lübeck), previously missing, are now returned to Buxtehude’s city (after war wanderings), thus allowing more detailed study of expenses for such things as organ tuning and possible changes of keyboard temperament. Several new fragments of Buxtehude works, and even rediscovered compositions, have come to light, and she has had second thoughts on the possible identification of Buxtehude in the 1674 Hamburg painting by Johannes Voorhout, frontispiece to her important study Dieterich Buxtehude: Organist in Lübeck (New York: Schirmer Books, 1987)—all reasons enough to offer a revised, expanded edition (2007), now available from University of Rochester Press <www.urpress.com&gt;.
The organ mini-festival programs were dedicated, fittingly enough, to the memory of Daniel Pinkham (1923–2006), Boston musician extraordinaire, who was memorialized in a program book tribute by BEMF board member, organist Lee Ridgway. Tribute was paid also to harpsichordist and author Howard Schott (1923–2005) in graceful words from Paul Cienniwa.
On the instrument front there was much excitement generated by a new double-manual harpsichord built by Zuckermann Harpsichords International, based on the 1642 Hans Moermans, formerly in the collection of the late Rodger Mirrey (London), now in the Russell Collection (Edinburgh). The design, to drawings by R. P. Hale with Peter Watchorn’s input and musical finishing, provides a replica of an instrument that may be the earliest expressive double harpsichord to survive. (For more complete information, see
<http://zhi.net/instr/moermans.shtml&gt;.)
The Harpsichord Clearing House (Glenn Guittari and Howard Wagner) showed a variety of instruments in their spacious quarters at the Radisson (the Dartmouth Room), where daily concerts also took place. Eagerly anticipated (at least by some of us) is the outcome of the bidding for HCH’s desirable antique offering, a 1907 Dolmetsch-Chickering clavichord, held for sale at this year’s festival. Bids were to begin at $25,000.
On a warming, sunny Saturday morning a leisurely stroll to the Goethe Center put me there too late to hear the program: Handel’s Opera—His immortal songs without words, and some other pieces by his musicians—comprising 18th-century arrangements of popular Handel overtures and arias for recorders and harpsichord. It was a cleverly-contrived playlist, and the performers, “Musical Playground,” Martina Bley (recorders) and Jörg Jacobi (harpsichord), otherwise were to be seen at the Exhibition as purveyors of their early music publications from “edition baroque” (Bremen).
Too soon it was time to head for Logan Airport, where takeoff was delayed until there was some hope of landing in stormy Dallas. Waiting, however, gave time to reflect on Boston’s unique contributions to the world of early music, and to realize again that it is the place to be during festival week in June of odd-numbered years.

Larry Palmer

Larry Palmer is a contributing editor of THE DIAPASON.

Some spring recital programs

George Lucktenberg played the dedication concert for the Philip Tyre double harpsichord at Kamehameha Schools, Honolulu, HI (March 12, 1999). His program: Passacaille in C, L. Couperin; Suite in A minor, Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre; La Couperin, La Régente, La Leclair, La Sylva, and La Mandoline, Forqueray; La Felix, La Cazamajor, La Forqueray, Medée, Duphly; Sonata in E, BWV 1016, for violin and harpsichord, and "Brandenburg" Concerto 5, J. S. Bach.

Ian Pritchard, Senior Recital, Warner Concert Hall, Oberlin Conservatory (April 3, 1999): Toccata, Picchi; Capriccio sopra Il Cucho, Toccata Nona [1637], Frescobaldi; Suite XIX in C minor and Tombeau Blancrocher, Froberger; On the Cut [1999], Manu Vimalassery; Ubik [1997], David Pritchard; Concerto in D minor, BWV 1052, J. S. Bach.

Larry Palmer, presented by Dallas Goethe Center at the Episcopal Church of the Incarnation (April 9, 1999), playing his Franco-Flemish double harpsichord by Richard Kingston. Preludes and Fugues in D, BWV 874, and B-flat, BWV 890, J. S. Bach; Seven Innocent Dances [1996], Rudy Davenport; La Couperin, F. Couperin; La Rameau, J-P Rameau; Passacaille in G minor, Georg Muffat; Menuet (Thérèse), Massenet; Dance, Delius; Gavotte from Capriccio, Richard Strauss; Concerto in D Major, BWV 972, Vivaldi-Bach.

Harpsichord Technique: A Guide to Expressivity

When Nancy Metzger's harpsichord method was published in 1989 it quickly became the tutor of choice for many of us who attempt to instruct "other" keyboardists in the subtleties of the harpsichord. It is a pleasure to report that the second edition of this fine instruction book is even better than the first! At exactly the same number of pages, it has, nonetheless, a completely  different, easier-to-read type, frequent revisions of the text to aid in clarifying various matters, and a much-reduced complement of pieces to play (three, as opposed to eleven in the first edition).

