Harpsichord Notes

Dandrieu’s harpsichord music

Hot on the heels of May’s review of a compact disc devoted to keyboard works by Haydn, June’s feature is a recording recently issued by the same company, Encelade, this time entirely devoted to harpsichord music by Jean-François Dandrieu (1682–1738).

Some organists may recognize Dandrieu’s name, especially if they play his best-known composition for our instrument, the Offertoire for Easter: O filii et filiae, a piece that occasionally appears on the playlist for organ competitions. Searching for a large volume of Dandrieu’s harpsichord music that I vaguely remembered as being somewhere in my music library, I came across Ernest White’s St. Mary’s Press edition of a hefty selection of organ pieces by Dandrieu in White’s spiral-bound Well-Tempered Organist series: fifty-five pages of French Baroque organ music that I had not perused since high school days.

A quick look at our composer’s biography raised my interest level. Born into an artistic Parisian family, Jean-François, a child prodigy, made his first known appearance as a harpsichordist at age five, performing for King Louis XIV and his court. (Shades of Mozart!) By age 18 he was playing the organ at the Church of St. Merry, made famous by the composer Nicolas LeBègue. Five years later, Dandrieu was named titular organist of that venerable religious edifice. In 1721 he was appointed one of the four organists of the Royal Chapel. 

David Fuller, in a brief Dandrieu article for the New Grove Encyclopedia of Music (1980) ranked Jean-François as the third most gifted composer of his era, after François Couperin and Jean-Philippe Rameau. Another authority on French Baroque keyboard music, Mark Kroll, does not give Dandrieu so exalted a station, but he does suggest in his chapter on “French Masters” [published in 18th-Century Keyboard Music, edited by Robert L. Marshall; New York: Routledge, 2003] that there is much of interest to be noted in some fingerings and manual change indications found in the composer’s third (and final) major publication.

Like quite a number of the Haydn disc’s selections, Dandrieu’s harpsichord works were completely unknown to me. Eventually I did find that hefty tome containing the composer’s three major harpsichord publications of 1724, 1728, and 1734 in a single-volume twentieth-century edition by Pauline Aubert and Brigitte François-Sappey, Trois Livres de Clavecin, published by the Schola Cantorum, Paris, in 1973—a massive undertaking filling nearly 200 pages. Incidentally, friends whom I queried for information concerning more recent Dandrieu editions were not able to cite any.

The Dandrieu disc, in addition to an unfamiliar repertoire, also showcases a harpsichordist and three instrument makers who are equally unfamiliar. I am delighted to report that Marouan Mankar-Bennis plays superbly in his first solo harpsichord recording, and builders Andreas Linos and Jean-François Brun, the makers of the 2014 Flemish-style harpsichord after Joannes Couchet (seventeenth century), utilized for tracks 1–17, and Ryo Yoshida, builder of the eighteenth-century French-style instrument constructed in 1989, employed for tracks 18–24, maintain similarly lofty standards. Indeed, I could go so far as to suggest that this Encelade disc might well turn out to be my favorite harpsichord recording of 2018!

A clever program

[Note: page numbers in bold type indicate the location of the individual selections in the Schola Cantorum edition.]

Monsieur Mankar-Bennis has arranged his concert to form what he has dubbed a “harpsichord opera” comprising a Prologue (tracks 1–5) and Five Acts. In cogent program notes he describes this creation, beginning with the one piece not found in my Dandrieu volume, a two-minute youthful Prelude (1705), played on the Lute (Buff) stop to suggest an antecedent of the eighteenth-century harpsichord repertoire, followed by four selections from the composer’s Third Book (1734): La Précieuse [Courante, p. 144], La Constante [Sarabande, p. 145], La Gracieuse [Chaconne, p. 148], and Le Badin [Menuet, p. 151].

Act I (tracks 6–10) commences with an overture: La Magicienne, [p. 100], a sequence comprising La Pastorale (excerpts), Las Bergers Rustiques and Héroïques, and Le Bal Champêtre [from Book Two; pp. 107–108], ending with La Naturèle from Book Three [p. 134].

Act II (tracks 11–14), Les Tendres Reproches (Book II, p. 104), Le Concert de Oiseaux: Le Remage, Les Amours, L’Hymen (Book I) [pp. 32–35].

Act III (tracks 15–17), La Plaintive
[p. 1], La Musette and Double [p. 7], Les Caractères de la Guerre [Book I; p. 14].

Act IV (tracks 18–19), Le Concert des Muses, Suite du Concert des Muses (Passacaglia) [Book II, p. 92].

Act V (tracks 20–24), La Lully (p. 81), La Corelli and Double (p. 83), La Lyre d’Orphée (p. 86), La Figurée (p. 87) [Book II]; La Tympanon (Book I, p. 46).   

Further delights

The pieces heard on the recording total 24 individual movements, 23 of which are to be found in the Schola Cantorum edition. The entire volume contains 104 separate movements. (Dandrieu’s Book I comprises 37 individual character pieces in five suites. Book II, 31 movements in six suites. Book III, 36 works in eight suites.) I recommend many of these charming pieces, most of which seem to be less technically difficult than similar movements by Couperin and Rameau. Indeed, I am disappointed that I did not know these compositions earlier in my career. They would have made excellent additions to the French harpsichord repertoire, perhaps immediately following Couperin’s L’art de toucher le clavecin Preludes, especially for less technically gifted students! Oh well, as Oscar Wilde quipped, “Youth is wasted on the young.” I have been aware for quite some time that, ironically, by the time we know enough to teach others, it is nearly time to retire.

