Harpsichord Notes

The Diapason harpsichord columns history

Part II: Front-page features

The magazine’s third editor Robert Schuneman made harpsichord history when he placed my report on the Bruges [Belgium] International Harpsichord Competition and Festival on the front page of the October 1971 issue. To my knowledge this was the first time a non-organ-related item had appeared in that prominent spot! There were two black-and-white photographs: at the top of the page, the first prize winner, Scott Ross from the United States playing a harpsichord by David Rubio, and at the bottom, a picture of the very distinguished and very international jury: Kenneth Gilbert, Raymond Schroyens, Colin Tilney, Charles Koenig, Robert Veyron-Lacroix, Isolde Ahlgrimm, and Gustav Leonhardt, plus the director of the festival, Robrecht Dewitte, surrounding an instrument by Rainer Schuetze. The report continued on page 10, graced with one more illustration­—the semi-finalists, a truly international group from the UK, Netherlands, France, Chile, Ceylon, Hong Kong, Italy, Canada, and two from the United States.

Front page #2: I returned to Bruges for the fourth competition in July 1974. Again, Editor Schuneman placed the report of that event on the front page of October’s magazine, and it was just as eye-catching as the first feature, with three photographs. (A young Martin Pearlman is the first figure on the left of the middle picture.) My lengthy article continued without illustrations, on pages 3 and 4.

As had become usual for the Bruges event by this time, the harpsichord solo competition was not graced with a first prize. The five finalists garnered awards beginning with a second prize, continuing with two sharing the third spot, and one each in fourth and fifth rankings. I noted that none of the players had reached the electrifying level of playing achieved by Scott Ross in 1971. The most popular harpsichord chosen by the contestants was a harpsichord by William Dowd, built in his Paris workshop.

Front page #3: The Diapason published in July 1978 displayed David Fuller’s fascinating and erudite article “Harpsichord Registration” on page one, courtesy of Editor Arthur Lawrence. The front page sported a two-column-wide facsimile of the first page from Armand-Louis Couperin’s Simfonie de Clavecins. Fuller’s comprehensive traversal of this most interesting topic continued on pages 6 and 7, illustrated with a diagram of knee levers, two further musical manuscript examples by C. P. E. Bach, and a useful bibliography for further study of this topic. As an additional bit of nostalgia, page 7 also had an advertisement for Richard Kingston harpsichords; at this time Richard was still in his first decade of building fine instruments in his Dallas, Texas, shop.

Front page #4: Editor Lawrence chose my “Affectionate Remembrance” of the late E. Power Biggs for the cover feature of March 1979’s journal, resplendent with a large photograph of the master organist and his pedal harpsichord. I just happened to be at harpsichord maker John Challis’s home one afternoon during the 1960 American Guild of Organists national convention in Detroit. I was playing some Bach on Challis’s prototype pedal harpsichord when EPB arrived to try the instrument. Removing his shoes, he sat down to try it. The result, of course, became harpsichord history: Biggs ordered one on the spot and subsequently recorded several discs, ranging from popular musical favorites such as Saint-Saens’ The Swan to a full set of all six Bach trio sonatas on the newly acquired instrument.

Front page #5: In July 1979 there was much international celebration of Wanda Landowska’s centenary. Editor Arthur Lawrence agreed that we should join that observance, and that we needed to contact Landowska’s longtime companion and current resident of the pioneering harpsichordist’s last home in Lakeville, Connecticut, to ascertain if she might write a feature article for us. Denise Restout responded favorably, but informed us that she would need to be reimbursed for such a task. Since no contributors to The Diapason were paid at that point in its history, Arthur and I each contributed her fee from our own funds, and the magazine was well served! Ms. Restout not only provided the feature article for the front page (continued on pages 12–15), but she insisted, since she did not trust a young Pleyel harpsichord owner in Texas to write a proper description of such an instrument, that she herself should write that short but necessary article as well (pages 16–17).

Other featured articles included “Reminiscences of St. Leu” by Momo Aldrich, Landowska’s first private secretary, whom I met and interviewed extensively during many annual winter trips to visit her in Honolulu, where she had settled to be close to her daughter and grandchildren (pages 3 and 8). I contributed an extensive article about the two Landowska-inspired harpsichord concerti by Falla and Poulenc (pages 9–11) and the introduction on page 2 (“Happy Birthday, Wanda”). The result: Landowska was celebrated on thirteen of the twenty-four pages in our July publication.

Front page #6: Well, half a front page, actually. My report, “The Harpsichord at the Boston Early Music Festival and Exhibition,” shared the front page for August 1981 with Editor Arthur Lawrence’s report on the Montreal Organ Conference, “L’Orgue à notre époque.” And he had an organ photo! My report managed to display some harpsichord soundboard rosettes, reprinted by permission from the festival program book, as well as portraits of the two outstanding harpsichord recitalists on page 3: John Gibbons and Ralph Kirkpatrick.

Front page #7: A true festschrift to celebrate the seventieth birthday of master harpsichord builder William Dowd appeared in February 1992. By this time The Diapason sported actual front covers, which in this case featured a montage of four Dowd harpsichords (German, French, and Franco-Flemish doubles and a French single), with the builder’s King David and his harp logo in the middle of the very attractive layout approved by Editor Jerome Butera.

The idea for the celebratory edition was suggested by Dowd’s wife Pegram (Peggy) in conversation with me at a Southeastern Historical Keyboard Society (SEHKS) conference. She was a great help with contacts to the contributors, and together we assembled vignettes from fellow Coast Guard serviceman Fenner Douglass (who after World War II service became a much sought-after Oberlin Conservatory organ professor, and later, at Duke University), Dowd owners Albert Fuller, Frederick Hyde, David Fuller, Miles Morgan, Robin Anderson, Dowd shop foreman and distinguished jazz harpsichordist Donald Angle, soundboard painter Sheridan Germann, John Fesperman of the Smithsonian Institution, William Christie (who, having moved to France to “restore French Baroque opera to the French,” provided me with my first fax experience), Arthur Haas, Dirk Flentrop, Thomas and Barbara Wolf, Glenn Spring, and Gustav Leonhardt. A specially made caricature was created by Jane Johnson.

