Harpsichord Notes

Larry Palmer

Notes in The Diapason: a bit of history

Siegfried Gruenstein, the founding editor of The Diapason, served for forty-eight years. The front-page tribute to him in the December 1959 issue celebrating the magazine’s fiftieth anniversary began with these descriptive words:

. . . a rare combination of competent organist and professional newspaper man, (Gruenstein) founded The Diapason in 1909 against the advice of his elders among organists, builders, and well-wishers. That it grew and prospered steadily under his guidance was due wholly to his skill, his impartiality, his integrity and his taste. . . .  At first the principal purpose of the magazine was to represent the organ industry. However, it soon became evident that the organist and the organbuilder were so closely allied in their interests that the field should include both of them and that the paper would serve to bring the two more closely together.

In those early years the magazine expanded its focus in several directions, serving for a time as the official journal of the American Guild of Organists, for example. However, it was not until Frank Cunkle, Gruenstein’s successor, took over the supervision of the magazine that the organ’s sister instrument, the harpsichord, was welcomed into its pages. The first person to take charge of harpsichord matters was Philip Treggor (1920–2004) of Hartford, Connecticut, who published his first column in October 1967 (page 11). November’s column (page 13) featured the lute while a feature article by E. Power Biggs occupied the opposite page with his “Case for the Pedal Harpsichord.” Treggor’s three columns of interviews with Denise Restout, Wanda Landowska’s companion and legatee, presented valuable information about the pioneer harpsichordist’s biography and legacy (1968: March page 15, April page 23, May pages 14–15).

I had made my Diapason print debut five years earlier, in November 1962, when the magazine published the feature article “Hugo Distler—20 Years Later” based on research I was doing for my Doctor of Musical Arts thesis that I was busily writing while a student at the Eastman School of Music. My first guest contribution to Treggor’s column, published in June 1968, was “Isolde Ahlgrimm as the Widow Bach” (page 15), followed in October of the same year with my report on the second Bruges International Harpsichord Competition (pages 10–11). Meanwhile, in July 1968, Treggor’s column featured an interview with Boston-based composer Daniel Pinkham (page 8).

Treggor wrote an informative column about Arnold Dolmetsch’s collaborations with the Chickering Piano Company as they produced harpsichords and other early musical instruments (November 1968, page 12, with continuation in the December issue, pages 10–11), which proved to be his swansong, for he resigned from harpsichord column responsibilities at the beginning of January 1969.

During 1969 harpsichord news items were solicited from our readers, who were instructed to send them to the editorial staff of The Diapason. In May I submitted another feature article about Hugo Distler’s Harpsichord Concerto (pages 12–13), and in September 1969 an announcement and my picture appeared on page 25, with the information that, from henceforth, I would be “the man in charge of harpsichord items.” The following month my first column as harpsichord editor was published: “Praeludium, Allemande, and Courant: Some Notes on a European Summer” (page 12), and in December 1969 I relayed some corrections concerning the Huguenots and the city of Erlangen, as sent to me by Dr. Lowell G. Green of Boone, North Carolina, a reader who knew far more about such matters than I did. I was pleased to publish his corrections since that is how knowledge is disseminated.

So, depending on when one begins counting the years, I am either celebrating my fiftieth anniversary year as harpsichord editor or the fifty-seventh year since my first publication as a writer for this splendid magazine, which I have served by working with every editor except the founder, happy to have lasted even longer than Mr. Gruenstein, albeit with far fewer responsibilities. It will be my pleasure during 2019 to revisit some favorite pieces from this more-than-half-century collection of articles, as well as editing several guest essays, and, hopefully, sharing a few more original thoughts of my own.

2018 Harpsichord Notes: topics and page numbers

January, page 10: A posthumous gift from Gustav Leonhardt (Bach transcriptions published by Bärenreiter)

February, page 11: The Art of the Harpsichord (Two Texas Treasures: three-manual harpsichord by Keith Hill and Philip Tyre, miniature by Art Bell)

March, page 12: Handel with care (performance suggestions, recommended books, Handel House Museum, London)

April, page 10: Harpsichordist Jane Clark’s birthday

May, page 11: Seeking Haydn (new compact disc reviewed, some relevant research noted)

June, page 12: Dandrieu’s Harpsichord Music

July, pages 10–11: A glimpse into actual eighteenth-century performance practices (Beverly Jerold’s article, “Reichardt’s Review of Handel Concerts in London”)

August, page 10: Death and taxis in Vienna (Obituary of Gordon Murray), Review of Bach Violin/Harpsichord Sonatas CD (Pine and Vinikour), Communications from Readers

September, page 12: Armand-Louis Couperin Keyboard Works, edited by Martin Pearlman available for free download

October, page 14: A letter from Johann Sebastian Bach with two illustrations by Jane Johnson

November, page 16: Recent recordings of Bach’s Goldberg Variations by Diego Ares, Wolfgang Rübsam, and Helmut Walcha (from a boxed set)

December, page 11: Christmas gifts: a few suggestions (CDs, scores, books, and an anonymous Landowska caricature)

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

Larry Palmer

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.

§

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.

Larry Palmer

Discovering Spring this summer

In his own words: composer Glenn Spring

As a young boy in the late 1940s I attended a piano recital at the studio of Q’Zella Oliver Jeffus in Fort Worth, Texas. Her studio featured shiny black side-by-side Mason & Hamlin grand pianos, but people could not help noticing a smaller instrument off to one side, one that they did not recognize. In response to questions, Jeffus gave a brief introduction to the harpsichord and an impromptu performance of Mozart’s Alla Turca. It was many years before I learned that “Turca” was a staple of harpsichord recitals at the time, and even longer before I found out that Q’Zella’s instrument was a recent acquisition built by the noted instrument maker John Challis.

Years later, as a young man I had my first hands-on encounter with a harpsichord: William Byrd’s Earle of Salisbury: His Pavane and Galliard was in place on the rack. I was overwhelmed by both the music and the sound of the instrument, so much so that I could not stop playing it!

Such encounters were rare until 1982, when Walla Walla University, where I was teaching at the time, took delivery of a long-awaited powder blue William Dowd French double. Sitting at that keyboard was déjà vu, so exploring the technical and expressive potential of the instrument struck me as something I must do. I had no clue for what to call the six-minute piece that resulted from those efforts, but a perceptive organist friend who was the first to try it suggested William Dowd: His Bleu. I recognized the name immediately as “just right.”

His Bleu was selected as a finalist in the 1990 Aliénor Composition Competition Contest, and my colleague Dr. Kraig Scott performed it at the Southeastern Historic Keyboard Society (SEHKS) conclave in Augusta, Georgia. That event put me in touch with the wider harpsichord fraternity, spawning many new friendships and performances in the ensuing years. Larry Palmer went beyond performance by selecting William Dowd: His Bleu for publication as the centerfold in the February 1992 issue of The Diapason, a memorable tribute to Bill Dowd on the occasion of his seventieth birthday.

Other composition projects kept me away from the harpsichord during the 1990s, but in 1999, between larger works, I decided to write something just for fun. Trifles, a suite of seven miniatures, was born in short order, bridging a temporary move from Washington State to Denver, Colorado. History does repeat itself: Kraig Scott was the first performer of the piece that became another Aliénor finalist, and Larry Palmer played the 2004 SEHKS performance in Durham, North Carolina. Trifles has since been adopted by pianists and organists as well, becoming one of my most played compositions.

Fortunately for me, Palmer liked my music well enough to have commissioned and premiered my next four works for the instrument. Suite 3-D for harpsichord four-hands was premiered in 2002 at the Washington, D.C., house concert featuring Charles and Susan Mize’s new Richard Kingston “Millennium” harpsichord, with Palmer and Charles Mize at the keyboard. In 2003 the composer’s wife, violinist Kathleen Spring, joined Palmer for another house concert premiere, this time in Dallas, Texas: Images from Wallace Stevens for violin, harpsichord, and narrator. Hommages followed in 2006 as a commissioned work for Southern Methodist University’s harpsichord workshop (number 17) in Denver, Colorado.

In Memoriam Georgia O’Keeffe was first heard in Santa Fe, New Mexico, during July 2008. Béla Bagatelles (not a commissioned piece) consists of six short pieces, inspired by Bartók’s shorter piano pieces and violin duets. Another Aliénor finalist, the work received its premiere by Larry Palmer in Cincinnati, Ohio. Though I am not really a keyboardist, and I do not own a harpsichord, I continue to enjoy writing music for the instrument. I still think the harpsichord’s expressive capacity is underutilized!