I have not checked every note in the Trois Livres compilation, but thus far I have found only one misprint: in the Double of La Champêtre (page 147) measure three of the Reprise is missing the bass clef, needed for the following measure to make musical sense. Should you find other suspect notes or missing alterations, please let us know.

For ordering information and performer’s biography, visit www.encelade.net.

Seeking Haydn

A recent compact disc of compositions by Joseph Haydn performed on the harpsichord has provided novelty for the ears as well as provoking a lot of thought as to which keyboard instrument best serves this great composer’s creations. This conundrum occurs rather frequently for music of the later eighteenth century, especially since the extensive recording of classical sonatas by Haydn has been achieved most frequently by pianists, and similar endeavors seem to have been somewhat lacking from those of us who play instruments that pre-date the nearly-ubiquitous eighty-eight-keyed instrument.

Recorded early in 2017 by Finnish harpsichordist Pierre Gallon (born 1975), the compact disc Joseph Haydn per il Cembalo Solo is a recent release by l’Encelade (ECL1701: information available at www.encelade.net). Playing a 2004 harpsichord built by Jonte Knif (based on mid-eighteenth-century German instruments), Gallon has selected a varied repertoire of rarely heard Haydn works, including these five multi-movement compositions­:

Partita, HobXVI:6 (Divertimento per il Cembalo Solo): Allegro, Minuet, Adagio, Allegro molto [before 1766];

Sonata per Clavicembalo, HobXVI: 27: Allegro con brio, Menuetto, Presto [1776];

Divertimento, HobXVI:12: Andante, Menuet, Allegro molto [before 1766];

Sonata per Cembalo “a Principe Niccolo Esterhazy,” opus 13, HobXVI:24 [ca.1773];

Capriccio, HobXVII:1: Theme and Variations “Acht Sauschneider müssen seyn” [1765], a humorous popular folksong about the eight persons required for castrating a wild boar[!], a charming example of Haydn’s legendary sense of humor.

Interspersed with these large-scale compositions are three short pieces from the second set of 12 Lieder für das Clavier (1781/84): Geistliches Lied [#17], Minna [#23], and, as the compact disc’s final track, a gentle benediction: Auf meines Vaters Grab (At my Father’s Grave) [#24]­—each serving as a sonic “sorbet” to clear the listener’s aural senses.

Pierre Gallon displays a secure and brilliant technique, sometimes too much so, perhaps. Allegro (“happy”) and Presto (“fast”) frequently seem to be identical tempi, thus presenting a jet-fueled interpretation of music originally conceived in a horse and oxcart age. Occasionally I wished for more vocally inspired phrasing that would allow slightly more time before forging ahead to the next musical idea. There is, however, much sensitive and beautiful playing in the slower and gentler movements, and overall the disc is recommended as a welcome introduction to these rarely heard Haydn works. 

Some relevant Haydn research

So: which should it be? Harpsichord or piano? If I may quote myself, “The best answer is ‘Yes,’” as I stated in the notes to an edition of Samuel Wesley, Jr.’s Sonata in F Minor (published in 2007 by Skyline Publications, Eau Claire, Wisconsin). Wesley’s 1781 autograph manuscript was acquired by the Bridwell Library at Southern Methodist University. To honor the 300th anniversary of the birth of the senior Charles Wesley, the library mounted an extensive exhibition celebrating the musical Wesleys. I was asked to play the modern premiere of the sonata, for which Clyde Putman prepared a more legible “Finale” performing score that subsequently served as the basis for the modern publication. It is a beautiful edition that also includes full-sized facsimiles of the entire previously unknown manuscript as well as the essay from which I continue to quote:

The manuscript indicates that Wesley’s Sonata is “per il Cembalo,” the Italian word for harpsichord, an instrument not much associated with carefully calibrated dynamic changes, even in our own time. It is true that Cembalo (as a broader generic term for a keyboard instrument) was retained on title pages of keyboard publications well into the 19th century (notably by Beethoven, and continuing as late as several early piano works of Liszt!). However, dynamic indications alone do not negate harpsichord performance, especially since some late 18th-century British harpsichords could offer quite a range of volume and color. Larger instruments by Shudi, Kirkman, or Broadwood might include machine stops operated by foot pedals, thus allowing a player to change from the softest to full registrations, and back again, in an instant. A few harpsichords even had organ-like louvers, placed above the strings and soundboard, and also operated by a pedal. . . . With minor adjustments the Sonata works well as a harpsichord piece; but, given the rapidly changing aesthetic of the time, and the performance indications in the manuscript, there should be no deterrent to a performance on the piano, or, for that matter, the clavichord!

Returning to research specifically about Joseph Haydn, a fortuitous find in my personal library was a single copy of the magazine Harpsichord & Fortepiano for June 1998 (Volume 7, number 1: ISSN 1463-0036) in which Richard Maunder’s article “Keyboard Instruments in Haydn’s Vienna” details a fascinating overview of some choices that must have been available to our composer of the month. Originally delivered as a lecture for the British Clavichord Society, Dr. Maunder’s six-page, amply illustrated article offers information designed to refute three common myths: (1) that harpsichords were out-of-date by about 1770; (2) that the piano was well established by 1770, and that all of these pianos were made by Viennese builders; (3) that the clavichord was most prevalent in north Germany, but was rarely used in south Germany and Austria. Citing existing instruments, eighteenth-century newspaper advertisements, and documentary evidence from some Mozart family letters and the Eszterháza archives, the author successfully rebutted all of these assumptions. Known as a brilliant mathematician as well as a prominent musicologist, Maunder subsequently published a 288-page volume amplifying his premises (Keyboard Instruments in Eighteenth-Century Vienna, Oxford University Press, 1998; ISBN 0-19-816637-0). This information is the result of an online search using the author’s name. I have not seen the full text, but noted that used copies of the book are available, starting at $136.