All these varied glimpses into Dowd’s life and legacy are fascinating, and they comprise a major contribution to the modern history of the American (and Parisian) development of harpsichords based on historic models. The last two, however, provide unique offerings: from composer Glenn Spring, a complete score of his winning Aliénor competition composition from 1990—William Dowd: His Bleu, the full score of which is included (centerfold, full size, four pages), referencing Dowd and Angle’s improvisations in the Cambridge shop as well as the color of the new Dowd at Walla Walla College where the composer was teaching at the time. It was a first for the harpsichord submissions to the magazine, but one that has been followed by at least one more harpsichord piece (Mulet’s Petite Lied).

All these tributes required ten pages, with another published a year later (February 1993) when the honoree contributed his one-page response, which the magazine graced with a second Jane Johnson caricature plus three photos of the honoree.

To end on a very high note, here is a sample of Gustav Leonhardt’s tribute:

Dowland and Purcell choosing their texts with William Dowd in mind

O how happy’s he, who from bus’ness free

Music for a while (Yes, a very good while,—since 1949)

While bolts and bars my days control[ed]  (The last two letters added by the editor make comment superfluous)

From silent night (Only since acquiring a telephone answering machine)

If my complaints could passions move (Deliver them at No. 100) . . .

If music be the food of love (Eat on) . . .

Flow my tears (For good humidification)

Lachrimae (The same, for another kind of customer) . . . .

For the rest of the text, consult page 20, The Diapason, February 1992, available at www.thediapason.com.

Editor’s note: all of the issues mentioned in Dr. Palmer’s column are available at our website, www.thediapason.com. Near the top left of the home page, click on “Magazine.” Under “Magazine Archive” on the next page, type the year desired and click “Apply.” The available months of that year’s issues will then appear. Click on the desired issue, and on the following page, click on PDF.

A fascinating book by Beverly Jerold, Music Performance Issues: 1600–1900

Readers of The Diapason’s July 2018 issue most likely remember Beverly Jerold’s article about two eighteenth-century concerts of Handel’s music as reviewed by the Berlin Court Kapellmeister Johann Friedrich Reichardt, who attended the programs during his 1785 visit to London. Ms. Jerold has spent much of her life researching for period information about musical performances as reported by the persons who experienced them. One could see in the stunning color headshot of this intrepid author that she has a firm chin and twinkling eyes, ever on the lookout for authentic information about the topic that she is researching. These period verifications serve as guides for those who seek stylistic authenticity in their own present-day performances.

From the many varied essays that Jerold has published in a wide range of journals she has selected nineteen articles for her book Music Performance Issues: 1600–1900, issued in 2016 by Pendragon Press, Hillsdale, New York, as a paperback edition comprising 359 pages of useful knowledge (ISBN 978-1-57647-175-0, list price: $65, available from www.pendragonpress.com).

I would enjoy sharing many of her remarkable discoveries and observations with you, but it would be unfair for me to present you with Jerold’s discoveries, and it might rob you, the readers, of the surprises that you may have when you read the book for yourselves. I do encourage you to access the volume and to enjoy Jerold’s findings, offered with the utmost clarity and complete references to her sources. To whet your curiosities, here are the titles of the book’s chapters:

• Dilettante and Amateur: Our Evolving Language

• Bach’s Lament about Leipzig’s Professional Instrumentalists

• Choral Singing Before the Era of Recordings

• Why Most a cappella Music Could Not Have Been Sung Unaccompanied

• Fasch and the Beginning of Modern Artistic Choral Singing

• What Handel’s Casting Reveals About Singers of the Time

• Intonation Standards and Equal Temperament

• Eighteenth-Century Stringed Keyboard Instruments from a Performance Perspective [LP: You may be surprised about the clavichord!]

• The Tromba and Corno in Bach’s Time

• Maelzel’s Role in Beethoven’s Symphonic Metronome Marks

• The French Time Devices Revisited

• The Notable Significance of Common Time and Cut Time in Bach’s Era

• Numbers and Tempo: 1630–1800

• Overdotting in Handel’s Overtures Reconsidered

• Notes inégales: A Definitive New Parameter

• Distinguishing Between Artificial and Natural Vibrato in Premodern Music

• A Solution for Simple (secco) Theater Recitative

• How Composers Viewed Performers’ Additions

• The Varied Reprise in Eighteenth-Century Instrumental Music—A Reappraisal

Telemann Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord

Totally unfamiliar music by the most prolific baroque composer Georg Friedrich Telemann (1681–1767) fills a recent compact disc featuring violinist Dorian Komanoff Bandy and harpsichordist Paul Cienniwa (Whaling City Sound, WCS 108). Originally published in Frankfort-am-Main in 1715, these six four-movement works, each comprising alternating slow-fast-slow-fast movements, were composed with the burgeoning amateur house music musician in mind. A seventh sonata of similar style and length that has survived only in the composer’s manuscript preserved in the Dresden State Library receives its world premiere recording to fill out the program.

In disc and numerical order the sonatas are in G Minor, D Major, B Minor, G Major, A Minor, and A Major; the extra seventh sonata is in F-sharp Minor. Each composition bears the TWV (Telemann Werke Verzeichnis [“work catalogue”]) number 41, followed by an indication of its individual key (in German style: g, D, h, G, a. A, fis).