Truly audience-friendly music

Glenn Spring’s beautiful music for harpsichord is all self-published in clear, readable sheet music, some of which features beautiful covers by his daughter, California artist Heidi Spring. 

• If one is a subscriber and a keeper of past issues, you will already have William Dowd: His Bleu in your February 1992 magazine. (The issue is also available in PDF format for subscribers at the website, www.thediapason.com.) The composer lists it at his website as a special order and does not quote a price. Warning: it is among the more technically difficult pieces.

• Trifles is “intended for the amateur harpsichordist” (I love to play them). One-page: “A Start;” two-pages: “Blues for Two;” “Burlesque;” “Cantilena” (if you are feeling in need of sheer beauty this one is highly recommended); one-page: “Habañerita” (great fun; I wish it were longer, but you can play it twice—or more); “Recitative;” which leads into the concluding one-page “Introspection,” $15.

• Suite 3-D (Denver, Dallas, DC) is for four-hands at one harpsichord. Five movements “covering a wide expressive range,” $20.

• Images from Wallace Stevens is scored for violin and harpsichord with narration. There are seven short movements each introduced by verses from the poet, $20.

• In Memoriam Georgia O’Keeffe: “Prelude: Ghost Riders;” “Toccata: Colors;” “Fugue-Fantasia: The Faraway Nearby” (cover by Heidi Spring), musical depictions of three of O’Keeffe’s most beloved paintings, $30.

• Bela Bagatelles, Spring captures the moods of Bartók. Fun to play, fun to hear, $15.

• Hommages, quoting the composer: 

With the passage of time I become ever more aware of how much I have learned from those who went before. Hommages was composed in recognition of my personal indebtedness to five among many composers whose works have contributed to the way I think as a composer. The five movements are not intended as emulations of the various composers’ styles, but rather as personal responses to the sound world of each.

“Fugue” (Schumann); “Teasing Song” (Bartok); “Le soir dans la ruelle” (Debussy); “Hang On!” (Stravinsky); and, finally, “Sehnsucht” (Longing)—a heart-wrenching evocation of Gustav Mahler. I had long wished for a work by the great German Romantic, and here is one in tribute to him. I think he would be deeply moved. It is difficult to play this piece without tears. Quite possibly the best bargain of the lot, $15. 

The composer’s directions on the list: all prices in US$ include shipping within the United States. Order via email: [email protected]. Just in case, his mailing address: 9050 E. Cherry Creek South Dr., Unit E, Denver, Colorado 80231.

Photo: Rancho di Chimayo, New Mexico, July 30, 2011: Clyde Putman, Larry Palmer, Kathleen Spring, and Glenn Spring

Larry Palmer

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.

Sally Gordon-Mark

Born in New York City, Sally Gordon-Mark has French and American citizenships, lives in Europe, and is an independent writer, researcher, and translator. She is also a musician—her professional life began in Hollywood as the soprano of a teenage girl group, The Murmaids, whose hit record, Popsicles & Icicles, is still played on air and sold on CDs. Eventually she worked for Warner Bros. Records, Francis Coppola, and finally Lucasfilm Ltd., in charge of public relations and promotions, before a life-changing move to Paris in 1987. There Sally played harpsichord for the first time, thanks to American concert artist Jory Vinikour, her friend and first teacher. He recommended she study with Huguette Dreyfus, which she had the good fortune to do during the last three years before Huguette retired from the superieur regional conservatory of Rueil-Malmaison, remaining a devoted friend until Huguette passed away.

During Sally’s residence in France, she organized a dozen Baroque concerts for the historical city of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, worked as a researcher for books published by several authors and Yale University, and being trilingual, served as a translator of early music CD booklets for musicians and Warner Classic Records. She also taught piano privately and at the British School of Paris on a regular basis. In September 2020 she settled in Perugia, Italy. In March 2023 Sally was the guest editor of the British Harpsichord Society’s e-magazine Sounding Board, No. 19, devoted entirely to the memory of Huguette Dreyfus. For more information: www.sallygordonmark.com.

Editor’s note: Part 1 of this series appeared in the March 2023 issue of The Diapason, pages 18–20; part 2 appeared in the April 2023 issue, pages 14–19.

“I was very attached to her, as one is to teachers who allow you to make huge strides in little time.” —Judith Andreyev²

By the 1980s, it had become customary for harpsichordists and organists from all over the world to come to France or the Netherlands to study and perfect their technique with Huguette Dreyfus, Kenneth Gilbert, and Gustav Leonhardt. Huguette’s concert tours and recordings had brought her international renown. She had a great gift for teaching, and with foreign students she could speak English, German, and Italian fluently. “Huguette has an absolutely fabulous sense of teaching, and she can communicate what she knows with enthusiasm.”³ Many of her students who had succeeded professionally continued to play for her before concerts, recordings, and tours. But Huguette would say in an interview late in life that her students did not need her as much as she needed them.⁴ Her students who became concert artists include harpsichordists Olivier Baumont, Emer Buckley, Jocelyne Cuiller, Maria de Lourdes Cutolo, Gaby Delfiner, Yves-Marie Deshays, Matthew Dirst, Elisabeth Joyé, Yannick LeGaillard, Laure Morabito, Pamela Nash, Kristian Nyquist, Mariko Oikawa, Joël Pontet, Christophe Rousset, Heather Slade-Lipkin, Noëlle Spieth, Ann Cecilia Tavares, Yasuko Uyama-Bouvard, Blandine Verlet, Jory Vinikour, Ilton Wjuniski, as well as organists Philippe Bardon, Véronique LeGuen, Frank Mento, and David Noël-Hudson.

Huguette began teaching when she was only fourteen years old, during her family’s stay in Switzerland with relatives after they had fled France over the Alps in December 1942. This was after she had received a first prize in her piano exam at a superior level from the Conservatory of Clermont-Ferrand. When she entered the Conservatory of Lausanne, she enrolled at the virtuoso level and was allowed to pass her final exams in Clermont-Ferrand when the war ended, winning another first prize. After settling in Paris in 1945, she taught privately while she pursued her own studies at the Paris Conservatory, the Ecole Normale de Musique (she also received top prizes at the two schools),⁵ and in Ruggero Gerlin’s two-month summer harpsichord course at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena. Teaching would remain very important to her all her life, even when she became one of the most important French harpsichordist of her generation. 

It is not commonly known that her earliest protégé was Blandine Verlet, whose individual and distinctive way of playing would have found sustenance in Huguette’s tendency to encourage her students to think for themselves and find their own interpretative styles. Blandine took private lessons with her regularly beginning in 1958, when she was enrolled in Marcelle Delacour’s class at the Paris Conservatory, until as late as 1969 (although less frequently once her own career took off).⁶ It is clear from Huguette’s agendas and documents that she gave her particular attention. On September 16, 1962, Blandine’s father, the distinguished Dr. Pierre Verlet, chief conservator of the Louvre Museum and renowned art historian, wrote: 

Please allow me to express our gratitude to you for all you have done for Blandine. You were a mother to her in Siena, from which she returned this morning, delighted.⁷

In 1963 Blandine was awarded a unanimous first prize from the judges as well as a special prize at the International Competition of Munich. Huguette not only coached her for the competition, but would promote her career in general by introducing her to her own mentors, Alexis Roland-Manuel and Norbert Dufourcq, inviting her to programs on which she was featured, proposing she study with Gerlin in Siena, and inviting her to play on a recording of the Bach concerti in 1965.⁸ In 1969 Dr. Verlet would write regarding a radio program on which Blandine had appeared with Huguette, after having returned from studying with Ralph Kirkpatrick at Yale University:

How to thank you too for the place that you gave to Blandine in the [radio] program. A little secret: in a quick word, two days after her arrival home she said: “I’ve already taken the piece to heart again. . . . Mademoiselle Dreyfus has magnificently made me work. . . .”  Again all my admiration and my gratitude.⁹

In later years, the two women would become estranged, and as a result, Huguette’s teaching and nurturing of Blandine have been overlooked.