The front cover of the June 1998 magazine cited above is graced with a lovely portrait of my first harpsichord mentor, Isolde Ahlgrimm, which, I believe, must be the reason I received the single issue, most likely from Ahlgrimm’s biographer Peter Watchorn, whose fact-filled Ahlgrimm discography, list of chamber music colleagues, publications, and instruments, plus three additional period photographs of the superb artist make this a periodical to cherish. It also reminded me of two important comments from our dear teacher—the first, describing an invitation she had received to perform music on Haydn’s own harpsichord in a Viennese museum: “It was, of course, a great honor, but I would have preferred less honor and a better instrument that did not sound like clacking false teeth!”

The second vignette is my grateful memory of “Ille’s” counsel as I prepared for my first performance as continuo harpsichordist for the recitatives of Haydn’s oratorio The Creation in Salzburg during spring 1959. “Check the ‘Applausus,’” she told me. I had never heard that word before, so she explained that it referred to a letter that Haydn sent to the performers of his cantata of the same name when he was unable to attend its premiere. Comprising ten specific items to observe in the performance, the most important for me at this time was number three, which stated “In the recitatives the instrumentalists should come in immediately after the vocalist has finished, but on no account is the vocalist to be interrupted, even if such a procedure were prescribed in the score.” (For a complete translation, see Karl Geiringer, Haydn—A Creative Life in Music. I note that a third edition, 1982, is one of the options available; my own paperback copy is the second edition [1963].)

Incidentally, I became a lifelong fan of Haydn after the soul-searing conclusion of the first chorus in his Creation oratorio: the quiet recitation, “And God said ‘Let there be light,’” segued into “and there was light”—surely one of the simplest, but most arresting choral/orchestral explosions in all of the oratorio literature! 

Two further volumes of great interest are both by A. Peter Brown. The larger volume is Joseph Haydn’s Keyboard Music: Sources and Style, published in 1986 by Indiana University Press. At slightly more than 450 pages, it is the most comprehensive collection of information about its subject. Brown’s second publication, also from Indiana, 1986, is Performing Haydn’s The Creation (Reconstructing the Earliest Renditions), 125 pages.

Also recommended is “Haydn’s Solo Keyboard Music” by Elaine Sisman, published as the eighth chapter of Eighteenth-Century Keyboard Music, edited by Robert L. Marshall as a volume in the Routledge Studies in Musical Genres series, second edition, 2008.

As I draw this column to its conclusion, I share with you a slight possibility that I have recently observed in Haydn’s Sonata No. 60 (Hob. XVI/50 in Volume Three of Christa Landon’s Complete Wiener Urtext Edition, UT 500029). In the first movement of this Sonata in C Major, dating from c. 1794–1795, I note that the indication “open pedal” is printed several times. Landon suggests this might mean “with raised dampers,” and would thus assign the piece to the piano. I wonder if it might refer instead to the harpsichord louvers I mentioned many paragraphs ago? Haydn had experienced several long visits to London by this time . . . . Hmmm. The possibilities continue to expand and excite. Seeking Haydn is a continual exploration, as are the mysteries of his genius and the joys to be found in his many contributions to our keyboard literature. The search for enlightenment never ends; therein lies its beauty.

Harpsichord Plus: 

The Accompanied Music 

of Jacques Duphly

As a genre, accompanied harpsichord music seems to have come into being early in the 18th century. Indeed, the harpsichord accompanied by lute is commented on late in the 17th century when the lutenist Porion accompanied the keyboardist Hardel. In Rome the harpsichord accompanied by violin was noted in 1727 at Cardinal Colonna’s, and only two years later, in 1729, there was a similar event in Paris, for which the keyboardist was none other than François Couperin’s daughter.

The first examples to appear in print seem to have been the Pièces de Claveçin en Sonates, op. 3, of Jean-Joseph Cassanéa de Mondonville (1734). (Earlier works sometimes cited as examples of this genre—works by Dieupart [1701] and Elizabeth Jacquet de la Guerre [1707]—actually appear to be different editions of the same pieces, not meant to be played as duos.) Mondonville’s sonatas were followed by Michel Corrette’s Sonates pour le Claveçin avec un Accompagnement de Violon, op. 25 (1742); Mondonville’s Pièces de Claveçin avec Voix ou Violon, op. 5 (1748); and by the one popular group of compositions still found in the active performing repertoire of the 21st century, Jean-Philippe Rameau’s five sets of Pièces de Claveçin en Concert, published in 1741. That these Rameau pieces belong to this same line of publications cannot be doubted, for the composer wrote in his preface: “The success of recently published sonatas, which have come out as harpsichord pieces with a violin part, has given me the idea of following much the same plan in the new harpsichord pieces, which I am venturing to bring out today . . .”

A little further on Rameau continued: “These pieces lose nothing by being played on the harpsichord alone; indeed, one would never suspect them capable of any other adornment . . .”

This primacy of the harpsichord, which really was meant to be accompanied by the other instrument, is borne out by the words of Charles Avison, who, in 1756, insisted that the violins should “always be subservient to the harpsichord,” and by C.-J. Mathon de la Coeur, the editor of Almanach Musical, who wrote in 1777,

We cannot resist pointing out here that the harpsichord is the only creature in this world that has been able to claim sufficient respect from other instruments to keep them in their place and cause itself to be accompanied in the full sense of the term. Voices, even the most beautiful ones, lack this privileged position; they are covered mercilessly . . . but as soon as it is a question of accompanying a harpsichord, you see submissive and timid instrumentalists softening their sounds like courtiers in the presence of their master, before whom they dare not utter a word without having read permission in his eyes. 