To compensate for the smaller number of harpsichord pieces, an added Appendix lists recommended pieces and editions.

The heart of Metzger's method remains the thirty pieces originally published in  Méthode ou Receuil de Connaissances elementaires pour le piano forte ou clavecin attributed to J. C. Bach and F. Pasquale Ricci (Paris, 1786). As the author writes, "Because these works blend absolute simplicity with thorough musicality, they are . . .  ideal vehicles for the application of the principles presented . . ."

Topics covered in Harpsichord Technique include harpsichord touch (beginning with proper hand position and super-legato), style brisé,  articulation, the differentiation of good and bad notes, and an excellent discussion of the elements of rhetorical playing, dance rhythms, and rhythmic alterations such as inequality and variable dotting. As conclusion Metzger offers a chapter concerned with musical expression: "prose and verse in baroque music: in which we beat time at the harpsichord (verse), in which we rhapsodize at the harpsichord (prose), and the stylus phantasticus."

Whether one proceeds from beginning to end of this well-organized method, or picks and chooses from the pedagogically-sound examples, Nancy Metzger's book will aid immensely in the journey toward artistic expression at the harpsichord. Published by Musica Dulce, orders may be addressed to 6827 Coachlite Way, Sacramento CA 95831.  Information is available via email from [email protected]

Features and news items, as well as suggestions for topics to be featured in these columns, are welcome. Address them to Dr. Larry Palmer, Division of Music, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX 75275 or, via email, [email protected]

Karen McFarlane has announced her retirement from twenty-four years of active concert management, effective January 1 of this coming year. Karen McFarlane Artists, Inc., which in 2001 will mark its 80th anniversary, was originally founded by Bernard R. LaBerge. In 1962, his long-time secretary, Lilian Murtagh, took over the agency, which was transferred to Ms. McFarlane shortly before Mrs. Murtagh's death in 1976.

Under Karen McFarlane's tenure, the management has continued to represent many of the world's finest concert organists, and in addition has ventured into two new areas. In 1982, Ms. McFarlane became the first concert manager for organists to officially promote the winner of a major national competition, and since that time has volunteered her assistance to 10 NYACOP winners, working with each for a two-year period. She agreed in 1990 to represent the gold medal winners of the Calgary International Organ Festival, and, although she has been invited to represent winners of other major international organ competitions, she has chosen to work with competitions which are based in North America. In 1985 her management began to import select collegiate and cathedral choirs of men and boys from England to North America, starting a trend of tours by English choirs that has continued. During the past fifteen years she has toured the choirs of St. Thomas Church, New York City; Canterbury Cathedral; Salisbury Cathedral; Winchester Cathedral; King's College and St. John's College, Cambridge; Westminster Abbey and Westminster Cathedral, London; and The Cambridge Singers (John Rutter, director).

Karen McFarlane holds a bachelor's degree from Lindenwood College, St. Charles, Missouri, where she studied organ with Franklin Perkins. She also attended Washington University and Union Theological Seminary, and studied with Claire Coci. In 1966 she moved to New York City to assist Frederick Swann at The Riverside Church. She has also served as Director of Music/Organist at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in San Marcos, Texas, and as Director of Music/Organist at Park Avenue Christian Church, New York City. She took over the Lilian Murtagh Concert Management in 1976, has served as Associate Choirmaster at The Church of the Covenant, Cleveland, since 1988, and has been married to Walter Holtkamp, Jr. since 1982. Karen McFarlane is listed in Who's Who in America, Who's Who in Entertainment, the International Who's Who in Music, and The World Who's Who of Women. She received the Avis H. Blewett Award from the St. Louis AGO, and was one of two recipients of the national AGO's first Edward A. Hansen Leadership Award in 2000.

The new president of Karen McFarlane Artists will be John McElliott, who is currently Booking Director for the management. Mr. McElliott grew up in Akron, Ohio, where he was introduced to church music as a boy chorister in the Men and Boys Choir at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, under the direction of Robert Quade. He then went on to study organ and voice at The University of Akron, and later was a choral scholar with the Choir of Winchester Cathedral in England. He has had a great deal of performance experience as a singer with early music groups such as Apollo's Fire, and has a solid knowledge of organ repertoire as well. He is married to organist Yuri Sato.

On September 8 of this year, in recognition of her forthcoming retirement, Karen McFarlane was honored by her entire roster of artists at a musical event held at the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore. The event, which was secretly planned for more than a year, was a program of "Musical Gifts," in which each artist on the roster either composed or commissioned a piece for organ, solo voice, or choir. A total of 30 new works were composed, of which 26 were performed that evening.

