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Old Instruments, New Music: SEHKS 2004

Martha Novak Clinkscale

Martha Novak Clinkscale is the author of Makers of the Piano: 1700-1860, 2 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993 and 1999). She is Adjunct Professor of Fortepiano at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.

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Beautiful weather and a warm welcome greeted the nearly 100 registrants for the Southeastern Historical Keyboard Society's conclave, held March 11-13 at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. Those interested in the early piano found a wealth of historical pianos in the G. Norman and Ruth G. Eddy Collection, and the University also boasts the Franz and Willemina de Hen Collection of Musical Instruments.  Many of these treasures were attractively, if compactly, displayed, in the lobby of the Music Building.

Brenda Neece, curator of the entire Duke musical instrument collection, opened the proceedings with a description and short history. Edwin Good then described his adventures in preparing the first checklist of the Eddy Collection. He pointed out that, besides the thirteen Eddy pianos (eleven of which are now at Duke), collector Norman Eddy owned a number of other instruments, including several horns, a tuba and an ophicleide. Among the Eddy acquisitions displayed are an upright grand piano by William Stodart (ca. 1810-18), a small Broadwood square "playing-card piano," and a splendid square by Alpheus Babcock. To illustrate the beautiful, singing tone of the Babcock, Ted played the two-movement Haydn Sonata in D major (Hob. XVI:51). Following Good's presentation, Maria Rose described and demonstrated the "singing tone" of the early French Romantic piano with works by Hérold and Boëly--electrifying discoveries--on a Clementi grand (ca. 1805-10). Although written in 1816, the Hérold sonata already shows the rhapsodic melody and rippling virtuosic style of French opera arias of the 1820s. These fluid and expressive pieces are dramatic, yet sensitive, and immediately suggest that they and pieces like them had a powerful effect on the young Chopin. Maria explained the similarities between the Clementi's English action and the mécanisme à étrier (repetition action) of the 1808 Érard grand piano. Indeed, Sandra Soderlund, in her presentation on pianist-composer Ignaz Moscheles, stated that even he preferred Clementi's pianos to those of  Érard for their "more subtle mechanism," although Moscheles later admitted his admiration for the Érard 1822 double escapement action.

To close this first session Gail Olszewski played a program of piano music by late 18th- and early 19th-century English women composers. She proved that these works possess irresistible charm and vivacity, especially noted in the Sophia Corri Dussek (1775-1847) sonata movement and two movements from a sonata by Cecilia Maria Barthélémon (ca. 1770-after 1840).

Friday afternoon's events took place at the inner-city home of instrument collector Steve Barrell. The host himself introduced the instruments with amusing accounts of his start as a collector of instruments and early keyboard music. Playing several of his antique clavichords, Steve demonstrated their differences as well as the sweetness of their tone. His presentation was followed by a vigorous and technically impressive program of fortepiano music by Haydn, C. P. E. Bach, and Mozart played by Kristian Bezuidenhout on a 1794 Dulcken instrument. Bezuidenhout's ornamentation of the repeated sections was imaginative and engaging, and sometimes even whimsical.

For the Friday evening concert, John Pruett, classical violin; Brent Wissick, classical cello; and Randall Love, fortepiano, gave an all-Beethoven program: a sonata for piano solo and duo sonatas with violin and cello, ending with a spirited performance of the "Ghost" Trio. Love played a replica by Thomas and Barbara Wolf of a six-octave Nannette Streicher piano from 1815.

Saturday morning's session began with Margaret Hood's introduction of her own handsome replica of the six-and-a-half-octave Nannette Streicher grand at Yale. Interestingly, Margaret pointed out that in all pianos that she has seen containing both bassoon stops and moderators, the bassoon stop is coupled to the moderator; this phenomenon convinces her that it may have been the norm to use them together. The Eddy Clementi was brought into play again by Karyl Louwenaar and her colleague, violinist Karen Clarke, in stunning performances of two sonatas by Clementi, the G major, op. 2, no. 3, with "the accompaniment of a violin or flute," and the solo piano sonata in G minor, op. 14, no. 2.

Andrew Willis was next with a tour de force presentation of the Chopin G-flat Impromptu (op. 51, 1842), which he played--with the help of computer editing and merging--on six different mid-19th-century Pleyel grands from European collections. An ultimate surprise was the inclusion of Andrew's own recently acquired instrument: the Willis-Greensboro Pleyel (1848).