Methinks times have changed since M. de la Coeur published these comments!

Why, then, one might ask, would another instrumentalist agree to perform with a harpsichordist in such a subservient manner? And further, what was the purpose of having an accompanying instrumentalist there at all? As to the first question, one could assume that not all pieces on a program would be of the accompanied type; some sonatas for the solo instrument with (or without) a figured basso continuo could return a preeminent position to the non-keyboard instrument. As for the second question, Avison answers this in the preface to his op. 7 (1760): “They are there to help the expression.”

The second half of the 18th century was a transitional time when the fortepiano was making ever deeper inroads into the public awareness, when the abrupt dynamic contrasts of a C. P. E. Bach or the Mannheim composers were popular, and every possible device or gimmick was being invented and employed to aid the harpsichord in producing more dynamic variety: pedal-activated machine stops, the soft leather “plectra” of the peau de buffle register, organ-like foot-pedal-operated louvers that were installed above the soundboard, and instrumental accompaniment.

The six accompanied pieces of Jacques Duphly have been played less frequently than his other harpsichord works because they were omitted from Heugel’s 1967 Le Pupitre volume of his “complete” harpsichord pieces. A modern edition of the three G-major pieces with violin had been published in Paris in 1961, but the additional three in F major were not generally available to contemporary players until the Swiss publisher Minkoff offered its facsimile edition of Duphly’s Third Book of Harpsichord Pieces in 1987. My attention was drawn to these six enhanced works when reviewing the four compact discs that comprise Yannick Le Gaillard’s complete recording of Duphly’s output, in which he included all six of the “added violin” pieces in collaboration with violinist Ryo Terakado (ADDA 581097/100, 1988). 

For those to whom Duphly is not a household name, the composer was born in Rouen in 1715 and had the exquisite good taste to die in Paris in 1789 immediately before the aristocratic world in which he functioned was totally upended by the French Revolution. One gets a succinct picture of this minor master of the keyboard from two contemporaries. Pierre-Louis Daquin wrote in 1752: “. . . Duflitz [sic] passes in Paris for a very good harpsichordist. He has much lightness of touch and a certain softness which, sustained by ornaments, marvelously render the character of the pieces.” Marpurg, writing in 1754, has passed on to us this portrait of a rather particular character who obviously preferred light action for his keyboards: “Duphly, a pupil of Dagincour, plays the harpsichord only, in order, as he says, not to spoil his hand with the organ. He lives in Paris, where he instructs the leading families.”

Duphly had published his first two books of harpsichord music in 1744 and 1748. These volumes did not include any accompanied pieces, but his third book (1758) begins with three works in the new style. (It must have been taken for granted at this time that one could play either with or without the accompanying instrument, for nothing that mentions the added partner is noted on the title page, or elsewhere.) The accompanied pieces simply appeared with a third staff added above the usual two for the harpsichord; the word Violon is engraved above this additional staff.

The first three accompanied pieces, in F major, present varied tonal pictures. Number one is an Ouverture that begins with a Grave in the customary dotted rhythm, continues with a livelier contrapuntal section, and ends with a two-measure stately cadence. Two character pieces follow: La De May is a gracious rondo named for Reine DeMay, a midwife who played some role in a shady enterprise involving Casanova and the Parisian banker Pouplinière. There is, however, nothing particularly shady about this delicate, rather sunny piece. The third piece, La Madin, is an Italianate gigue, named in honor of the Abbé Henri Madin, choirmaster of the Chapelle Royal and governor of the musical pages. It may be a reference to these youngsters that informs the playful character of this quick-paced work.

That these pieces are worth restoring to the repertoire is not in doubt. Indeed, all of Duphly’s pieces are worthwhile for reasons admirably articulated by Gustav Leonhardt, one of the first modern harpsichordists to champion these French works. In notes to a disc of solo works by the pre-revolutionary composer, Leonhardt wrote, “. . . Duphly’s pieces concealed within their notes the secret of sonority. Such a style of composition demands as much expert knowledge as writing difficult or bizarre works. The perfect always seems easy in the eyes of the non-initiated.”

Duphly’s third volume continues with the very best of his solo harpsichord compositions—the F-minor rondeau La Forqueray, a monumental F-major-minor-major Chaconne, the turbulent and virtuose Medée, winsome and moving D-major Les Grâces, the rocket-themed D-minor La De Belombre, and two graceful Menuets. Then comes the G-major accompanied set—three character pieces, all in quick tempi, titled La De Casaubon, La Du Tailly, and La De Valmallette, the latter two both known Parisian vocalists. The volume concludes with five more solo harpsichord pieces in various keys.

In revisiting the Le Gaillard recordings I found them to be somewhat superficial and too unyielding for my current tastes. Searching the web to see if there were some more recent recordings I came across two that were of interest: a disc of accompanied works by Duphly and the very young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, whose earliest-known keyboard sonatas (K. 6–9) belong to the accompanied harpsichord genre, recorded at the Musée des Beaux Arts, Chartres, by harpsichordist Violaine Cochard and violinist Stéphanie-Marie Degand (Agogique AGO009, 2010). Online reviewer Johan van Veen wrote of this recent offering, “Considering that the Duphly pieces are not often recorded and that Mozart’s sonatas are too often—if at all—played on rather inappropriate instruments, this disc deserves an enthusiastic reception.”