Organ:

George Baker: Chorale-prelude, If Thou But Suffer God to Guide Thee

Guy Bovet: Tango de setimo tono (a modo de Habanera)

Petr Eben: Preludium I (commissioned by Susan Landale)

Ann Gebur: Meditation on "Schmücke dich" (commissioned by Clyde Holloway)

William Harvey: Vocalissimus (commissioned by Christopher Young)

Martin Haselböck: Birthday Card with Signature

Marilyn Keiser: Variations on "Good Christian Friends, Rejoice"

Olivier Latry: Arabesque on the Name of Karen McFarlane

William McVicker: Six Variations über una tema de Vincent Youmans (commissioned by David Goode, James O'Donnell, Jane Parker-Smith, Simon Preston, Ann Elise Smoot and Gillian Weir)

Craig Phillips: Tribute—A Lullaby for Organ (commissioned by David Craighead)

Daniel Pinkham: The Salutation of Gabriel (French horn/organ)(commissioned by Joan Lippincott)

Myron Roberts: Fantasy for Organ (shared dedication with Robert Baker)

Daniel Roth: from Livre d'orgue pour le Magnificat

Robert Sirota: Fanfare for Many Members (commissioned by Donald and Phyllis Sutherland)

Frederick Swann: Meditation on "Repton"

Thomas Trotter, arr. from Vivaldi: Alla Rustica

Hymns:

Gerre Hancock: A Hymn for Karen (hymn-tune: Karen)

Todd Wilson: He Comes to Us as One Unknown (hymn-tune: Cedar Hill)

Solo Voice:

Diane Meredith Belcher: Lutebook Lullaby

Stephen Kennedy: St. Theresa's Bookmark (commissioned by David Higgs)

Thomas Murray: Earth with Her Ten-Thousand Flowers

Anne Wilson: May There Always

Choir:

Marie-Claire Alain: Two Early French Noëls for Choir

Stephen Cleobury: Founder's Prayer

David Hill: Sing Lullaby                                                   

Alan Morrison: The Lord Bless You and Keep You

Peter Planyavsky: Choral arrangement of Lasst uns erfreuen

Stephen Tharp: O Sacred Feast

In addition, a humorous group sing-along piece entitled "A Ditty for Karen," by Peter Hurford, was performed. John Weaver, who has over the years become the management's "Poet Laureate," read a Special Recitation. Performances of the above new works were by many of the roster organists, Phyllis Bryn-Julson, soprano; John McElliott and David Hoffman, baritone; Larry Williams, French horn; and a choir composed of Peabody voice students. The welcome was given by Robert Sirota, Director of the Peabody Conservatory. A benediction by Victoria Sirota closed the evening. It was the largest number of new works premiered at any event in memory, many of which are being published.

As of January 1, Karen McFarlane Artists will have a new address: 2385 Fenwood Road, Cleveland OH 44118. Toll-free telephone: 866/721-9095; Fax: 216/397-7716; E-mail: [email protected]. The web-site for the management is www.concertorganists.com. Karen McFarlane ([email protected]) will continue, on a part-time basis, to expand performance opportunities for the management's competition winners and young organists, as well as handle the planning for the yearly choir tours. David Hoffman, who has been with the management for many years, will continue as Office Manager.

Larry Palmer is a contributing editor of The Diapason.

A work by Dutilleux

It is extremely rare that I come upon a harpsichord-inclusive piece of music that has not been listed in Frances Bedford's Harpsichord and Clavichord Music of the Twentieth Century, but such was the case when I read the Chicago Symphony Orchestra program for concerts played during the last weekend in January. On the program was Symphony Number Two (Le double) by Henri Dutilleux (born 1916)--scored for two orchestras: a chamber group of oboe, clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, trombone, celesta, timpani, string quartet and HARPSICHORD, plus another complete orchestral force with harp and a large battery of percussion instruments.

Dutilleux' Second Symphony, commissioned by the conductor Charles Munch to celebrate the Boston Symphony's 75th anniversary, resembles a baroque concerto grosso, and is a work lasting approximately 30 minutes. Michael Gielen conducted and Mary Sauer (principal pianist of the Chicago Symphony) was harpsichordist for this set of performances. [With thanks to faithful reader and longtime friend Roy Kehl for sending the Symphony program.]

Violet

The early 20th-century harpsichordist Violet Gordon Woodhouse (1871-1948) is the subject of a dramatic presentation with music, Violet, by her biographer Jessica Douglas-Home. It was performed on December 16 in London's Bush Hall (a 1904 ballroom) by harpsichordist Maggie Cole with actors Maggie Henderson and Robert McBain.