I had met the harpsichordist during a long-ago Boston Early Music Festival visit. He has recently relocated to the warmer climes of Florida where (now Dr.) Paul Cienniwa is music director of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Delray. Thus it was not difficult to locate an email address for this fine artist. I especially wanted to learn who had built the harpsichord used for this recording and to ascertain whether the works were being played from a realized score or from the more probable two-line original engraving. It turned out to be the latter, which made my admiration for such beautiful collaborative musicianship ascend even several units higher. Especially an elegant solo harpsichord introduction to the “Cantabile” of the B-minor Sonata had moved me deeply, and I appreciate the sensitive musical realization of the figured bass throughout. It also pleased me that Cienniwa lists among his musical mentors Jerome Butera, a longtime editor of The Diapason and currently the magazine’s sales director. (File that in your “Small World” folder, please.)

The fine-sounding instrument, it turned out, is a single-manual 2 x 8 example inspired by the unique 1681 Vaudry harpsichord (an instrument that our readers encountered briefly last month through the illustration for Jane Clark’s article on François Couperin). It was built in 2008 by Kevin Spindler. For those who might wish to acquire this music, violinist Bandy suggests IMSLP for downloading (https://imslp.org), or, even better, a facsimile of the 1715 edition published by Anne Fuzeau Productions (http://www.editions-classique.com/en/index.php). With such a fine example of the collaborative harpsichord line for consultation, one might not be so reluctant to realize that figured bass.

Christmas gifts:
a few suggestions

Writing this column in mid-October means that I have not given much thought to Christmas shopping. Instead I have spent most working hours planning programs (and then practicing) for the second in our annual schedule of three house concerts, enjoyed the opening nights of Dallas Opera’s fall season by attending Wagner’s Flying Dutchman and Bizet’s Carmen, and preparing for the first-ever wedding to take place in our spacious music room. (After all, with a pipe organ and seating for forty guests, why not?)

However, now as you read these December Harpsichord Notes, I hope they may contain some suggestions that could be of help for all who have yet to make gift selections. So, tally-ho and read on!

• Eagle-eyed subscribers to The Diapason will have seen the notice of J. William Greene’s new compact disc Christmas Ayres and Dances in the Here & There section (page 12) of our October magazine. The disc (Pro Organo CD 7281) comprises Greene’s performances of his genial compositions played on a Gerrit Klop continuo organ and a single-manual harpsichord by Peter Fisk. The clever Baroque-style arrangements of familiar carols and secular songs of the season are sure to delight the ears of music-loving friends. Among my personal favorites is Greene’s Bell Fugue (based on Jingle Bells), sure to be a hit. For colleagues who are fellow keyboardists, why not purchase not only the compact disc, but also the printed scores for these captivating arrangements? All three volumes are available from Concordia Publishing House. Bell Fugue is the final piece in Volume II.

• An earlier publication by Edwin McLean (born 1951) bears the title A Baroque Christmas—Carols and Counterpoint for Keyboard (New Interpretations of traditional seasonal pieces for piano, organ, or harpsichord), issued in 2003 by Frank J. Hackinson (FJH Publishing Company), Fort Lauderdale, Florida. With works somewhat easier than Greene’s compositions, McLean offers a single forty-page volume of charming and useful pieces equally suited for all the instruments mentioned in his introduction, including digital keyboards. Eleven tunes are set: Noël Nouvelet, God Rest You Merry, Greensleeves, Coventry Carol, Kings of Orient, Pat-A-Pan, In dulci jubilo, Veni Emmanuel, Tempus Adest Floridum, Stille Nacht, and Adeste Fideles. I have used most of these for church and concerts and continue to enjoy them very much.

• Now for something completely different: author Mark Schweizer has made a slight deviation from the fourteen murder mysteries that began with The Alto Wore Tweed and progressed through the various vocal ranges (The Tenor Wore Tapshoes, The Diva Wore Diamonds, The Organist Wore Pumps, etc.), a series of novels that has captivated so many of us.  A fifteenth story, also set in St. Germaine (Schweizer’s fictitious small town in North Carolina), is replete with the familiar cast of characters headed by Hayden Konig, police chief and organist/choirmaster extraordinaire of St. Barnabas Episcopal Church. But in the shorter novella titled simply The Christmas Cantata the author deviates slightly from the others in his series. It is available in the original paperback format (95 pages) or as a more recent hardback edition, both of which present exactly the same text, but the second edition is in a slightly smaller book format that requires 128 pages—more elegant and better, perhaps, for stocking stuffing. ’Tis a gentle tale, still filled with hilarious episodes, musical references, and sly liturgical guffaws: available from St. James Music Press (SJMP Books). You may wish to include a special handkerchief in that stocking, for the denouement is beautifully touching and may bring tears to the eyes. Also, a warning: this author’s mysteries are habit forming; I sincerely doubt that anyone can read just one! In a surprise email, received as I write this essay, Schweizer announced the fifteenth, and final, St. Germaine mystery: The Choirmaster Wore Out. Definitely a brand-new entry for acquiring and giving away!

• Thanks to my mother I began listening to operas at a tender age. Each Saturday afternoon in fall and winter, beginning when I was nine years old, my ears would be focused on our radio speaker as Mom and I listened to the New York Metropolitan Opera broadcasts in our small town of Corsica, Pennsylvania. I am grateful for this background as well as for my grade- and high-school experiences as a wind player, especially the ones after I began to play oboe. That, plus the choral directing experiences that were part and parcel of my graduate work and early professional engagements taught me a great deal about phrasing and making the music “breathe” in natural ways. I firmly believe that every keyboardist needs this type of training to become a better musician. Later these experiences engendered many a humorous moment in organ or harpsichord lessons when I would stop a student to suggest some necessary phrasing here or there, and often end with the comment, “I still can’t believe that you pay all this tuition for me to remind you to breathe and count!”