A recording entirely devoted to works by Duphly receives my highest recommendation: harpsichordist Medea Bindewald, whose playing demonstrates the most satisfying musicality, with just the right amount of agogic give and take, is joined by violinist Nicolette Moonen on the German label Coviello Classics (CD COV91404). Recorded during August 2013 in Swithland, UK, here is a first-rate program selected from three of the four Duphly volumes, played from the original engraved texts (the same scores that I recommend, all four volumes of which are available in the series of Performers’ Facsimiles published by Broude Brothers). Ms. Bindewald lists Robert Hill (Freiburg) and Ketil Haugsand (Cologne) among her teachers, so it is not completely surprising that she plays a magnificent instrument built by another Hill brother, the American harpsichord maker Keith Hill. I was charmed and delighted throughout the ample hour-and-a-quarter of this well-chosen recital. Only occasionally did I wish that the violin were slightly less prominent in its balance with the harpsichord. After all, the bow was meant to accompany the keyboard! (Thank you, Mr. Avison and M. Mathon de la Coeur!)

When I first spoke about Duphly to a Southeastern Historical Keyboard Society gathering at Salem College in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, on April 6, 1991, I began by expressing appreciation to the author who had already published most of the information offered here. Once again, I need to share my gratitude to this pioneering scholar of French early keyboard music, Professor Emeritus David Fuller, from the State University of New York at Buffalo, whose research and writings have formed the basis not only of my own presentations, but, as I have noticed in researching the topic, nearly everyone else’s. As the authority who published “Accompanied Keyboard Music” in the journal Musical Quarterly (60:2, April 1974, pp. 222–245), as well as the subsequent articles on Duphly and the Accompanied Sonata in the New Grove Dictionary of Music, Fuller has been both leader and guide for Duphly studies. I came to know David better when I was asked to write his biography for the American Grove, and also when we “shared” a harpsichord major student, Lewis Baratz, who, after completing his undergraduate study with Professor Fuller, graced the master of music program in harpsichord at Southern Methodist University, before going on to earn his doctorate in musicology.

And I cannot think of, or play, Duphly’s music without remembering a beloved mixed-breed pet—part Dachshund, part Lhasa Apso—who loved to listen to the harpsichord, usually unaccompanied. Adopted from the local SPCA animal shelter, where his name was listed as “Blue,” he shared our Dallas lives for the larger part of two decades, during which time he seemed at ease with the more distinctive name I had chosen for him. ν

Comments or questions are always welcome. Please send them to [email protected] or Dr. Larry Palmer, 10125 Cromwell Drive, Dallas, TX 75229.

Armand-Louis Couperin: Complete Keyboard Works

During this past concert season I have been revisiting a few of my favorite harpsichord solos from the French repertoire. High among these have been several works by Armand-Louis Couperin (La Chéron and l’Affligée) and, with guest harpsichordist Mitchell Crawford, the first movement of the same composer’s Symphony for Two Harpsichords. Following one of these concerts, my sometime harpsichord student Deborah Dana brought one of the two B-flat solo pieces to her lesson, using a score printed from an online source. I asked her for more complete information, and she graciously sent me this link to Martin Pearlman’s website: http://www.martinpearlman.com/artist.php?view=dpk#docs. And thus began this month’s column, with its information about a very large gift to the entire harpsichord community!

Pearlman’s online magnum opus comprises the complete keyboard works of Armand-Louis Couperin in a pristine scholarly edition of 350 downloadable pages: under Documents, simply scroll down to the fourth icon (Armand-Louis Couperin Edition Complete) and make your choices­—the whole edition or the helpful preface, followed by the individual groups of pieces: a very legible modern-notated edition of the complete Pièces de Claveçin, several newly offered miscellaneous solo pieces (including one with organ registrations), and the extensive group of works for two harpsichords. There are also two appendices comprising separate parts for Harpsichord One and Harpsichord Two of the duo-harpsichord compositions.

All of this is offered for free downloading and performing: a gift from the generous and thoughtful editor, who also has given me permission to quote from his introduction: “Based on work I began in the 1970s I decided, in the modern spirit of online sharing, to make this edition available without charge to those who are interested in it. I ask only that any performers of the two Quatuors which I have completed acknowledge my role in writing the second harpsichord parts (which were missing from the manuscripts).”

What a kind and useful gift! Previously we have had the two volumes of selected works for keyboard edited by the eminent scholar and organist/harpsichordist David Fuller for A-R Editions of Madison, Wisconsin, and a complete facsimile edition of the 1752 solo harpsichord pieces by Brigitte Haudebourg for French publisher August Zurfluh. Incidentally, both Fuller and Haudebourg have recorded various pieces from their respective print editions, as has Martin Pearlman.

Pearlman graciously acknowledged the work of his predecessors in publication. He also dedicated this extensive study to Gustav Leonhardt, from whom he took harpsichord lessons in Amsterdam. In a note to me Pearlman mentioned, “Mr. Leonhardt was quite complimentary . . .” concerning the scholarly effort involved in this new addition to A-L Couperin scores.

Rather than reprint the many helpful sections of Pearlman’s 359-page oeuvre, I present here a list of those topics that curious readers may find to be useful subjects that are presented in the fifty-page preface: Introduction and Acknowledgements; Genealogical Table [of the Couperin Dynasty]; Life of Armand-Louis Couperin; Couperin’s Keyboard Instruments [particularly of interest since the composer’s wife was a Blanchet from that family of harpsichord-building fame]; Performance Issues (Double Bars and Repeats, Abbreviations, Appoggiaturas, Ornaments); [A comprehensive] Bibliography; Editorial Policy; Description of Sources; Critical Notes; and, finally, Portraits and Facsimiles. 