The exotic Violet is surely an apt subject for a drama: drawn to the harpsichord through Arnold Dolmetsch she became a player of exquisite sensitivity, the first to make commercial recordings at the harpsichord. Her intense musicality had its counterpart in her unconventional personal life: married to Gordon Woodhouse, the couple shared a home with three other men in a long-lasting ménage à cinq. Women, too, were passionate in their devotion to Violet, among them the composer Ethel Smyth and the writer Radclyffe Hall. Devotées of her playing included the three literary Sitwells, George Bernard Shaw, T. E. Lawrence, and Serge Diaghilev.

Virginia Pleasants reports from London

The London musical scene has been enriched by the openings of the Handel House Museum (November 8, 2001) and the York Gate Collections at the Royal Academy of Music (February 27, 2002).

To honor one of music's most famous composers the Handel House Trust acquired his longtime residence at 25 Brook Street in central London, the site not only for the composition of several of the composer's most famous works (including Messiah), but also of rehearsals for their performances. Music is again to be heard in regular concerts on two harpsichords: a single-manual William Smith replica of an instrument in the Bate Collection, Oxford, and a two-manual Ruckers-style instrument by Bruce Kennedy. Both commissioned instruments are professionally maintained and are available to students for practice and concerts. A future addition will be a chamber organ, like the harpsichords a replica of an instrument Handel played in these rooms.

Lectures on Handelian subjects, both independently and in conjunction with concerts at nearby St. George's Church, are offered by the Museum. At last London boasts a major tribute to one of its most famous composers! [Contact information: The Handel House Museum, 25 Brook Street, London W1K 4HB; Website: http://www.handelhouse.org;

Email: [email protected]].

The Royal Academy of Music has officially opened its York Gate Collections of Musical Instruments at a site adjacent to the Academy (1 York Gate). There, nine pianos from the collection of Kenneth and Mary Mobbs are on loan. The collection shows the development of the grand piano in England during the first half of the 19th century; it provides a welcome corollary to the Academy's famed collection of string instruments.

Early Music: Chopin (!)

The Oxford University Press journal Early Music (Volume XXIX/3, August 2001) includes Laurence Libin's article "Robert Adam's Instruments for Catherine the Great" and several contributions on the topic "Chopin As Early Music," among them Jim Samson's "Chopin, Past and Present;" Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger's "Chopin and Pleyel;" and Jonathan Bellman's "Frédéric Chopin, Antoine de Kontski and the carezzando Touch."

These articles are highly recommended. I hope our readers will share them with their pianist friends, who, in general, often ignore the gentle sensitivity of Chopin's music and, if one believes contemporary reports, of his own playing.

Some years ago I read with great interest a small volume by Edith J. Hipkins: How Chopin Played (From Contemporary Impressions collected from the Diaries and Notebooks of the late A. J. Hipkins, F.S.A [1826-1903]), published in London (J. M. Dent and Sons Ltd, 1937). In this book the daughter of the harpsichord-playing pioneer relayed her father's observations of the great composer, impressions from very early in Hipkins' career as an employee of the Broadwood piano firm, where Chopin visited in April 1848. Hipkins reported that "Chopin's fortissimo was the full pure tone without noise, a harsh inelastic note being to him painful. His nuances were modifications of that tone, decreasing to the faintest yet always distinct pianissimo." [page 5]

Concerning Chopin's touch, Hipkins wrote "He changed fingers upon a key as often as an organ-player." (A footnote to this statement relates that "At the age of sixteen Chopin was appointed organist to the Lyceum at Warsaw.") [page 5]

Hipkins: "To return to pianos, [Chopin] especially liked Broadwood's Boudoir cottage pianos of that date, two-stringed, but very sweet instruments. . .  He played Bach's '48' all his life long. 'I don't practise my own compositions,' he said to Von Lentz. 'When I am about to give a concert, I close my doors for a time and play Bach.'" [page 7]

[A copy of this book having gone "astray" in our university library, I am doubly indebted to Mrs. Rodger Mirrey of London, who sent me a photocopy of the entire 39-page text.]

Still more from Early Music

The issue for February (Volume XXX/1) includes several items of interest to the harpsichordist: "Keyboard Instrument Building in London and the Sun Insurance Records, 1775-87" (Lance Whitehead and Jenny Nex); "The Dublin Virginal Manuscript: New Perspectives on Virginalist Ornamentation" (Desmond Hunter); "Repeat Signs and Binary Form in François Couperin's Pièces de claveçin" (Paul Cienniwa); plus correspondence about Domenico Scarlatti's 'tremulo' (Carl Sloane and Howard Schott) for erudition. And Howard Schott's lovely obituary of Igor Kipnis, for nostalgia.

[Send items for these columns to Dr. Larry Palmer, Division of Music, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX 75275; email [email protected]]