As an aid to the development of vocally informed musicality I would suggest as a Christmas gift, both to “self” and “others”—and a most unusual one, at that: ARC, which is the title of the Decca Records debut CD performed by countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo. This artist (who has been selected as “Vocalist of the Year” by Musical America) has put together a program that demonstrates his self-admitted 50% love of Baroque music and 50% devotion to contemporary works. On this magnificent disc Costanzo performs works by Philip Glass and George Frideric Handel. This modern mastersinger of both styles convinced me of the beauty to be found in each, and I have listened repeatedly, enraptured by his musicality. Costanzo made his Dallas Opera debut on October 30, 2015, in the world premiere of Jake Heggie and Terrence McNally’s opera Great Scott. Since that magical evening I have been following Costanzo’s brilliant career. His artistry, both as singer and actor, earns him my highest recommendation and admiration.

• Another Handelian who could bring tears to the eyes with her exquisite vocalism was the mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, who began a musical career as violist, but soon was discovered to have one of the great female voices of the twentieth century. Sample her exquisite singing on the Avie CD 30, released in 2002—only four years before her untimely death at age 52. Lieberson is ably abetted by the Baroque specialist, conductor, and harpsichordist Harry Bicket, playing an Italianate single-manual harpsichord by Douglas Maple (after Zenti). This recording is another musical experience that just might be life changing.

• August 16, 2019, will be the sixtieth anniversary of Wanda Landowska’s death. The “mother of us all,” this pioneering harpsichordist still resonates through her recordings and through the memoirs contributed by her devoted friends (and occasional detractors). I was incredibly fortunate to have known Mrs. Putnam Aldrich, known universally as “Momo,” Landowska’s first private secretary during the years they spent together at Wanda’s “Temple of Music” in Saint-Leu-la-Forêt, France. I became acquainted with Momo through our mutual friend Richard Kurth, a fellow Ohioan who has spent most of his career teaching French and Spanish at the Kamehameha School in Honolulu. Richard, who drove Momo to the local Alliance Française meetings, actually accomplished our mutual introductions, and thus resulted my invitation for Momo to tell her account of those years for The Diapason. For many subsequent winters I spent my Christmas holidays visiting Richard and Momo in Hawaii (a tough choice, but someone needed to do it), interviewing Mrs. Aldrich year after year and taking notes that eventually found their way into Harpsichord in America: a Twentieth-Century Revival.

It was during one of these remarkable meetings that I, quite brazenly, asked Momo who might inherit a caricature of Wanda that was prominently displayed in each of Momo’s dwellings (she changed addresses several times during these years). That query remained unanswered until the last day of that year’s Honolulu sojourn when Momo handed me a wrapped package, approximately eight and a half inches by six and a half inches. I knew without looking what was enclosed in that brown paper, and I said, “You must keep this! I know what it means to you.” But Momo insisted, and, I confess, I did not argue with her for very long. The caricature, an unsigned watercolor, is widely considered to be the finest of all such drawings, especially in its perfect details.

When I arrived home in Dallas I immediately had some photographs made, and sent them to Momo so she would not be without that beautiful image. Eventually I loaned a professional high-decibel print of “my” Wanda portrait to Martin Elste for his 2009 Berlin Landowska Symposium and Exhibition, and it served as the signature work of that event. It also is published in Dr. Elste’s magnificent book Die Dame mit dem Cembalo [The Lady with the Harpsichord] (Schott Music, 2010, Order Number ED 20853; ISBN 978-3-7957-0710-1). The full-color print of the caricature may be found on page 98. The book’s text is entirely in German except for the four pages from the memoirs of American harpsichordist Irma Rogell: “Walks with Wanda,” on pages 146–150. Even if one is not fluent in German the comprehensive range of Elste’s illustrations (many of which are photographs that he travelled far and wide to make) places this deluxe 240-page volume at the top of the list as the most comprehensive pictorial history of our beloved “Mamusia.”

• I was tremendously moved by Martin Pearlman’s generosity with his Armand-Louis Couperin Edition, made available for all of us to download and print, free of any copyright restrictions. In a recent email Martin included a shorter URL for accessing his gift: http://tinyurl.com/ALCouperin. I pass it on to our readers as per Martin’s suggestion, and wish you, once again, a happy downloading experience.

It is with a small, Pearlman-inspired gesture that I offer my Christmas gift to our readers: free use of my Landowska caricature. Like Martin, I urge you to use it wherever and whenever you wish, copyright free. And, I would ask only that you use the credit “Larry Palmer collection, gift of Momo Aldrich.”

• As my final Christmas suggestion: if you have a friend or acquaintance who does not subscribe to The Diapason, why not present that lucky person with a year’s subscription to this journal? It would benefit your friends and help to ensure that the magazine continues in its beautiful, full-color format for many years to come. What could be nicer? And twelve times a year you make your friend(s) happy­—and perhaps more involved in your musical world.

Mabel Zehner (photo credit: Ashland University Archives, Ashland, Ohio)

Giving thanks from A to Z, part 2: Moving to Dallas (1970)

During late spring of 1970 I was invited to present my Hugo Distler lecture and a masterclass on his organ music at the University of  Michigan, Ann Arbor. In conversations with the school’s late iconic organ professor Marilyn Mason she tried to dissuade me from accepting the offer from the Meadows School of the Arts of  Southern Methodist University to join its faculty to continue the harpsichord studio begun there by James Tallis who had passed away after only one year at the Dallas school. She warned me that I would be quite unhappy working with the head of the organ department, Robert Anderson, especially since I had been so independent and successful in Norfolk. In reality she was attempting to keep the Dallas position available for her student Allen Shaffer (a talented and delightful person whom I had known when he was studying at Oberlin). However, having worked with several difficult colleagues previously I strode forth into the fray and accepted the Dallas position even though it meant a demotion from my Norfolk full professorship and a huge reduction in salary. As it turned out Allen did extremely well by filling my Norfolk position, where he had fine success and succeeded Grover Oberle as the musician for Christ & St. Luke’s Episcopal Church—a plum position.