Harpsichords and organs also were a spectacular part of this conclave. Duke University Organist Robert Parkins opened the conference on Thursday evening with a thrilling program of Frescobaldi, Bruna, Cabanilles, Guilain, and Bach works played on the Italianate meantone Brombaugh organ (1997) in a small side chapel and the monumental, soaring Flentrop organ (1976) in the nave of the Gothic-style Duke Chapel.

Before an elegant Saturday lunch in the University Faculty Commons, David Chung's glowing recital of works by Froberger, Weckmann, Reincken, and Böhm in the stylus phantasticus rang out on a splendid William Dowd Mietke harpsichord in the same small side chapel that houses the Brombaugh organ.

Saturday afternoon offerings included Joseph Butler's paper entitled "Grigny, Bach, and Walther: Revision of the Premier Livre d'Orgue." Bonnie Choi followed with a smattering of virtuoso 20th-century harpsichord works by Ligeti, Hakim, Penn, and the outrageous and hilarious Bird-Boogie (1973) by Franspeter Goebels. Larry Palmer, never to be outdone, gave a lecture-recital comprising some of his many "Sins of Commission," including Neely Bruce's Nine Variations on an Original Theme (1961); Glenn Spring's Images after Wallace Stevens (2003), in which he was joined by violinist Kathleen Spring; two movements from Serenade 15 (1987) by Persichetti; and Gerald Near's Triptych (1982). This program included brief recorded excerpts from works by Rudy Shackelford, Ross Lee Finney, and Rudy Davenport. The entire afternoon served as a stimulating warm-up for the Aliénor Competition finalists' concert that evening.

Five prize-winning solo harpsichord works had been selected by judges Joyce Lindorff, Keith Paulson-Thorp, and Max Yount as finalists in this year's competition. Three additional monetary awards were to be bestowed by vote of the audience. The program began with two exceptionally attractive and engaging suites, Idée Prix Fixe by Kari Henrik Juusela of Stetson University and Trifles by Glenn Spring of Denver. These were followed by multi-movement works by Stefan Thomas and Stephen Francis Yates, the Bulgarian Dance and Fantasy by Paul Whetstone, and the Sonatina No. 2 by Asako Hirabayashi, whom the audience selected as the top winner (several men in the audience were overheard to admit voting for her startling attire).

In a Chamber Music category, new to this competition, second prize went to Robert Greenlee's intriguing and inventive Sonata Rondo, while Andriy Zymenko's over-extended and occasionally whimsical Happy Spider was awarded third place. Jukka Tiensuu's interminable--and boring--Lots was inexplicably given first prize. This piece expanded minimalism to the maximum and diminished this listener's patience to sub-zero. One sympathized with the players.

In addition to composers and presenters, the event planners deserve accolades, especially for the magnificent Saturday meals. The luncheon banquet tempted eye as well as palate, and the final reception, a triumphant buffet, was prepared by sixteen-year-old Eric Love, son of Elaine Funaro and Randall Love. Eric already enjoys a wide local reputation as a master chef; for the celebratory reception he shopped, cooked, baked, and served--all to great acclaim.

Congratulations go to program co-chairs Elaine Funaro and Randall Love, and their local arrangements committee members for one of the best SEHKS conclaves ever.

Related Content

Johann Sebastian Bach: Past, Present, Future: SEHKS and MHKS Meet in DeLand, Florida, March 3–5, 2005

Larry Palmer

Larry Palmer, Harpsichord Contributing Editor of The Diapason, is the current President of the Southeastern Historical Keyboard Society.

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Musical research came to vibrant life in a Friday evening interactive program presented by the Southeastern and Midwestern Historical Keyboard Societies at Stetson University’s Elizabeth Hall. Michigan instrument maker David Sutherland (Ann Arbor) introduced his just-completed fortepiano based on a design by Giovanni Ferrini, an associate and successor to piano inventor Cristofori of Florence. Small details from the Dresden pianos of Gottfried Silbermann indicate an acquaintance with Ferrini’s Florentine piano. Sutherland proposes that instruments of this particular style may have provided the pianos that ultimately gained the approval of J. S. Bach: thus, the genesis of the idea for including early piano in the group of keyboard instruments suitable for Bach’s ensemble music.