What follows are 219 pages comprising the easy-to-read musical scores, which include several formerly unknown works in the category “Other Pieces for Solo Keyboard Instruments.” Additionally, there is access to more than a hundred additional pages of individual parts for harpsichords 1 and 2 of the duo works. (In our Dallas printing spree we consumed more than a ream of paper and several cartridges of black printer ink, all for this very “Baroque” cause.)

What treasures! What a treat! Endless thanks are due Martin Pearlman for his generosity and true collegial spirit. And, finally, a tip of the hat to Deborah Dana in this, her birthday month. Once again, as with her introducing me to the Wagnerian unmeasured prelude by Scott Ross (cited in The Diapason, July 2017, page 11), her teacher has learned from his student. And that (along with hearing musical progress) is one of the greatest joys in a professor’s life!

Handel with care

As I write this column we are barely past the Feast of the Epiphany and are   settling in for a bit of “wintery mix” that will bring sub-freezing temperatures plus the threat of snow to much of northern Texas. Blessedly, I am still basking in the warm memory of my most recent participation as continuo harpsichordist for a performance of George Frideric Handel’s greatest hit, his oratorio Messiah (Part I and the Hallelujah Chorus), presented on December 24 as the Sunday morning service at Lovers Lane United Methodist Church in Dallas.

Like most colleagues who own a harpsichord, I have had a career-long association with Handel’s masterpiece beginning during student days and continuing through many collaborations with professional ensembles such as the Dallas and Shreveport symphonies and multiple church choirs (my own as conductor from the keyboard, and others as keyboardist only). Like other particular holiday favorites (The Nutcracker and A Christmas Carol come to mind), Messiah can suffer from over-exposure. At this point in my life I am not certain that I would accept another engagement to perform the entire oratorio, but for this, a repeat booking to assist with Part I at Lovers Lane Church after having performed in a separate subsequent Good Friday presentation of Parts II and III during an appropriate liturgical season, I have come to admire the good taste of music director Jimmy Emery and the sensitive collaboration of his clergy. Music IS the sermon for these services: a pastoral welcome follows the organ prelude; the instrumental “Pifa” serves as an offertory, and a benediction before the organ postlude completes the spoken word segments for the service, thus allowing the powerful biblical texts and Handel’s beloved music to serve as the message.

For the 2017 presentation we had a complement of single strings, winds, trumpet, and tympani plus the collaboration of organist Sheryl Sebo at the classic Aeolian-Skinner pipe organ, moved from the original church for installation as the chancel instrument for the magnificent primary edifice for worship, no longer situated on the eponymous Lane, but now gracing the northeastern corner of Northwest Highway and Inwood Road in north Dallas. Due to his scheduling error the cellist did not arrive for the Saturday morning rehearsal, but a versatile bassist did noble service, and the continuo players gathered for an extra half hour of checking cues on Sunday morning, so all fit together seamlessly.

A few performance suggestions achieved from experience

I admire those among us who are proficient readers of figured bass, but for my own security I prefer to play from a realized score, and the published version that I use is a 1998 spiral-bound volume from Oxford University Press, edited by Clifford Bartlett (with continuo realization by Timothy Morris). This 167-page score contains all of the various transpositions and alternatively voiced arias as well as the rehearsal letters indicated in the Watkins Shaw vocal score published by Novello. (A practical hint: keep a stash of large paper clips close at hand, and ask the conductor for a list of the options that have been selected for performance prior to rehearsals.)

Of course, the presence of a printed realization does not require that every printed note must be played! For dynamic or expressive reasons one may wish to omit, or add, notes. A few of my favorite examples: in “O Thou that tellest Good Tidings to Zion” (#9) try adding some upward scale figures to illustrate “get thee up into the high mountains.” Delay the harpsichord entrance at the beginning of #10, “For behold, darkness shall cover the earth,” then join the bass line at letter A: “. . . But the Lord shall arise . . .” Or, for the recitative #19, “Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened,” insert a bit of irresistible fun by adding some jolly arpeggiated upward sixteenth-notes to portray that lame man who is “leaping as an hart!”

Recommended books: Handel and Messiah

1) For an eminently readable biography of the composer, Christopher Hogwood’s tercentenary offering Handel (Thames and Hudson, London, 1984, USA 1985; ISBN 0-500-01355-1) is a winner with one hundred well-chosen illustrations (ten in color), a full chapter on the oratorios, and a complete chronological table of events in the composer’s long life.

2) Richard Luckett, the Pepys Librarian at Magdalene College, Cambridge UK, is the author of Handel’s Messiah: A Celebration (Victor Gollanz, Ltd, 1992; ISBN 0-575-05286-4), comprising ten cogent chapters that describe the background and history of the work’s creation, its varied performance styles through the years, and the changing tastes that have developed through the influence of the twentieth-century early music revival.

3) First Nights: Five Musical Premieres (Yale University Press, 2000; ISBN 0-300-07774-2) is James Forrest Kelly’s compendium of eventful happenings at the first public hearing of a major work by the composers Monteverdi, Beethoven, Berlioz, Stravinsky, and, as the subject of the book’s second chapter, Handel’s Messiah. Of particular interest is a discussion of recommended recordings of Handel’s oratorio (pages 342–344) as conducted by George Solti, Trevor Pinnock, William Christie, and Nicholas McGegan. The latter chose to record all the variant surviving material from Handel’s several versions of Messiah, thus providing the listener with the materials for constructing a unique performance of the oratorio to suit one’s individual interest and preferences.

A memorable venue: Handel’s house

Among my fondest memories of meaningful recitals, only a precious few hold the same rank as the thrill of performing an eighteenth-century keyboard transcription of the “Overture” to Messiah during one of my two concerts in Handel’s London lodging located at 25 Brook Street, Mayfair, known since 2001 as “The Handel House Museum.” A lovely two-manual harpsichord by Bruce Kennedy provides the player with an exceptional partner in this intimate space. Most wonderful, however, is the sense of awe that is induced by the thought that in these very rooms the great composer conceived his immortal music.