I did not have the difficult time with Robert Anderson that Mason had envisioned. We had a mutual respect for each other, and my forty-five years on the faculty of the Meadows School were mostly happy ones (and I did regain that full professorship and tenure, too). Among the early successes in Dallas were the interactions with the soon-to-be stellar harpsichord builder Richard Kingston. I introduced him to my beautiful two-manual harpsichord, commissioned from William Dowd in 1968 and delivered shortly after the dawn of 1969; it was Bill’s penultimate instrument to have foot pedals for changing the stops. This harpsichord served as a major influence for Richard’s instruments. He also benefited from several of the many harpsichord students that swarmed to SMU in those early years, several of whom took part-time jobs at Richard’s Dallas shop. We all benefitted from the generous leadership of the music department head Eugene Bonelli, who was promoted to dean of the Meadows School and somewhat later became CEO of the Dallas Symphony, which also benefitted from his leadership, as did the Dallas organ community, for it was under his guidance that the Meyerson Symphony Center acquired its C. B. Fisk, Inc., organ, Opus 100, and SMU its concert hall organ, Fisk Opus 101, as well as a Dowd double (complete with a Sheridan German soundboard painting) for the harpsichord studio! Guest artists of harpsichord renown included Isolde Ahlgrimm (who taught the harpsichord students during my first sabbatical leave in which I gathered much of the material for my second book, Harpsichord in America—suffering terribly during many visits to Honolulu for multiple  interviews with Momo Aldrich (Wanda Landowska’s first private secretary)—a generous and gracious person who was most worthy of the book’s dedication to her. Another important person who aided the book project was my longtime “older brother that I never had,” Richard Kurth, whom I first met during my father’s ministry in Neffs, Ohio, while we were both still in college. Richard’s career as a language teacher has been spent primarily at the Kamehameha School in Hawaii, and he was always a gracious and most helpful host during my working visits.

Not to be forgotten is the support that Dean Bonelli gave to the harpsichord curriculum through his support for the annual summer workshops that took place at Fort Burgwin, SMU’s New Mexico campus retreat near Ranchos de Taos. Helpful guest faculty members from California included: Neal Roberts and Tony Brazier; from London, Jane Clark and Stephen Dodgson; and closer to home, Susan Ferré and her husband Charles Lang, plus many others. It was during one of these early retreats that I met Dr. Charles Mize, who, with his wife Susan, had a delightful and welcoming summer home in Santa Fe, where they often provided post- or pre-workshop hospitality and other forms of support, as well as generously supporting many other harpsichord-related endeavors. To this list I must add my late partner Clyde Putman, who delivered many harpsichords to New Mexico, tuned them repeatedly as they adapted to the higher altitude, and brought them safely back home to Dallas. Without him I could not have organized and survived these intense (but glorious) summer retreats.

Among the many highlights of these forty-five years was that I gave an SMU faculty recital each fall, usually on the first Monday after Labor Day (an SMU record, I believe)—most often presenting works for both harpsichord and organ. Even more memorable, however, were the Dallas visits by Gustav Leonhardt, with whom I had studied during two of the summer academies that took place in Haarlem, the Netherlands. During the second of these summer events I found lodging in nearby Amsterdam and made the daily trip to Haarlem and back by train. Since it was my second workshop with the maestro we were on quite friendly terms, and would often meet at the train station to travel together to the daily masterclasses.

Having already introduced the Dallas arts community to the marvelous playing of Isolde Ahlgrimm, it was my great pleasure while I was dean of the Dallas Chapter of the American Guild of Organists to engineer a harpsichord recital as part of the chapter’s annual recital series. Leonhardt was the first, and he was my houseguest during several of his visits to “Big D.” Among the many memories from these visits were the rather erotic actions of my female dog Hunda Maris, who welcomed the great artist by trying to hump his leg. A second memory of that first attempt at hospitality came in the form of the thank you note in which “Utti” (as he was known to his close friends) displayed the sharp wit for which he was well known; the missive read, “Thank you for Kirkman and Breakfast,” referring to the fact that his bed was constructed above the 1797 Kirkman fortepiano that was stored in a wooden case below.

Leonhardt’s visit to SMU occurred in the form of a recital and masterclass during the festivities when SMU bestowed on him his first honorary doctorate. As part of my twelve years on the SMU faculty senate I had the opportunity to suggest that GL was a most worthy recipient. The senators and university president agreed, so one of the proudest moments of my life was reading the citation that I had written for the bestowal of the honor at Commencement. And thus it was that Leonhardt henceforward always addressed his missives to his “Doktor-Vater,” perhaps the first time in history that a student was father to the teacher?

Another exceptional artist who graced the AGO concert series was Don Angle, a graduate of Berklee College of Music in Boston and a valued coworker in the shop of William Dowd. In my opinion Don was master of the best harpsichord technique of any American player, and his dexterity, largely in his performances of jazz and very audience-friendly repertoire, was absolutely mesmerizing in its ease and beauty. It was another honor to house such a fine artist as a houseguest on Cromwell Drive. Both Angle and Leonhardt are no longer with us in person, but each has left an unforgettable legacy in their recordings and the ease with which they presented great music each time they were seated at the keyboards.

Graphic artists also have influenced my life, and especially important for my submissions to The Diapason, were the caricatures created so expertly by Jane Johnson. Who could forget her illustrations for “A Letter from J. S. Bach,” or her drawings of Mozart, Purcell, the Harpsichord Murder Mystery Reviews, and even her affectionate drawing “Fast Fingers,” which accompanied several of my columns, as well as providing the graphic for my note pads? I miss her nearly every month when I attempt to find just the right illustration for my submission. She, too, has passed away, but is lovingly remembered, and sorely missed.