From July 1 through August 9, 1966, Huguette gave harpsichord lessons along with Pauline Aubert and Marguerite Roesgen-Champion during an early music event, “Summer in France,” sponsored by the Paris American Academy of Music in Fontainebleau, at the invitation of Nadia Boulanger, its director.¹⁰ In 1967 she was named professor of harpsichord at the Schola Cantorum in Paris, a position that she kept until 1990. Her students included a young Christophe Rousset, who ended up taking his lessons in her home on Saturdays, because his school schedule did not permit them during the week.¹¹

From 1971 until 1982, Huguette taught basso continuo at the Sorbonne where Olivier Papillon was in her class.¹² When she left there, she asked harpsichordist Richard Siegel to take her place.¹³ During that period Huguette was also the harpsichord professor of what was then a municipal conservatory in Bobigny, just north of Paris. Students in that class included Maria de Lourdes Cutolo and Ilton Wjuniski, who were scholarship recipients from Brazil, Elisabeth Joyé, Joël Pontet, Gaby Delfiner, Renaud Digonnet, and Yannick LeGaillard. In 1982 she was named harpsichord professor at two major conservatories in France: what were then called the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique in Lyon and the Conservatoire supérieur de région in Rueil-Malmaison. A harpsichord class was created at the latter specifically for her, and also an organ class for Marie-Claire Alain.¹⁴ When it came time to retire, Huguette left the Lyon conservatory in June 1993 (Françoise Lengellé took her place) and then a year later the Rueil-Malmaison conservatory, where Olivier Baumont, a former student and now the professor of harpsichord at the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris, replaced her.

In addition to her regular teaching positions, Huguette gave annual summer workshops in the Provence region of France, first in Saint-Maximin-La-Baume and then in Villecroze. Claude Mercier-Ythier described how it came about:

An event happened that would be very important for us: the creation of early music classes at Saint-Maximin’s former monastery . . . where there is an extraordinary organ. The young man who should have taught there was Louis Saguer. [However, shortly before he was supposed to start teaching,] he had been invited to give an important series of concerts in Argentina. The organizer, Dr. Pierre Rochas . . . looked desperately for a replacement. So I took him to see Huguette Dreyfus who immediately took on the classes, without knowing that we would spend [15 summers there]. Huguette was a pedagogue without equal, with an international reputation.¹⁵

In 1964, five lecture recitals were held by Huguette. They were so successful that a year later, harpsichord classes were organized.¹⁶ Claude Mercier-Ythier provided the instruments. Her frequent collaborator at the time, Christian Lardé, joined her. He taught flute, and together they gave classes in ensemble playing. The classes were given under the auspices of the French Organ Academy for the Interpretation of 17th and 18th century music (l’Académie de l’orgue français pour l’interprétation de la musique des XVIIème et XVIIIème siècles), which was created not only by Dr. Pierre Rochas, but by a Dominican priest, Father Henri Jarrié, as part of their efforts to save the convent from destruction and restore the famous organ in the basilica. 

Father Jarrié’s contribution to the early music revival in France seems to be unknown; his story is worth telling. Born in 1924, he began his theology studies in the Saint-Maximin monastery. A musician, he had taken piano lessons from the age of six and also composed music. Among the many artists and intellectuals who visited Saint-Maximin was André Coeuroy, a musicologist and critic, who took a look at his compositions and encouraged him. Then at the music festival in Aix-en-Provence, he met Louis Saguer, also a composer, and arranged to study musical analysis and composition with him. In 1952 he received the unusual post of “Chaplain to the Artists” in Nice, coming into contact with Cocteau, Picasso, and Matisse, among others. Then in 1961, Père Jarrié was named parish priest of the village of Saint-Maximin. 

The Dominican order was preparing to sell the monastery there, which they had already left. Father Jarrié and others formed a group to safeguard it, and by the end of the 1960s it had become a cultural center. Father Jarrié inaugurated a series of concerts in the cloisters that became the first festival to focus on early music; at the time, the only music festival that existed in France was in Aix-en-Provence. The Dominican priest and Dr. Pierre Rochas were also responsible for the restoration of the Basilica of Saint Marie-Madeleine’s historic eighteenth-century organ built by Frère Isnard and the creation of the Academy, which together with the concert series would be important not only for Huguette’s career, but also for the international dissemination of early music. For fifteen years, Huguette went there every summer to teach and concertize. Eventually Eduard Melkus joined her and Christian to teach violin. In 1971 Jarrié left the priesthood to consecrate his life to music and teaching:

There were so many students who frequented my courses during 15 years. They came from all over the world and then spread the knowledge that they had acquired in their own respective countries.¹⁷

There were many lighthearted moments that eased the intensity of the lessons. Among Huguette’s archived documents is a Certificat St Maximin: “The Jury certifies that Mlle Huguette Dreyfus and Christian Lardé took the Viennese Waltz class in the performance course at the 15th Summer Academy of St-Maximin. Ed. Melkus.”¹⁸ A participant, harpsichordist Maria de Lourdes Cutolo, remembers playing Brazilian music for Huguette, which she loved, while Eduard improvised on the violin.¹⁹

Maria de Lourdes Cutolo and Ilton Wjuniski were two young Brazilian harpsichordists whom Huguette had met in São Paôlo, then the capital of Brazil, on the occasion of the “Course-Festival of Harpsichord Interpretation” held in São Paôlo’s major art museum (MASP) from October to December 1975. The courses were taught by Helena Jank, Maria Helena Silveira, and Felipe Silvestre. New works for solo harpsichord were commissioned from composers Souza Lima, Osvaldo Lacerda, and Almeida Prado. Huguette was invited to give classes and recitals from October 3 through 26. During her stay, she flew to Rio to meet Roberto de Regina, an important harpsichordist, teacher, and the first to build a harpsichord in Brazil.²⁰ He also created the first early music group there.²¹

Huguette’s teaching influenced several pupils profoundly. “Stimulated by this contact, some young artists pursued training with the harpsichordist in France, such as Ilton Wjuniski, Maria Lucia Nogueira, and Maria de Lourdes Cutolo.”²² They were awarded scholarships by the festival sponsor, the Secretary of Culture, Science, and Technology, to come to France.²³ A decade later, Ana Cecilia Tavares, another Brazilian artist, would also go to study with Huguette at the Rueil-Malmaison conservatory near Paris.²⁴ Harpsichordist, teacher, and author Marcelo Fagerlande credits Huguette with the surge in interest for the harpsichord in Brazil after her stay there.

Maria Lourdes de Cutolo wrote to Huguette several times in early 1976 to solicit her help in finding lodgings in Paris and a spinet to use. Huguette sent her information on spinets, but in the end, moved her own spinet into a spare bedroom, where Maria could practice every day if she liked.²⁵ Huguette often helped students with practical concerns as well as with personal problems, at the same time guarding a professional distance. She maintained the reserve between people of different positions, or those who do not know each other well, that prevails in European culture: the maestro or maestra is treated with respect, and familiarity would be inappropriate. Her students were invited to address her by her first name, but never would have thought to address her by the familiar “tu.”

Another country important to Huguette was Japan, where she made lifelong friendships. She met a Japanese student, Miwako Shiraï, at Saint-Maximin where the flautist was studying with Christian Lardé. When Huguette was invited in 1979 by Mariko Oikawa, a former student in France, to play concerts in Japan and record an album with the group, Tokyo Solisten, of which Mariko was the harpsichordist, she called upon Miwako to accompany her and act as translator. In Japan, Huguette was welcomed by the father of another of her students, Yasuko Uyama-Bouvard, who had come to France in 1976. Her father, wanting to introduce the ever-curious Huguette to Japanese culture, invited her to an “exceptional restaurant where there is Shiki-botyo, the knife ceremony, which was performed in the past by the cook to the Japanese court. The cook prepares fish without touching it with his hands.”