Enid Sutherland played the opening of Bach’s Sonata in G for viola da gamba and obbligato keyboard instrument, partnered successively by three possible period instruments: a large Germanic harpsichord after Gräbner (built by John Phillips, played by Wayne Foster); a lautenwerk (by Willard Martin, played by Charlotte Mattax); and the Sutherland-Ferrini piano (played by Gregory Crowell). With each the music worked in subtly differing ways. The harpsichord was loudest; the lautenwerk offered a complementary gut-strung sonority; the piano provided increased possibilities for dynamic gradation. Each was suitable and viable. No absolute favorite emerged, but an intriguing possibility was illustrated and, perhaps, provided some explanation for the many parallel triads and thick repeated chords found in the written-out keyboard parts of certain slow movements in Bach’s accompanied instrumental sonatas.

Another opportunity to hear how effective the early piano could be in solo works of Bach came on Saturday afternoon when the ever-illuminating pianist Andrew Willis (Greensboro, NC) played a mesmerizing program comprising Prelude and Fugue in F (WTC II), Partita in A minor, and the first Contrapunctus from The Art of Fugue. Reminding listeners just how different a modern Steinway piano is from its ancestors, the following program, presented by Marcellene Hawk-Mayhall (Youngstown, OH), featured compositions based on the B-A-C-H motive [B=B-flat, H=B-natural in German musical notation]. Beginning where Willis had ended, Mayhall played the unfinished Contrapunctus 14 from The Art of Fugue on the fortepiano, continuing on the modern piano with unfamiliar works by Rimsky-Korsakov, Roussel, Casella, Poulenc, Malipiero, Honegger, and Liszt (the composer’s piano version of his Prelude and Fugue on BACH).

The same Liszt work, in its more familiar organ version, served as brilliant conclusion to the meeting’s opening concert, played by Stetson University organist Boyd Jones. Opening with works by Buxtehude and Hindemith (the BACH-related Sonate II), Jones offered Bach’s ornamented chorale prelude Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr and the “Dorian” Toccata and Fugue--all selected to limn both the theme of the conference and to showcase Stetson’s historic von Beckerath pipe organ, one of the first large new mechanical-action instruments in America, installed in 1961 on the initiative of [now] emeritus professor of organ Paul Jenkins, and recently spruced up with a handsome new case designed by architect Charles Nazarian, as well as a refurbished action and new console.

A wide range of paper topics kept the interest level high during well-paced daily sessions. Joyce Lindorff (Philadelphia, PA) reported on her recent discoveries of baroque keyboard instruments and music in China during the 17th and 18th centuries, concluding with the reading of a just-translated Vatican Archive letter from missionary/composer Theodorico Pedrini (died 1746)! Ed Kottick (Iowa City, IA) outlined the current state of knowledge about Bach’s harpsichords (“none”) but detailed 18th-century German instruments possibly familiar to the great composer. Two perfectly-timed discussions of possible Bach organ registrations engaged Gregory Crowell (Grand Rapids, MI): “Crazy for France: French Influences on Bach”; and Elaine Dykstra (Austin, TX): “The Range of Possible Organ Registrations in Bach”--each lecturer urging further investigation into the registrational practices of Bach’s contemporaries as a route to a richer palette of tonal possibilities. Sarah Martin (Atlanta, GA) gave an overview of Bach’s number symbolism in his Clavierübung, Part III.

Lee Lovallo (Sacramento, CA) surveyed a broad swath of Sicily’s history in documenting several surviving organs there. David Chung (Hong Kong) gave a thorough comparison of two versions of Bach’s Toccata in D Major, BWV 912, and played the later version stunningly. Midway on Saturday afternoon Larry Palmer (Dallas, TX) spoke on the deeply felt Bach-related art works created by Miami artist Elena Presser. Interspersed among these verbal and visual presentations were short programs of music. Elaine Funaro (Durham, NC) showcased “20th-Century Inventions for Harpsichord” (by composers Stephen Yates, Ruth Schonthal, Miklos Maros, Alexei Haieff, Virgil Thomson, and Béla Bartók). Judith Conrad (Abington, MA) led the group through multiple treatments of the Phrygian cadence in her clavichord recital “What should we, poor sinners, do?”--works by Scheidt, Pachelbel and Bach’s Partite BWV 770 on the eponymous chorale. Dana Ragsdale (Hattiesburg, MS) was joined by baroque violinist Stephen Redfield in a brilliant program of concerted works by Biber, Muffat, and Schmelzer, plus an alternative reading of Bach’s Sonata in G, BWV 1019, in which the solo harpsichord Corrente from Partita VI replaced the unique solo movement usually heard in this often-revised sonata.