Another group of import must be “my” composers. Among the living I especially prize Gerald Near who composed both his impressive Concerto for Harpsichord and Orchestra and his equally lovely Triptych for Harpsichord for me. The Concerto filled a need for such a work to be featured at an AGO national gathering in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Gerald conducted the premiere in the Minneapolis Orchestra Hall, and the necessity was that it had to be for an instrument other than organ, since that hall did not have a “king of instruments.” He also conducted that first performance heard by 1,600 auditors. I have never before or since felt so loved by an audience that applauded for such an extended ovation. Many of the listeners commented that it was the best of the new works at that AGO event. And, to my knowledge, it was not performed again until SMU’s magnificent student orchestra under the direction of Maestro Paul Phillips (who was a freshman clarinet major at SMU when I arrived there) gave an even better performance of this major addition to the repertoire. Equally composed for a concert celebrating an art exhibition, the Triptych has been an audience favorite during many concerts. When I decided to move the aforementioned summer harpsichord workshops to venues other than the New Mexico home base, one of the places to be selected was in Alsace. The townspeople who attended the first of the concerts there requested a repetition of Near’s work at the festive reception that concluded the summer event.

Equally important are works from Glenn Spring, Rudy Davenport, Neely Bruce, Vincent Persichetti, and others. I refer you to Frances Bedford’s magnum opus Harpsichord and Clavichord Repertoire of the Twentieth Century (page 597).

So, if I do not draw this article to a close it will be next year before we know it! So many influential persons to mention, such as Ivar Lunde (who edited and published Letters from Salzburg when Indiana University Press sent it back to me with the note, “We do not publish memoirs.” Ivar came to the rescue with his Skyline Publications, Eau Claire, and even provided the beautiful photo of Salzburg (where he, too, had studied) for the front cover and even, bless him, created the index, not one of my favorite tasks as I remember from the previous publications. Also, I should remember Alfred Rosenberger, whom I first met in Haarlem, who became the European “manager” who arranged many organ recital dates for me and who shared his love of Amsterdam and Dutch culture freely. Another departed figure is the fondly remembered best friend of early Dallas days, Sue Stidham, who joined forces with me to establish the Limited Editions series of house concerts that is now in its thirty-sixth year! And I should thank the magnificent organist André Marchal, blind from birth, who, during a visit to Oberlin, graciously gave me an organ lesson on early French music and who was able to criticize some of my fingerings simply by listening to the results, and who would correct those fingerings by gently placing his hands over mine. The list could go on and on.

However, I should like to end these words of gratitude with a return to my first organ teacher, Mabel Zehner. As her gift to me when I graduated from Crestline High School, she presented me with a copy of the first edition of The Bach Reader by Hans David and Arthur Mendel (W. W. Norton, 1945). I had not consulted it for many years until recently when I opened the tome to re-read what she had inscribed on the title page: “To Larry Palmer—one of the most gifted organists it has been my privilege to teach. God gave you a wonderful talent and may you use it for a lifetime of Success and Happiness.” Signed: Mabel Zehner, May 17, 1956. While I do not think I deserve her highly complimentary remarks, it reminded me of her great kindness and the joy that I felt when I could please her at my lessons. She was truly an inspiring teacher, and I am grateful that I have lived long enough to share her memory with others. As teachers and human beings it behooves all of us to reflect and give thanks for those who have guided and aided us on our career paths and who have helped us to achieve what we are able to do.

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The photograph of Mabel Zehner is provided courtesy of Ashland University Archives, Ashland, Ohio, and Archivist David Roepke (also an organist, whose mother studied with Miss Zehner). I wish also to give credit and thanks to my SMU colleague and friend Pam Pagels, Music and Arts Librarian at the Hamon Arts Library, for making the connection with Mr. Roepke.

From A to Z: Harpsichord Notes

Seated one day at the computer, I was weary and ill at ease, and my fingers wandered idly over the noisy keys . . . oops, wrong setting. Or is it? I have just been searching a list of past winners of the quarterly Global Music Awards bestowed on independent musicians who submit their recordings for judging by a California company, and I have come across the welcome information that Asako Hirabayashi, harpsichordist and composer, won a first prize medal in the year 2018.

Thus, belatedly, I wish to congratulate Asako for the recognition that has been bestowed on her for the compact disc The Harpsichord in the New Millennium (Albany: Troy 1180) that I have mentioned previously in these columns. Asako, who also won first prizes for her submissions to the Alienor Harpsichord Composition Competitions in 2004 and 2012, is a current member of the Historic Keyboard Society of North America (HKSNA), and she continues her career as a virtuoso player as well as a celebrated composer. Brava, Asako!

A duo and The Harpsichord Diaries

One of the highlights of the HKSNA meeting in Huntsville, Texas, this past May was the elegant presentation by Elaine Funaro and her husband Randall Love, “The Salon of Madame Brillon”—to my ears the most enticing of duos for harpsichord and fortepiano—a four-movement Duo in C Minor by Anne Louise Brillon de Jouy (1744–1824), a composer totally new to me. To introduce her, I quote from a brief program note, “Pupil of Schobert and friend of Boccherini, Mme. Brillon, (according to Charles Burney), one of the greatest lady-players on the harpsichord in Europe, and to this lady many of the famous composers of Italy and Germany, who have resided in France at any time, have dedicated their works.” Her music is a fascinating window into the cosmopolitan culture of pre-revolutionary France. Also of somewhat prurient interest was the declaration by the Love-Duo that the lady had also been a special friend of Ambassador Benjamin Franklin, whom she addressed as “mon cher papa!”