Huguette returned to Japan in 1981. During Huguette’s free time, Mariko and her husband Shigeru, with their daughter Reine, about three, took her on visits. Yasuko came from France to stay for a week at the urging of her father who, grateful that Yasuko had won first prize at the Festival Estival international harpsichord competition in Paris in 1979, wanted to honor Huguette. He presented her with a stay at a traditional Japanese hotel. Yasuko went with Huguette and Mariko to Nara Park (Shigeru had to take Reine back to Tokyo), where thousands of deer run free and it is possible to feed and pet them.²⁶

In 1983 Huguette spent nearly a month in Japan from October 8 through November 4, recording for Denon and performing in Tokyo, Nagoya, and Kyoto. In her free time, she went sightseeing often with the Oikawa family:

The trip that left the biggest impression was our voyage to Kyoto. We visited Nara Park the day before her concert in Kyoto. She found herself surrounded by deer and she said that she was astonished that the most easily frightened animals in the world would eat out of the palm of a man’s hand. She spent a good amount of time playing with them. We also went by car to Hakone. Descending Mount Hakone, we encountered the historic Daimyô procession. We watched it and then walking in the city of Odawara, we visited the chrysanthemum festival.²⁷

Huguette would return to Japan in the future, but sadly, Mariko would not be there to welcome her. Only thirty-nine-years old, she passed away from cancer on July 25, 1988, leaving behind two children, Reine, and a boy, Kentaro,  born in 1984. Fifteen years later, Reine would become a harpsichordist herself and come to France intermittently to study with Huguette at Villecroze and in her home on Quai d’Orsay in Paris.

In 1979 Huguette left the Academy in Saint-Maximin. In 1983 she joined the Académie de Musique Ancienne in Villecroze to give summer masterclasses, which she did until 2008. Claude Mercier-Ythier, who had loaned his historic 1754 Henri Hemsch, Huguette’s favorite instrument, for the Saint-Maximin sessions, continued to supply it and other harpsichords for the classes at Villecroze. At both academies, friends, including Melkus, Lardé, and his wife, harpist Marie-Claire Jamet, joined her to concertize and give instrumental and chamber music classes. In Villecroze classes were held in the morning, and afternoons were free, when students practiced and swam in the pool. Sunday was a day off, and there were group outings organized for them, such as boat rides and sightseeing. It was “paradise on earth,” according to one of the students, Kristian Nyquist.²⁸

In addition to masterclasses in France during the summer, Huguette was invited regularly to give them all over the world. She also sat on juries for harpsichord exams at conservatories and for harpsichord festivals. For at least twenty-five years, there was a biennial international harpsichord festival in October in Paris, the Festival Estival. Huguette was often on the jury, and in February 1990 she was invited to write a page for the brochure celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of its creation on March 7 that year.²⁹ Often she sat on juries with friends, former students, and other distinguished colleagues, such as Colin Tilney, Zuzana Ružicková, Rafael Puyana, Gustav Leonhardt, Scott Ross, Kenneth Gilbert, and Luciano Sgrizzi.

Three radio programs in 1979³⁰ featured her and some of her students at the Bobigny Conservatory: Maria de Lourdes Cutolo, Christophe Rousset, and Ilton Wjuniski. When asked what she told students who express a desire to pursue a career, she called it a very big responsibility and said she tended to discourage the idea. By discouraging them, she meant that she did not want to “throw rose powder in their eyes and mislead” anyone. She would tell a student, “A career is very difficult even if you are very talented and are supported by your family. Your field has to be well learned, which takes a lot of time. It takes time to launch a career, and it requires a lot of courage.” Huguette herself had suffered big obstacles to her own career and had worked very hard and made sacrifices. But she knew that if the student was possessed “by the demon of music, by the demon of the stage, by the demon of a career,” nothing she said could change his or her mind. “The true, the pure artist will remain.” She recognized that the mere fact of playing before one’s peers in a classroom was already very intimidating, and she took her role very seriously. “The tighter the relationship between student and teacher is, the more the teacher has to pay attention.”³¹

When possible, Huguette gave her students the chance to perform publicly on radio programs where she herself was featured, and a few played on recordings of hers. Among her documents is a letter from a well-known French harpsichordist who was her student in the 1970s, “I know what I owe you, . . . you are the person who counts most in my harpsichord vocation.”³² Her kindness and generosity is still remembered today. She often gave students rides to the summer workshops in Saint-Maximin and Villecroze, which could not be reached directly by train. One of her American students, Ellen Haskil Maserati, remembers their trip to Siena to take Gerlin’s class, “She was really nice when we drove down. We stopped overnight in Lyon. She took me to dinner and had me try all the local food. She was very motherly.”³³

Her genius for teaching resided in her wanting to respond personally to her students, feeling that a teacher should always understand the personality of the student and determine what possibilities there were to develop. During the lessons she was demanding, but she did not ask for obedience. Her intention was not to impose her ideas; she preferred that the student have his or her own. In this approach, it is possible to see the influence of her teachers at the Paris Conservatory. One teacher, Norbert Dufourcq, when grading an essay she had written on the “different manifestations of choral music in the vocal works of Bach,” noted, “You have read many texts . . . to the point where [your essay ends up sounding] a bit like a catalog sometimes. What is lacking is a personal judgment, a thought that is yours and the fruit of your reflections as a good musician.” Also, Huguette’s pedagogy teacher, a Mr. Norpain, had given advice that she clearly had taken to heart, “Before speaking, listen to the student with so much attention that you immediately get a clear idea of his strengths and weaknesses.”³⁴

During a radio broadcast from Ville-croze on November 9, 2000,³⁵ Huguette said in the course of a masterclass: 

As far as I’m concerned, you arrive at technique through the music and not the other way around. . . . When you have something you want to express but you don’t have the technical means to express it, it’s up to you to find exercises that will permit acquiring those means. . . . To learn a sensitive touch, the finger has to feel the plectrum scratch the string. [She felt that “plucking the string” was not an accurate term.] There is an important relationship between the sensitivity of the fingers and the ear, and that’s what you must work on. The ear must hear differences. . . that makes part of the everyday work when you’re doing finger exercises. In fact, it’s musical, and I personally feel that no exercise should ever be done mechanically. You must always be in conversation with the music. Even if you do so-called daily exercises, you can always find these passages in pieces. You have to consider them musically. I always use as a reference the human voice or a wind instrument for understanding how to let the music breathe.³⁶

Huguette was famous with her students for her frequently repeated “proverbes dreyfusiens.” One student, Chiao Pin Kuo, remembered some of these aphorisms in a tribute to her after her death: 

The notes are not the music, the music lies between them.

When you play a piece, the listener has to understand everything as if he has the music in front of his eyes.

Without respiration, the music is dead.

To breathe is not to slow down, slowing down is not breathing.

It’s not enough to know how to play, you have to have a wide knowledge of not only harpsichord music but of all forms of art. If you are small-minded, you won’t ever be a great musician.

Practice, listen, converse, and feel the composer speaking.³⁷

Up until now, I have spoken in the third person. But now, as one of Huguette’s former students and friends, I will speak in the first person. It has been nearly a quarter of a century since I studied with her during her last three years at the Conservatoire de Rueil-Malmaison. But she made such an impact on me that I still recall most of her teachings. I had never had the opportunity to study with someone of her caliber before and must have realized that every bit of the experience was precious and needed to be carefully stored away in my memory. I was a middle-aged amateur pianist, and the first chance I ever had even to touch a harpsichord came the year before when I started taking lessons from the American harpsichordist, Jory Vinikour. He was in Paris on a Fulbright scholarship to perfect his prior training with Huguette and Kenneth Gilbert. It was Jory who encouraged me to audition for Huguette to enter her class at the conservatory. Despite trembling hands, I played for her and was accepted.

In our class at Rueil-Malmaison, we always celebrated birthdays, especially hers. One year, we threw a surprise party for her in the apartment of her cousin, Nicole Dreyfus (a famous attorney in France). Four students played variations of “Happy Birthday,” squeezed together at Nicole’s piano, I and another improvised a tango, and four held up one of her aphorisms, written out on pieces of paper. Huguette would have all her students over to dinner after the year-end exams, serving chocolate cake she had baked herself. At the conservatory, it was forbidden to eat in the teaching room, but Huguette installed a coffee maker, and we often ate our lunches there and celebrated birthdays and holidays with cake and champagne.

What Huguette taught me did not only concern the keyboard and written notes—it had to do with how to practice, making the instrument sing, acquiring the confidence to play difficult pieces, performing. . . . She said I could go as far as I wanted to in my playing, and I ended up being able to play pieces that I never would have been able to before. Her observations were always accurate, and her comments always constructive; Huguette could also say much with just an evocative gesture. All of this advice enabled me to play in public and be awarded a unanimous first prize in a jury exam, which would have been impossible before I studied with her: 

Listen to the bass.

To feel the beat and speed of a piece, walk ‘round the room, singing the melody.

To perform a piece, it needs to be more than 100% ready.

Be aware of the environment in which you’re practicing at home. When you’re learning a piece, the brain is storing it, not as isolated bits of information, but in its whole context, which will be reproduced when you perform.