I did not wish to mention these events without hastening to mention the names of some other colleagues who have had the same opportunity. For this information I appealed to Jane Clark, a wonderful British friend and authority on Couperin and Scarlatti, as well as a superb performer of her late husband Stephen Dodgson’s keyboard music, with a request for a list of players from the United States who have presented concerts. Neither Jane nor I can vouch for its completeness (so I suggest that readers who have names to add should contact me so that I may add them in a future Harpsichord Notes column). In alphabetical order: Ruta Bloomfield, Elaine Funaro, Mark Kroll, Sonia Lee, Joyce Lindorff, Charlotte Mattax, Rebecca Pechefsky, Linton Powell, Michael Tsalka, and Kenneth Weiss—distinguished company, indeed!

Jane also noted that she was discouraging future performances of Handel’s great (but lengthy) Chaconne in G Major! (So, colleagues, be forewarned!)

Handel for harpsichord: a few suggestions

In the days before ubiquitous recording media existed, orchestral works were transcribed for home performances at the various available keyboards. Sixty Handel overtures from oratorios and operas are available in a volume of keyboard arrangements published by John Walsh (the younger) during the years 1708 to 1750. Dover Publications reprinted the entire collection in one volume in 1993. This facsimile of the “top sixty” begins at A (Acis and Galatea). [Aside: my first commercial recording was as a singer in the “Oberlin” chorus for Bernhard Paumgartner’s production of this opera at the Salzburger Landestheater in 1959, issued on a Columbia record in the United States.] The Dover volume includes both Messiah and Water Musick [sic], and concludes with Xerxes! This compendium should provide enough variety for a few decades of Handel House harpsichordists! If the occasional C clefs and idiosyncratic notational features of the facsimile edition are not to one’s liking, Novello issued Twenty Overtures In Authentic Keyboard Arrangements, edited by Terence Best (3 volumes, 1985) employing modern musical notation and printing.

Handel’s Eight Great Suites comprise typical eighteenth-century dance movements, several of which deserve to rank along with the best of such sets from the period. [Aside: in the early 1960s I nearly caused a riot in Eugene Selhorst’s graduate music literature seminar at the Eastman School of Music when I questioned the comment from a pianist who said that Handel was “not a first-rate composer for keyboard” by asking her if she had ever played any of them? She had not. A pity! My own favorites include the suites in E major (“Harmonious Blacksmith”), D minor (which culminates in a Presto movement also used to conclude the overture for the opera Il Pastor Fido), and the noble F minor. But the others are worthwhile too: multi-movement works in A major, F major, E minor, F-sharp minor, and G minor: all worthwhile and interesting music.

Finally, you might just “throw in the towel” and create your own transcription of Percy Grainger’s “clog dance” Handel in the Strand (composed for piano and strings in 1911–1912, and, as he noted in a later edition for keyboard, “dished up for piano solo,” March 25, 1930, in Denton, Texas!!). What merriment it must have brought to Dallas’s “neighbor to the north,” now home to the impressive University of North Texas School of Music.  

And I’ll wager that, if the weather was as cold then as it is right now, Percy Grainger’s hot pianism could have turned most of the frozen precipitation into a dazzling dancing delight!

Where next?

So, you have mastered Couperin’s eight preludes from L’Art de toucher le clavecin. What harpsichord repertoire should follow these basic pieces?

To my ears Domenico Scarlatti was the ultimate artist/composer when it came to varying textures in writing for our instrument. I have advised more than a few curious contemporary composers to consult the 500-plus keyboard sonatas from this Baroque genius and then to emulate his wide palette of various densities of sound: one of the best ways to create a varied dynamic range.

Suggestions: perhaps the most-assigned to first-semester students have been two A-major Sonatas, K (Kirkpatrick) numbers 208 and 209. There are several fine editions from which to choose, but, once again as with my choice for the first Couperin pieces, I have found that another “made in America” publication works well on several levels. The sometimes-maligned yellow-bound Schirmer Editions offer Sixty Sonatas by Scarlatti in two volumes. Chosen and edited by the formidable scholar and artist Ralph Kirkpatrick (he of the most-used numbering system for this composer), these 60 were published as Schirmer Library Volumes 1774 and 1775. (Too bad they could not have waited until number 1776, which would have been even more patriotic!) K. 208 and 209 are found in the first of these collections.

Kirkpatrick, working midway in the 20th century (the copyright is dated 1953), used source materials transmitted to him via microfilm. In a rare misreading of the dim and hazy film, he mistook the tempo indication for K. 208, transcribing Adº as “Andante” rather than the indicated “Adagio,” providing once again a perfect teaching moment when one presents the proof of this mistake. Also, it does make quite a difference: Andante, a moving or walking tempo, is not at all the same as Adagio, which, in the composer’s native Italian, means “at your ease” and thus should suggest more flexibility with rubato and a quieter, more involved personality—perhaps that of a lovesick flamenco guitarist. As for texture: the sonata begins with only two voices, soprano and bass, and adds a middle line in measure three, introduces a fourth voice in the chords of measure seven, and builds a terrific crescendo in the penultimate measure thirteen of the A section, before cadencing on an open dominant octave.

The B section begins with a single bass note, and in its first measure we are confronted with the instruction “Tremulo,” indicating a needed ornament in the melodic line. There has been much speculation and some gnashing of musicological teeth about this particular instruction in Domenico’s works. I have tried various solutions, but fairly late in my career I decided that it might possibly indicate the mordent! My reasoning: the mordent is one of the two most generally prevalent ornaments in Baroque music, but there is no indication of it in Scarlatti’s sonatas; and the mordent seems to be feasible each time a Tremulo is indicated.