The finesse and delicacy of nuance displayed by Elaine at the harpsichord and Randall at the fortepiano provided some of the best music making of the entire meeting. The Love family is totally engaged in the arts, both aural and visual.

For some years now I have had the pleasure of a preview copy of the forty-four-page book, The Harpsichord Diaries: A Musical Journey, given to me by Elaine at the HKSNA conference in Montreal. Another brilliant event in Huntsville was an impromptu viewing of the video now completed to accompany this book, the purpose of which is similar to that of the recording “Said the Piano to the Harpsichord,” the first exposure to our instrument touted by so many prominent harpsichord aficionados and professionals such as master builder Richard Kingston, who claim that iconic recording as their first exposure to historic keyboards. With Haiku written by Elaine, who with her pianist husband made the compact disc that accompanies the written story, and narration by son Eric Love (a Broadway actor), plus the book’s illustrations by his twin sister Andrea Love, one may say accurately that this is a “family endeavor.”

The book itself is a musical tale about a girl named Elena who discovers a magical book in her grandmother’s attic. Transported through five centuries, Elena meets eccentric talking harpsichords that bring music and history to life. Check it out online at www.harpsichorddiaries.com, and be enchanted anew by a delightful musical and visual journey.

Twentieth-centuryharpsichord concertos

A most satisfying compact disc by the virtuoso harpsichordist Jory Vinikour is the latest offering from this artist for Cedille (CDR 90000 188, www.cedillerecords.org). Ably supported by the Chicago Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Scott Speck, at long last one can hear Ned Rorem’s Concertino da Camera. Composed in 1946, the work provides seventeen minutes of legendary status, finally receiving its world premiere recording.

I had known of this concerto, but did not expect ever to hear it. With typical Rorem finesse, and the aid of a cornet that serves as excellent melodic foil to the virtuoso keyboard writing, this work, at least from my point of view, is the best reason for purchasing this disc.

The other concerti on this bountiful disc offer the three far too brief movements of Walter Leigh’s (1905–1942) hauntingly beautiful Concertino (three British pastoral beauties by a composer who died far too soon). I have performed this work for harpsichord and strings quite a number of times, and, together with my listeners, always wanted more of this pastoral beauty.

Two more bracing bits of modernism fill out the disc: Concerto for Harpsichord and Strings, opus 42 (just slightly more than twenty-eight minutes comprise its three movements: “Allegro,” “Andante,” and “Allegro vivo”) by Victor Kalabis and the Concerto for Amplified Harpsichord and Strings by Michael Nyman (twenty-one minutes). This is not for the weak of heart, but I suspect it grows on one with repeated listenings.

Jory Vinikour, who with his duo partner Philippe LeRoy performed the stunning duo harpsichord opening concert at the Huntsville HKSNA meeting, sought suggestions from Robert Tifft, friend and colleague at Southern Methodist University, when he began selecting the works for this recording. As I have said many times, Robert is indeed the person to consult. He is not only knowledgeable but extremely generous in sharing this information—another prince among harpsichord aficionados.

One Hundred Miracles: A Memoir of Music and Survival, by Zuzana Ružicková (with Wendy Holden)

This most remarkable book from Bloomsbury Publishing (London, 2019) is the great Czech harpsichordist’s autobiography as told to British author Wendy Holden in recorded interviews, completed shortly before Ružicková’s death in 2017.

It is dedicated to Johann Sebastian Bach, to whom she devoted a significant amount of her career studying and performing. In fact, it was a small copy of one of Bach’s works that helped give her the stamina to survive three Nazi concentration camps during World War II.

With striking prose presented in chapters that are not ordered chronologically, but are arranged as a surprisingly effective back and forth narrative that begins with a 1960 post-war concert tour in Transylvania and continues with chapters about childhood and adolescent memories, these are interspersed with other chapters that detail Zuzana’s survival of her internment in three Nazi death camps, her happy marriage, and her very successful post-war life as a concert harpsichordist and teacher. Each of these units is titled simply with the name of the city, town, or other location in which the events occurred.

This memoir details a long and productive life made most meaningful by music and Zuzana’s prodigious musical abilities that included a fantastic memory for the works she performed. As I read the 327 pages of this amazing memoir, I became more and more awestricken with her incredible ability for survival, her deep love for her husband—the composer Victor Kalabis (who predeceased her in 2006)—and for her devotion to Bach’s sublime artistry as a composer.

The interviews with the Suffolk author Wendy Holden, who had previously written the book Born Survivors about three mothers and their babies who survived the Holocaust, were completed only a few days before Ružicková’s death in 2017. They are effectively utilized to tell the compelling narrative of a most important life: that of a person who realized the necessity for keeping these true events in the memories of succeeding generations to help insure that history does not repeat such horrors.

I was reminded how my driving instructor during high school days in Crestline, Ohio, shared photos that he had taken while serving in the armed forces that helped to liberate one of the German concentration camps. Even as early as 1952 there were those who insisted that the Holocaust never happened, but those of us who had seen these actual onsite photographs knew otherwise. This book should be required reading for each succeeding generation in years to come.

The organization into fourteen chapters struck me, as well, since fourteen is a symbolic Bach number. I wonder if that simply happened, or if it was another demonstration of Ružicková’s veneration for the great composer. (In case this bit of number symbolism is unfamiliar to some readers, fourteen is the sum of the alphabetical placement of the letters B-A-C-H
(2 + 1 + 3 + 8); once one begins to comprehend Bach’s love of numbers and clever hidden riddles, it becomes rather evident that he often incorporates his name in measures that are strategically placed in measure fourteen, or after fourteen notes, etc. And, of course, there is his musical signature: B-flat [the German B], A, C, and the H which is B-natural in German musical notation).