Have everything prepared for performance, including the music so there are no loose pages to get lost or fall on the floor.

Listen to what you play all the way to the end. 

When one hand is playing a tricky passage, listen to the other one. (This was particularly effective when I was learning how to play ornaments.)

All that counts is the music.

Learning a fugue, sing each part separately. As you play one voice, add a second one with the other hand. Practice playing one voice while you sing with the other. While you play all the voices, follow each one individually. 

Playing each part hands together strengthens how it’s learned in the brain.

Don’t think about the notes. Imagine the trouble a centipede would have walking if it thought about how it moved!

Huguette rarely noted anything on my music, except to circle rests and add fingering—but only occasionally. More often, she would come by and tap on my shoulders, which had risen up to my ears with tension (terror, because of playing in front of the class, might be the more accurate word!). This recurring at every lesson, she showed me some exercises to relax them. She did not insist about fingering, saying that it was an individual decision, given that hands are different. Giving Glenn Gould as an example, Huguette pointed out that artists could sit or hold their arms in the “wrong ways” and still be brilliant.

Her own musicality was extraordinary. Once when I was playing in class, a woman from the conservatory office came to the door. Huguette told me to keep playing and went to speak to her. Suddenly she interrupted herself to call out to me, “B-flat!” I had made a mistake, and she heard it despite their conversation.

Referring to her practice of going to see something beautiful at a museum before giving a concert, she said in an interview with an Italian reporter, “It’s like giving water to a flower for it to bloom easily.”³⁸ To me, this quote could be a metaphor for her teaching. Once, when I was visiting her in the hospital before her death—some of her other students and I were in touch so as to maintain a continuous flow of visits—a nurse asked me if we were Huguette’s family members. “No,” I responded, “we’re the flowers in her garden,” knowing I’d puzzle her, but not finding any other apt way to put it in my distress. Now that I have gathered testimonials for a commemorative issue, I see that others felt as inspired and nurtured by her as I did, such as Yasuko Uyama-Bouvard who wrote, “She transmitted her love of music to me.”³⁹ Huguette could draw the best out of a student, and in my case, it changed the way I thought about myself and my capacities. Her next step was to help give me the capabilities to play the music I chose. Huguette took me as seriously as she would have if I had been young and a prospective professional. As another adult amateur student said, “Gratitude is the greatest homage that one can pay her.”⁴⁰

To be continued.

Notes

1. “The budding lilies,” title of the first piece by François Couperin in his 13ème Ordre, Troisième Livre. 

2. Email to author, December 7, 2016.

3. Radio interview, “Denis Herlin,” Les traversés du temps, France Musique, March 21, 2012.

4. Radio interview by Marcel Quillévère, “Huguette Dreyfus claveciniste,” Les traversés du temps, France Musique, March 7, 2012.

5. BnF VM FONDS 145 DRE-3 (12).

6. Agendes, BnF VM FONDS DRE-3 (5).

7. Letter from Pierre Verlet to Huguette Dreyfus, September 16, 1962, BnF VM Fonds 145-DRE (23). 

8. LP, The complete concerti for harpsichord, J. S. Bach, “A Critère recording,” Paris. Musidisc, France. New York: Nonesuch, HE 73001, 1965. Complete discography of Huguette Dreyfus compiled by the author. dolmetsch.com/huguettedreyfusdiscography.htm. 

9. Letter from Pierre Verlet to Huguette Dreyfus, July 15, 1969, op. cit.

10. Brochure, Paris American Academy of Music, “Summer in France,” 1966. BnF VM FONDS 145 DRE-3 (12).

11. Christophe Rousset, in emails to the author between 2016 and 2023.

12. Olivier Papillon, phone interviews with author, December 16, 2016, April 6 and
10, 2017.

13. Richard Siegel, interview with author, November 17, 2016, Paris, France.

14. Susan Lansdale, interview with author, March 23, 2018, Le Pecq, France. 

15. Claude Mercier-Ythier, in tribute to Huguette Dreyfus, Clavecins en France (CLEF) clavecin-en-france.org/spip.php?article288. Translated from French by the author.

16. Huguette Dreyfus, radio interview, Les traversés du temps, op. cit.

17. “Toujours jeune, L’Académie d’été, 40 ans déja.” Orgues Nouvelles, No. 15, Summer 2008, Lyon.

18. BnF, VM FONDS 145 DRE-3 (12).

19. Maria de Lourdes Cutolo, email to author, March 20, 2022.

20. Marcelo Fagerlande, phone interview with author, October 21, 2022.

21. bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Regina-Roberto.htm. 

22. Marcelo Fagerlande, Mayra Pereira, and Maria Aida Barroso, O Cravo no Rio de Janeiro do século XX. Rio de Janeiro: Rio Books, 2020. 

23. Ilton Wjuniski, tribute to Huguette Dreyfus, 2013.

24. Ana Cecilia Tavares, tribute to Huguette Dreyfus, 2022.

25. Letters from Maria de Lourdes Cutolo to Huguette Dreyfus, January 14 and February 2, 1976 BNF VM FONDS 145 DRE-1 (17).

26. Yasuko Uyama-Bouvard, emails to author, January 2023.

27. Shigeru Oikawa, letter to author, September 25, 2017, and tribute, January 2023.

28. Kristian Nyquist, interview on April 27, 2017, and later phone calls and emails. 

29. BnF, VM FONDS 145 DRE-3 (12). 

30. ‘Musiciens pour demain,” François Serrette, France Musique, February 15 and 22, 1979. 

31. “Musiciens pour demain,” op.cit., radiofrance.fr/francemusique/podcasts/les-tresors-de-france-musique/musiciens-pour-demain-avec-huguette-dreyfus-et-christophe-rousset-une-archive-de-1979-4597434.

32. Letter from Noëlle Spieth to Huguette Dreyfus, BnF VM Fonds 145 DRE-1 (17).

33. Ellen Haskil Maserati, interview with author, June 2018, Paris.

34. BnF VM FONDS DRE-3 (1).

35. Villecroze: l’atelier de clavecin de Huguette Dreyfus, Les chemins de la musique,  France Culture, Radio France, broadcast November 9, 2000.

36. Huguette Dreyfus, radio interview, L’Académie musicale de Villecroze, November 22, 2000. 

37. Translated from French by the author.  clavecin-en-france.org/spip.php?article288. 

38. Huguette Dreyfus interview, Corriere dell’Umbria, February 18, 1999. Translated from Italian to English by the author.

39. Email to author, January 5, 2023.

40. Pascal da Silva Texeira, email to author, December 2016.

Sally Gordon-Mark

Born in New York City, Sally Gordon-Mark has French and American citizenships, lives in Europe, and is an independent writer, researcher, and translator. She is also a musician: her professional life began in Hollywood as the soprano of a teenage girl group, The Murmaids, whose hit record, Popsicles & Icicles, is still played on air and sold on CDs. Eventually she worked for Warner Bros. Records, Francis Coppola, and finally Lucasfilm Ltd., in charge of public relations and promotions, before a life-changing move to Paris in 1987. There Sally played the harpsichord for the first time, thanks to American concert artist Jory Vinikour, her friend and first teacher. He recommended she study with Huguette Dreyfus, which she had the good fortune to do during the last three years before Huguette retired from the superieur regional conservatory of Rueil-Malmaison, becoming a devoted friend.

During Sally’s residence in France, she organized a dozen Baroque concerts for the historical city of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, worked as a researcher for books published by several authors and Yale University, and being trilingual, served as a translator of early music CD booklets for musicians and Warner Classic Records. She taught piano privately and also at the British School of Paris. In September 2020, she settled in Perugia, Italy, where she is studying medieval music and continues to offer her services as a translator in the world of the arts. Sally was the guest editor of the March 2023 issue of the e-magazine published by the British Harpsichord Society, Sounding Board, Number 19, devoted entirely to the memory of Huguette Dreyfus. For more information: sallygordonmark.com.

Editor’s note: Part 1 of this series appeared in the March 2023 issue of The Diapason, pages 18–20; part 2 appeared in the April 2023 issue, pages 14–19; part 3 appeared in the July 2023 issue, pages 10–15; part 4 appeared in the August 2023 issue, pages 10–14.

Et les fruits passeront la promesse des fleurs.