Vis-à-vis that other musical ornament, the trill, it was the Iberian music specialist Guy Bovet who, during our one semester as Dallas colleagues, reminded me that the usual starting note for Scarlattian trills should be the main (written) note! I realize that many of us were heavily influenced by our piano or organ teachers who taught us to begin all Baroque trills with the note above; but in actual musical practice, this is rather silly: trills normally do begin on the written note in this Italian-Iberian repertoire, but here, and in general, I refuse to be bound to one invariable rule, and frequently substitute an upper-note trill, particularly in cadential figures that seem to ache for a dissonance (or, occasionally, simply to avoid ugly-sounding parallel octave movement of the voices). My advice is to follow Bovet’s instruction as a general practice, but also to use one’s musical instincts when required: after all, we have yet to hear those “recordings” from the 17th and 18th centuries that would prove once and for all what the local practice was. (Do, please, let me know if they are discovered.)

The paired sonata, K. 209, could not be more different from its shorter sibling: an Allegro (Happy) with some technical challenges (as opposed to the many musical challenges offered by K. 208) should prove again the inventiveness of the composer, especially in his use of varied textures. One spot that particularly delights is found in measure 70, where, after the vigorous cadence begins with two voices, the resolution is one single soprano E, a totally unexpected surprise! Kenneth Gilbert, in his eleven-volume edition of 550 sonatas for Le Pupitre, adds the missing bass note, choosing the reading found in a different manuscript source in which the next iteration of that same figure (measure 147) does resolve with an open octave in the bass. I still prefer Kirkpatrick’s reading for these passages: rather than adding notes in the first example, he does away with them at the second iteration . . . and thereby preserves an equal surprise for the B section.

Quite a few other sonatas that serve well as technique-enhancing pieces are to be found in the set comprising the first Kirkpatrick numbers 1 through 30: works published in London (1738) as Scarlatti’s Essercizi per gravicembalo. If your student (or you) want a bit of narrative music, the final entry in this set, K. 30, is particularly fun to play and hear: nicknamed the “Cat” Fugue, it is easy to imagine a favorite feline frolicking treble-ward on the keyboard to create a fugue subject spanning an octave and a half. Several years ago, when preparing a program of Iberian music to play on Southern Methodist University’s Portuguese organ (a single-manual instrument built in 1762 by Caetano Oldovini for Portugal’s Evora Cathedral), I turned to the Alfred Edition print of this sonata, which incorporates some of the quite useful (and interesting) minor corrections offered in a second edition from the year 1739, also published in London by the English organist and Scarlatti-enthusiast Thomas Roseingrave. 

Finally, should one become entranced by Scarlatti’s delightful catwalk, there is a rarely encountered piece by the Bohemian composer Antonín Rejcha (1770–1836) from his 36 Fugues, op. 36, published in Vienna (1805). Fugue Nine is subtitled “On a Theme from Domenico Scarlatti.” In it our musical cat, elderly and more reserved, is heard ranging a keyboard that extends to top F, before settling down, finally, with quiet cadential chords. The score, published by Universal Edition, is found in Bohemian Piano Music from the Classical Period, volume 2 (UE18583), edited by Peter Roggenkamp.

Some contemporary components

It will come as no surprise to our loyal readers that, during my lengthy tenure at the Meadows School, Southern Methodist University, I required at least one 20th- or 21st-century composition to fulfill repertoire requirements during each semester of harpsichord study. Among the most admired of these pieces were the twelve individual movements of Lambert’s Clavichord by Herbert Howells. These, the first published 20th-century works for the clavichord, are true gems, and equally delightful both to play and to hear. Issued by Oxford University Press in 1928, they are not widely available now, but I have been told that they may be obtained as an “on-demand print” from the publisher. Howells’s own favorite of the set was De la Mare’s Pavane, named for his friend, the distinguished poet Walter de la Mare. Indeed, it was a question about one chord in this piece that precipitated my first visit with the composer in 1974. Dr. Howells did not answer me immediately, but before we parted he took a pen in hand and drew in the missing sharp sign before the middle C on the second half of beat two in measure 24. That had been my concern, that missing sharp! Thus, I was relieved to have a correction from the only person who could not be doubted, the great man himself.

Other works recommended for investigative forays into this literature (works offering a great deal of good examples for the development of dynamic, articulate, and musical playing) include Rudy Davenport’s Seven Innocent Dances (which I have dubbed the “With It” suite): With Casualness, With Resolve, With Playfulness, With Excitement, With Fire, With Pomposity, With Steadiness­—available in the Aliénor Harpsichord Competition 2000 Winners volume published by Wayne Leupold (WL600233); Glenn Spring’s Trifles: Suite Music for Harpsichord comprising the miniatures A Start, Blues for Two, Burlesque, Cantilena, Habañerita, Recitative, and Introspection, lovely pieces indeed, as are Spring’s more recent Bartókian miniatures: Béla Bagatelles (2011). Both sets are available from the composer ([email protected]). Finally, from the late British composer Stephen Dodgson, three movements of his Suite 1 in C for Clavichord: Second Air, Tambourin, and Last Fanfare (published by Cadenza Music in 2008) form a delightful group of pieces. Equally effective at the harpsichord, they have proven to be very audience-friendly.

A May reminder

Do not forget Lou Harrison’s centenary (May 2017), the perfect month in which to investigate the American composer’s Six Sonatas, as detailed in Harpsichord News, The Diapason, October 2016, page 10.