I recommend One Hundred Miracles as a book you will find difficult to put down once you have begun to read it; and I believe it might cancel any doubt about the importance of Ružicková and guarantee her a spot among the other great female players of the twentieth century. I do have one caution about the claim that she was the first to record the entire keyboard literature of her favorite composer. Isolde Ahlgrimm recorded thirty volumes for Philips of the Netherlands quite a few years before the Czech artist, and Ralph Kirkpatrick also made a number of German recordings earlier as well.

I checked these facts with Robert Tifft, who suggested that when a documentary was made about Ružicková the producers made the “first recording” claim so often that it is now considered to be a fact. He also agreed with me that, while she was definitely one of the earliest (and while she may have recorded a few obscure pieces that were not in other artists’ repertoire), she was definitely not the very first. However she belongs, without a doubt, among that revered group that includes the remarkable female players Wanda Landowska and Ahlgrimm—and neither one of them left us a written memoir of such brilliance and intensity!

2019 East Texas Pipe Organ Festival features a harpsichordist

The genial genius who founded and organizes the annual East Texas Pipe Organ Festival in Kilgore, Texas, engaged a brilliant young artist to present a recital on Wednesday, November 13, as the first music on what happened to be my birthday. John Walthausen, a name new to me, opened the musical festivities of this mid-festival day with a splendid recital, the first half of which was played on my 1987 Willard Martin Saxon double instrument. When Lorenz Maycher telephoned to ask if I knew of an available German-style instrument I responded, “Yes, I was intimately familiar with an owner, and, yes, I would be happy to loan it to the festival for the recital.” Since a tornado had rocked the part of Dallas in which I live several weeks earlier causing immense damages tallied in the millions of dollars—including some lesser but still dramatic ones to my house—I had not intended to travel in November, but the harpsichord addition to the program as well as a Harold Lloyd silent movie to end that Wednesday schedule roused my interest, and I had decided, with the transportation help of a kind neighbor, to spend that one day in the organ capital of East Texas.

It was a pleasure to hear such a well-chosen program that the artist began by playing a magnificent rendition of J. S. Bach’s Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue in D Minor. It was a performance that I believe might have been greeted with favor by Isolde Ahlgrimm (what higher praise could I offer?). Following that work with Polonaise in C Minor by Wilhelm Friedemann Bach and two sonatas in D major by Domenico Scarlatti (K. 490, Cantabile, and K. 119, Allegro)—with superb control of the fiendishly difficult cross-hand top-of-the-keyboard notes—made for an exciting and jubilant conclusion to the first half of the concert.

Equally masterful was the ensuing organ half of the program, played on Roy Perry’s own instrument, Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company Opus 1173. It was thoughtful programming to follow the all-Baroque first half with an all-Romantic second half: Prelude and Fugue in G Minor by Brahms, two of the Sketches for the Pedal-Piano, opus 58, by Schumann, and a completely masterful rendition of Liszt’s magnum opus, Variations on Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen Zagen.

I was especially delighted to learn that the New York-born Walthausen was a fellow Oberlin alumnus (2011, only fifty-one years after I graduated) who furthered his education at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris, studying organ with Olivier Latry and Michel Bouvard, following that with a master’s degree in historical performance from the Schola Cantorum of Basel, Switzerland, where he studied harpsichord with Jörg-Andreas Bötticher and organ with Lorenzo Ghielmi. An amazingly widespread series of concerts performed all over the world followed for Walthausen, including a year in Japan as organist in residence at the Sapporo Concert Hall in Hokkaido. He is currently organist and choirmaster of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Glenmoore, Pennsylvania. I, for one, look forward immensely to hearing this young artist again—and soon.

John’s inclusion of Friedemann Bach’s composition encouraged me to play through the complete set of twelve such pieces (found in my music library in six folios published as part of the Hausmusik series of the Oesterreichischer Bundesverlag Wien, on paper now as old as I am it seems, and equally crumbling, perhaps). Among these, several seem more suited to the fortepiano, but a goodly number of the earlier and shorter pieces sound wonderful on the harpsichord, and I encourage their inclusion in future recitals, both by John and the rest of us in the harpsichord community.

2019 Harpsichord Notes: topics and page numbers

January, page 8: Harpsichord Notes in The Diapason: A bit of history

February, pages 12–13: Jane Clark: “D’un goût nouveau:” The influence of Evaristo Gherardi’s Théâtre Italien in Francois Couperin’s Pièces de Clavecin

March, page 11: A fascinating book by Beverly Jerold, Music Performance Issues 1600–1800

April, pages 12–13: The Diapason Harpsichord columns in history part 2: front-page features

May, page 11: CD review of Le Clavecin Mythologique; A major instrument collection (Hatchlands, Surrey, UK) and Claire Hammett

June, page 11: The Cambridge Companion to the Harpsichord; Replica of George Washington’s harpsichord returns its sounds to Mount Vernon

July, page 11: Scarlatti’s Cat in London, Vienna, and Texas

August, page 11: From A to Z Harpsichord Notes: A duo and The Harpsichord Diaries; Twentieth-century harpsichord concertos; One Hundred Miracles by Zuzana Ru˚žicˇková (with Wendy Holden)

September, page 11: Program planning

October, page 13: Celebrating Herbert Howells

November, pages 12–13: Giving thanks from A to Z, part 1

December, page 11: Giving thanks from A to Z, part 2.

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As we begin another year I have several questions for our readers. 1) Have any of you played one or more of the Friedemann Bach polonaises? 2) Does anyone know of a pedal harpsichord for sale (a separate unit with an organ-like pedalboard that is placed beneath the regular harpsichord comprising one or two manuals—the pedal unit consisting of independent registers? John Challis built several of these, most famously one for E. Power Biggs, and I am seeking such an instrument for a current student of mine). Meanwhile, best wishes for an exciting 2020 and the many musical adventures that surely lie before us during the coming months.