—François de Malherbe¹

Huguette Dreyfus’s performing career started while she was still a student in 1956, skyrocketed in the 1960s, and lasted until the end of 2008. During that half-century, she gave concerts all over the world, made 117 recordings,² and, in France alone, appeared on about 200 radio broadcasts and thirty television programs.³ Huguette received prizes, medals, and awards throughout her life in recognition of her achievements. What’s more, her reputation as an extraordinary pedagogue travelled beyond France’s borders, attracting harpsichordists, pianists, and organists from all over the world to study with her. Huguette once said in a radio interview:

For me, pedagogy is a very important part of my professional life, and I would say that in general, it is also very important for the evolution of an artist, because it prevents one from stagnating in one’s convictions. . . .⁴

Huguette greeted the arrival of the twenty-first century with her usual unfailing enthusiasm, intellectual curiosity, and energy. In the fall of 2000, she performed with Eduard Melkus at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna and was featured several times on French radio. In 2000 and 2002, she gave masterclasses in Budapest and at the Villecroze Academy in France, and again in 2003 and 2004 at the Conservatorio di Musica “Giuseppe Verdi” in Milan, Italy.

In a letter to a former student, Maria de Lourdes Cutolo, Huguette wrote that she was “continuing to teach, but playing less. . . . I often go out, and I lead an active life.” She mentioned that she would sit on national and international juries in 2004 and would give another concert in Vienna in March with Melkus and his ensemble, Capella Academica Wien.⁵ Until 2012, she continued to give interviews on French radio. On December 28, 2003, she participated in a documentary on French television, Johann Sebastian Bach: the Last Years, along with Philippe Herreweghe and other major artists.⁶

In the new century, CDs of her recordings continued to be released, notably reissues of Bartok’s Mikrokosmos; the historic recordings of C. P. E. Bach’s Concerto pour flûte et orchestre en ré majeur, with Jean-Pierre Rampal on flute and Pierre Boulez conducting the chamber orchestra; and with Henryk Szeryng, George Frideric Handel, 6 Violin Sonatas, Arcangelo Corelli, La Folia. The Japanese label Denon released her recordings of Bach’s Inventions and Sinfonias in 2005 and the 16 Harpsichord Transcriptions in 2006. In 2008, the CD of Konzert für Cembalo und Streicher, Schauspielmusik zu Ritter Blaubart [Concerto for Harpsichord and Strings, Playful Music for the Knight Bluebeard] by Hugo Distler came out on the Musicaphon label. Huguette had recorded the concerto in 1964 but did not play on the Bluebeard recording, which was done in 2002.⁷ The last reissue in her lifetime would be in 2013, Henri Dutilleux: The Centenary Edition, a compilation of remastered discs by Erato.⁸

In February 2006 in another letter to Maria de Lourdes Cutolo, Huguette wrote that she had been ill since the beginning of January with a severe case of infectious bronchitis.⁹ Illness was unusual for her, even though her schedule had always been demanding and full of voyages. Later in the year she was chosen by the Fondation Prince Louis de Polignac to present its prizes in a ceremony “under the high patronage of her very serene highness, the Princess Antoinette of Monaco.”¹⁰

In 2008 the two concerts that would bring her career to a close were personally meaningful. On May 28 Huguette performed Bach’s fifth Brandenburg Concerto with old friends Eduard Melkus conducting the Mulhouse Conservatory Chamber Orchestra and soloists Antje Lallart and Miwako Shiraï-Rey on violin and flute, respectively. This concert in her honor took place in the Saint Jean Temple in her native Alsatian city of Mulhouse, which had presented her with a municipal medal on May 25. In a local review, it was noted:

Known throughout the world, Huguette Dreyfus, the harpsichordist from Mulhouse, contributed considerably to the renaissance of early music. This Baroque festival pays tribute to her. . . . Huguette Dreyfus has only performed here twice before: the first time [as a prizewinner] of the Geneva competition, then a second time at the Temple St. Jean, in the context of a Bach festival organized 30 years ago. . . .¹¹

Huguette’s final concert would be with her musical partner of more than fifty years, violinist Eduard Melkus. He invited her to perform with him and his ensemble in Vienna on November 27, 2008, in honor of her eightieth birthday on November 30. That summer, she had given her last masterclass 
at Villecroze.

After having officially retired, Huguette accepted an invitation from Kristian Nyquist, a former student, to give a masterclass at the school where he taught, the Hochschule für Musik in Karlsruhe. Noticing that her neck seemed to bother her, he hesitated to ask her to play, but she surprised him by giving an impromptu but masterly performance for his students.¹²

In March 2009 Huguette participated in a major two-day conference on Wanda Landowska at the Cité de la Musique in Paris; her interview was broadcast on the radio. Introduced as “fervently admired by her students . . . luminous and profoundly human,” she was interviewed on March 5 by the event’s director, Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger. She began by speaking about her teacher, Ruggero Gerlin, who had been a student and disciple of Landowska for twenty years before the Second World War, when Landowska had to flee to the United States and he had to return to Italy. A detailed description of his style of teaching in her class at the Chigiana Academy in Siena followed. This led to a discussion of the Pleyel and Neupert harpsichords available at the time, and then to the acquisition of her own instrument, which, because of its quills, informed her touch. Huguette said that at the time the player had to accept what was available and adapt. “The truth of it is that I always liked the instruments that I was playing at the time that I knew them.” Interestingly enough, Eigeldinger gave her free rein, and she did not speak directly about Wanda Landowska at all.¹³

In October of that year, Huguette gave up her car, cancelling the insurance. She showed signs of having pain in her neck and back, but true to her nature, she did not complain. Those dearest to her would soon depart: her cousin Nicole on February 11, 2010, and Myriam Soumignac on September 7, 2012. She had already lost two of the teachers that had inspired her the most—Ruggero Gerlin in 1983 and Norbert Dufourcq in 1990—and her close friend and collaborator Luciano Sgrizzi in 1994.

On March 21, 2010, Huguette spoke as the guest of honor at the annual event hosted by the association of harpsichordists, Clavecins en France. That year it was held at the former location of the Paris Conservatory at 14 rue de Madrid, where many past students and colleagues, including her friends Kenneth Gilbert and Myriam Soumignac, came to pay tribute to her. In 2012, France Musique produced a two-hour comprehensive interview with Huguette in two parts, and seemingly for the first time on air, Huguette spoke about her personal life, even going back to her childhood.¹⁴

In 2013 Huguette was honored in Brazil, where she had given masterclasses during the entire month of October 1975 under the auspices of the Museum of Art in São Paulo, which had organized a unique event, the “Course-Festival of Harpsichord Interpretation.” As a result of those classes, several of her young students (Maria de Lourdes Cutolo, Ana Cecilia Tavares, and Ilton Wjuniski), who had had little opportunity to come into contact with a harpsichord before, received grants to come study with her in Paris, and they did. It is believed that her presence in Brazil and her influence inspired a surge in interest for the harpsichord in general. Harpsichordist Marcelo Fagerlande, who had witnessed the enthusiasm of the participants, created a Harpsichord Week (Semana do Cravo) when he became professor in the School of Music at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, and he eventually organized a tribute to Huguette. On October 30, 2013, a video conference with Huguette was arranged, since she could not make the trip to Brazil, and she was greeted by many of her former students.¹⁵

Shortly thereafter, in November, Huguette fell and fractured her skull, which resulted in her being in a coma for months. But she miraculously survived, and on November 30, 2014, Huguette returned home to be greeted on the phone by worried friends calling to wish her a happy birthday. During the following year, she recuperated slowly, seeing family and friends who came to visit. On June 7, 2015, she gave an interview, captured on video, to her old friend Rémy Stricker, a musicologist and former radio producer.¹⁶ However, the following year after a second fall, she was readmitted to the Corentin-Celton hospital in Issy-Les-Moulineaux, just south of Paris. A steady flow of friends, relatives, and students kept her company. When she stopped speaking, her silence, something that had always been unimaginable, was deeply unsettling.

The last time I saw Huguette, on May 14, 2016, a piece by Mozart was playing on her bedside radio. Small pots of roses stood under the windows. She had always loved flowers, but could have no garden, just as she had always loved animals, but could have no pets. She had no children; she had never married, but she had created a family nonetheless of her friends and students. For she did nurture many of her students, and for some of us, she was a mother. Sitting by the bed, holding her hand, my mind was unable to accept the incomprehensible fact of her absence, for she was no longer conscious of her surroundings. I had never known her to be inanimate before, so against all reason, I kept expecting her to say something or pat my hand. I wondered if her expectations and hopes had been fulfilled, if her unfailingly cheerful façade had been supported by real happiness. Her vitality that had seemed inexhaustible and indestructible was now mysteriously gone.

Huguette passed away serenely in the early morning hours of Monday, May 16, 2016. According to her wishes, a simple ceremony was held at the Père-Lachaise cemetery, where her ashes were eventually scattered in its memorial garden.

§

Huguette’s orphaned students honored her with concerts and book dedications. On May 5, 2018, Maria de Lourdes Cutolo (who had traveled from Argentina just to participate), Frank Gousset, Elisabeth Joyé, Frank Mento, Kristian Nyquist, Joël Pontet, Brice Sailly, Yasuko Uyama-Bouvard, Marie Van Rjhin, and Ilton Wjuniski performed in a memorial concert at the Rueil-Malmaison conservatory where she last taught. The auditorium was packed, despite little publicity, and latecomers had to stand in the uppermost balcony. Harpsichord makers Claude Mercier-Ythier and Marc Ducornet were in attendance: Claude mounted a display he had created out of color photocopies of all of Huguette’s LP covers, and Marc loaned his most popular concert harpsichord. Each player prefaced their performance with an anecdote about Huguette. After the concert, which ended with a moment of silence, we celebrated her memory with a reception as jolly as she would have wanted it to be. We lifted our glasses to her, wishing she were with us.

The following month, on June 18, the Conservatoire de musique, danse, et art dramatique de Mulhouse Huguette Dreyfus was inaugurated. Xavier Lallart, the director of the conservatory at the time, had nominated her as a candidate for the name, and she emerged the winner after a public municipal election. Given her love of teaching, no tribute to her could be more significant than this. According to Eduard Melkus, it was also Lallart who was behind the concert in May 2008 in Mulhouse. His wife Antje, conductor and violinist, had been old friends with Huguette, having met her through Eduard Melkus, with whom she had studied.¹⁷

In addition to her extensive discography, she left behind three publications: Mélanges François Couperin, published by A. et J. Picard et Cie of Paris in 1968; Rencontres de Villecroze (1995) François Couperin: nouveaux regards, actes des Rencontres de Villecroze, 4 au 7 Octobre 1995, sous la direction d’Huguette Dreyfus; and J. S. Bach: Goldberg-Variationen, Variations for Piano, BWV 988, Wiener Urtext Edition, Schott/Universal (UT50159), “Edited from the new Bach-Edition by Christoph Wolff. Fingering and comments on interpretation by Huguette Dreyfus.”

Beginning early in her career, many of Huguette’s recordings received France’s most prestigious prizes. She was awarded the Grand Prix du Disque de l’Académie Charles Cros¹⁸ in 1962, 1970, 1971, 1972; the Grand Prix de l’Académie du Disque français¹⁹ in 1964 and 1968; the Grand Prix des Discophiles in 1964; the Prix de l’Institut de Musicologie de l’Académie du Disque français in 1970; the Grand Prix du Président de la République from l’Académie Charles Cros in 1985; and the Prix de la Nouvelle académie du disque in 1995.²⁰

Huguette bequeathed her papers, photographs, recorded and published music, concert programs, and posters to the Bibliothèque nationale de Paris. Her archives are located at the Richelieu site, identified as FM FONDS DRE in the catalogue. To the Musée de la Musique in the Cité de la Musique-Philharmonie de Paris, she bequeathed her harpsichord, “Le Dreyfus,” and an 1821 Broadwood fortepiano. She left her Neupert spinet to an anonymous person, and her piano was sold at auction.

In an interview with musicologist Denis Herlin,²¹ Huguette told him that her brother had purchased her harpsichord from an antique dealer on Rue de Rivoli in Paris, and that she went to see it there, as did Norbert Dufourcq at her request. The harpsichord, said to be a Blanchet, had been in Raymond Russell’s collection, and was auctioned in June 1956 to the Pelham Galleries. She acquired the instrument in 1958 and hired the leading technician of the time, Marcel Asseman, to do necessary repairs to render it playable, but not to restore it.

When the Musée de la Musique acquired the harpsichord, its authenticity was questioned. Rumors had been circulating for years in Paris that it was not an authentic Blanchet, but no one wanted to tell Huguette. William Dowd, in partnership with Reinhard Von Nagel from 1971 to 1985, came to her apartment sometime in 1973 to examine the harpsichord for a piece he was writing on the Blanchet workshop. Without being able to disassemble it, he noticed that the keyboards and action had been replaced. He saw evidence of an earlier restoration, which could have been done in England, possibly by Arnold Dolmetsch, or in France before Raymond Russell acquired it. But without consulting Russell’s archives in Edinburgh, the instrument’s prior history cannot be ascertained.

The museum submitted Huguette’s harpsichord to scientific tests and a minute examination before undertaking its restoration. Analysis showed that the instrument had been reconstructed in the late-nineteenth or early-twentieth century by an unknown person. Technicians often leave identifying marks in the instrument, and one was found from Marcel Asseman. The wood was determined to be from the eighteenth century, which could mean that an old harpsichord had been rebuilt. Neither the soundboard nor the decoration on the bentside are original. The rose, a harpsichord maker’s trademark, is not considered to be Blanchet’s. Therefore, it has been concluded that the instrument was not built by Blanchet or anyone in his atelier. However, because it has historical significance, having been played by Huguette and her illustrious students, it has been named after her. The harpsichord is now completely restored and available for concerts, recordings, and masterclasses, according to Huguette’s wishes.²²

During her lifetime, the French government bestowed its highest awards on her, acknowledging her service to her country. There are two French national orders: the highest is the Legion of Honor, the second one is the National Order of Merit. They are very similar in their award criteria, the main difference being the minimal period of service: ten years for the National Order of Merit, twenty years for the Legion of Honor. Both of them have three ranks, Knight, Officer, and Commander; and two titles, Grand Officer and Grand Cross. Huguette was awarded the Knight of the National Order of Merit medal on June 6, 1973, then one for Officer on April 3, 1987, and then one for Commander on May 14, 2004. On December 30, 1995, she was awarded the Knight of the Legion of Honor medal, and then promoted to Officer on December 31, 2008.²³ She was also honored by the Austrian government, which made her a Commandeur de l’ordre national du Mérite, and Officier des Arts et des Lettres et du Mérite de la République d’Autriche.

Aside from the recordings, instruments, and publications she left behind, Huguette’s most important legacy may have been the indelible imprint she left on the performers she taught, who in turn became teachers themselves. For example, it was she who inspired concert artist Elisabeth Joyé to take up the harpsichord:

I was 17, passionate about music, and I played the piano. My dad was the treasurer of a music festival in the south of France, and I was the official page-turner. That summer, Huguette Dreyfus had been invited to the Collégiale de Six-Fours to play all of the Bach sonatas for violin and harpsichord on the Hemsch harpsichord that belonged to Claude Mercier-Ythier. I was turning the pages and was immediately fascinated by all that Huguette was doing on that magnificent instrument as to expressivity and dynamics. I was familiar with the Neupert harpsichord as being the instrument that played bass continuo in an orchestra. I adored Bach’s music that I was playing a lot on the piano. That night, I made the decision to start playing the harpsichord. Huguette advised me to study with André Raynaud in Aix-en-Provence because I did not envisage moving to Paris at the time—I was young! The following year, no doubt thanks to my obstinacy and my passion for Bach and the harpsichord, I was accepted into Huguette’s class at the Bobigny Conservatory, where I remained for three years before leaving for the Netherlands. I remember her lively and exacting teaching. I stayed in touch with Huguette until the end of her life, and we shared a great deal of memories. We also spoke about teaching and the young generation.²⁴

One of her colleagues, Françoise Lengellé, recalls her experience working with Huguette when they taught at the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse in Lyon, France:

The relationship between two colleagues that Huguette and I were able to have—outside of the admiration that I felt for her as an artist—was a source of permanent evolution and creativity for me. Watching and listening to her teach were always superb lessons in themselves. I was always thankful for her great culture, humor, and the epic laughs at Lyon and elsewhere that we shared. I owe her so much.²⁵

And so do many of us, as well as the audiences to whom Huguette introduced the harpsichord and the lesser-known Baroque repertoire in the 1960s. Later, it would be twentieth-century contemporary music for harpsichord that she would help make known to the public. Although future audiences will not be able to experience her effervescence and artistry in person, the recordings she left behind for future technology to embellish and the seeds she planted in her students will ensure her enduring presence in the perennial transmission of harpsichord music from generation to generation.

Notes

1. “And the fruits will surpass the promise of the flowers.” François de Malherbe, “Prière pour le Roy Henry Le Grand allant en Limozin,” Œuvres poétiques de Malherbe, E. Flammarion (Librairie des Bibliophiles), 1897, Paris, pages 108–113.

2. Huguette Dreyfus’s complete discography, compiled by the author, dolmetsch.com/huguettedreyfusdiscography.htm.

3. INA, http://inatheque.ina.fr/docListe/TV-RADIO/.

4. Huguette Dreyfus, radio interview by Myriam Soumignac, “Portraits en musique,” June 9, 1988, France Musique. INA, op. cit.

5. “Je sors beaucoup et mène une vie active,” Huguette Dreyfus, letter to Maria de Lourdes Cutolo, December 10, 2003.

6. Les chemins de la foi: Jean Sébastien Bach, les dernières années. France 2. INA, 
op. cit.

7. Robert Tifft, email to the author, June 13, 2023.

8. Huguette Dreyfus’s complete discography, compiled by author, op. cit.

9. Huguette Dreyfus, letter to Maria de Lourdes Cutolo, February 3, 2006.

10. Correspondance D, E, F. BnF VM FONDS 145 DRE-1 (3).

11. Coupures de presse, BnF VM FONDS 145 DRE 5 (4).

12. Kristian Nyquist, interview with author, March 5, 2022, Karlsruhe, Germany.

13. Huguette Dreyfus, interviewed by Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger, March 5, 2009. “Wanda Landowska et la renaissance de la musique ancienne,” March 4–5, 2009, Cité de la Musique, Paris, France.

14. Marcel Quillévéré’s radio interviews of Huguette Dreyfus, “Les traversées du temps,” France Musique. March 7, 2012 (part 1) and March 8, 2012 (part 2).

15. Marcelo Fagerlande, phone interview by author, October 21, 2022. Also see Sounding Board, number 19, page 33. 16. “L’Entretien d’Huguette Dreyfus et Rémy Stricker sur Roland-Manuel,” June, 2015. youtube.com/watch?v=NQ_NjzI_cV0. The film was produced by Les Amis de Maurice Ravel, boleravel.fr, and directed by Gérard Guilloury, gerardguilloury.com.

17. Xavier and Antje Lallart, interviews by phone, email, and in person from July 15 through November 2022.

18. Charles Cros (1842–1888), an important poet, scientist, and inventor who experimented in the reproduction of sound.

19. The Académie du disque français was founded in 1951 by Jean Cocteau, Colette, Arthur Honegger, the poet Guy-Charles Cros (the son of Charles Cros), and Michel de Bry. In 1964 Georges Auric and Darius Milhaud were co-presidents of the academy.

20. Huguette Dreyfus’s complete discography, compiled by author, op. cit.; Biographie Huguette Dreyfus, https://www.whoswho.fr/decede/biographie-huguette-dreyfus_23542.

21. Denis Herlin, Sounding Board, number 19, page 35, March 2023.

22. Jean-Claude Battault, interview with author, March 9, 2022, Cité de la Musique, Paris, France. For more information on the instrument, see “Guillaume Finaz and ‘Le Dreyfus,’ ” Sounding Board, number 18, page 33, May 2022.

23. Alice Bouteille, director of communication, Cabinet du grand chancelier, Paris, France. Email to author, February 1, 2023. Translated from French by the author.

24. Elisabeth Joyé, email to author, April 1, 2023. Translated from French by the author.

25. Françoise Lengellé, email to author, April 11, 2023. Translated from French by the author.
 

Acknowledgments

After Huguette passed away in 2016, the first person I interviewed was our mutual friend, Claude Mercier-Ythier. He was eager to help me with my project to document Huguette’s life, giving me information and photographs. We made plans to collaborate on her discography, based on the accounts he painstakingly kept of her recordings. Since then, I was fortunate to meet six other contemporaries of Huguette: Eduard Melkus, Zuzana Ružicková, Anne-Marie Becksteiner Paillard, Paul Kuentz, Jill Severs, and Marie-Claire Jamet, who graciously welcomed me and shared their memories. Some gave me videos, recordings, and photographs of Huguette. Sadly, Claude, Zuzana, and Anne-Marie have since passed away.

However, the first person I must thank is Huguette herself. For many of her students, she was a midwife, a catalyst. She revealed me to myself, and I switched tracks, moving in a different direction towards a life that better suited my true nature. She showed me that I could perform the music I loved if I worked in a more efficient way and focused my attention only on the piece as I played. “The only thing that’s important is the music,” she once told me. In 2000 Huguette wrote the recommendation letter required for me to obtain a research pass at the Bibliothèque nationale de Paris, and I discovered another life-changing passion.

With gratitude for their assistance and/or participation in articles I have written on Huguette for both The Diapason and Sounding Board, I thank Judith Andreyev, Andrew Appel, Jean-Claude Battault, Olivier Baumont, Christine Bayle, the late Anne-Marie Beckensteiner-Paillard, Nanon Bertrand, Dr. Brian Blood (Dolmetsch Foundation), Alice Bouteille (Cabinet du grand chancelier), the Conservatoire Emmanuel Chabrier de Clermont-Ferrand, Jocelyne Cuiller, Maria de Lourdes Cutolo, Laurence Decobert (Bibliothèque nationale de France), Renaud Digonnet, Matthew Dirst, Françoise Dreyfus, Marc Ducornet, Mahan Esfahani, Marcelo Fagerlande, Guillaume Finaz, Catherine Findlayson, Elisabeth Giuliani, Katarina Glachant, Stuart Gordon (who restored many otherwise unusable images), François-Pierre Goy, Yannick Guillou, Ellen Haskel-Maserati, Denis Herlin, Marie-Claire Jamet, Elisabeth Joyé, Niamh Kenny (l’Académie musicale de Villecroze), Mark Kroll, Paul Kuentz, Chiaopin Kuo, Laetitia Faetibolt (City of Mulhouse, France), Antje and Xavier Lallart, Susan Landale, Véronique LeGuen, Yohann Le Tallec (Bibliothèque nationale de France), Françoise Lengellé, Edna Lewis, Jean-Rémy Macchia, Eduard Melkus, Frank Mento, the late Claude Mercier-Ythier, Laure Morabito, Marie-Claire Moreau-Mangin, Novine Movarekhi, Pamela Nash, Jenny Nex (The University of Edinburgh), David Noël-Hudson, Kristian Nyquist, Shigeru Oikawa, Larry Palmer, Olivier Papillon, Miriam Pizzi (Accademia Musicale Chigiana), Mario Raskin, André Raynaud, Julie Reid (archivist, Centre du patrimoine), Jean-Paul Rey, Marie Van Rhijn, Lionel Rogg, Salvo Romeo, Christophe Rousset, Alan Rubin, the late Zuzana Ružicková, Pascal Scheuir, Lucile Schirr (Archives, Strasbourg, France), Didier Schnorhk (formerly with the Concours de Genève), Jill Severs, Miwako Shiraï-Rey, Richard Siegel, Laurent Soumignac, Ana Cecilia Tavares, Pascal Teixeira da Silva, Mariko Terashi, Robert Tifft, Catherine Vallet-Collot (Bibliothèque nationale de France), Reinhard von Nagel, Yasuko Uyama-Bouvard, Kamila Valkova Valenta, Jory Vinikour, Daniel Wagschal, Olivia Wahnon de Oliveira (librarian of the Royal Conservatory of Brussels), Peter Watchorn, Jed Wentz, John Whitelaw, Laura Widolf (Conservatoire Huguette Dreyfus), Ilton Wjuniski, and Aline Zylberajch-Gester.

I am especially indebted to Françoise Dreyfus and François-Pierre Goy for their involvement, support, and assistance, without which these articles could never have been written. Special thanks go to Pamela Nash, Robert Tifft, and Jed Wentz for reading my drafts and making important observations. I am very fortunate to have benefited from their good natures, knowledge, and expertise. For their constant encouragement for me to write over the years, my heartfelt thanks go to Selina Hastings, Stuart Gordon, and Richard Hieronymus.