Young Israeli-born Michael Tsalka (Philadelphia, PA) played three of Bach’s concerto transcriptions from original works of Telemann and Vivaldi in an engaging early-morning harpsichord program. Charlotte Mattax demonstrated Bach’s affection for the lautenwerk by programming his Prelude, Fugue and Allegro, BWV 998, Suite in E minor, BWV 996, and concluded with her thrilling traversal of the masterful Sonata in D minor, BWV 964. SEHKS founding president George Lucktenberg (Waleska, GA) demonstrated just how effectively a triangular spinet and Bach’s Little Preludes might serve as basic teaching tools for young players. Max Yount (Beloit, WI) beguiled the group with his expressive playing of music by three Bs: Bach and Böhm on the Beckerath organ.

In addition to the instruments already mentioned, harpsichords by Richard Kingston, Douglas Maple, and Robert Greenberg (brought to the meeting by Carl Fudge) were available for playing and viewing by the 80 attendees.

Stetson alumnus S. Wayne Foster, playing with rhythmic drive and musical verve, gave the closing recital on Saturday evening. Continuing the theme of varying keyboards in his program, Foster began with two organ works by Buxtehude (assisted by Boyd Jones playing the pedal lines on the extended-range manual) using the magnificent nine-foot Phillips harpsichord, on loan for the conference from Foster’s church, First (Scots) Presbyterian, in Charleston, SC. For the remainder of the well-crafted program he played Bach: two organ works, Concerto in A minor (after Vivaldi) and Prelude and Fugue in B minor, BWV 544 on the harpsichord; and the (harpsichord) Toccata in D minor, BWV 913 on the organ, offering, in this lengthy work, sufficient color changes to make palatable the hyperbolic sequential writing favored by the young composer. Fine readings of the (organ) Concerto in D minor, BWV 596, and the (harpsichord) Ouverture in the French Style, BWV 831 on their composer-stipulated instruments completed the evening’s elegant music making.

Stetson University provided gracious staff assistance, beautiful, venerable venues for lectures and concerts, and rooms, both accessible and pleasant, for dining and receptions. Given that this conference was organized from scratch in less than a year’s time it was a remarkably cohesive and successful one. The meeting occurred earlier than usual because the following week was “Bike Week,” a huge rally of thousands of Harley-Davidson riders who take over the entire area surrounding Florida’s Daytona Beach. SEHKS and MHKS programs included several extra-musical sounds on Saturday as engines were revved up for the weekend! Harpsichordist/author Frances Bedford quipped that the conference should have been called “The Two-Wheel Inventions!” Not a bad idea, but the broader Bach theme allowed recent scholarship to be shared, friendships and professional relationships to be buttressed once again, the business of the societies to be accomplished, and, most importantly, great music to be experienced and enjoyed together.

For further information on the Ferrini piano, see David Sutherland’s “Silbermann, Bach, and the Florentine Piano” in the most recent volume (21) of Early Keyboard Journal, published by SEHKS and MHKS [available from Oliver Finney, Journal Business Manager, 1704 E. 975 Road, Lawrence, KS 66049-9157; [email protected]]. 

Joyce Lindorff’s article “Missionaries, Keyboards and Musical Exchange in the Ming and Qing Courts” was published in Early Music XXXII/3, August 2004, pp. 403-414.

Southeastern Historical Keyboard Society Conclave

March 16-17, Charlottesville, Virginia

by Dana Ragsdale
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The main site of this year's Southeastern Historical
Keyboard Society Conclave was the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.
Appropriately, then, many presentations were centered around the musical and
intellectual life of our third President, Thomas Jefferson.

The first session, Thursday, March 15, opened with James
Holyer's presentation of "A Survey of the Literature on Thomas
Jefferson and Music" in the University of Virginia's Alderman
Li-brary. Representing a new generation of scholars, Holyer is pursuing a
master's degree in sacred music at Southern Methodist University where he
studies organ with Larry Palmer. He provided us with a complete bibliography of
publications on Jefferson and music, and guided us through a review of this literature,
describing the extent to which individual biographers discussed
Jefferson's musical life.

Following this session, University of Virginia librarians
Jane Penner and Heather Moore showed items from the Special Collections
Department. The ninth edition of the Bay Psalm Book, published in the
seventeenth century, was of particular interest since it represents the
"earliest printed music in Colonial America." We were also able to
view portions of the Jefferson family's Monticello Music Collection.
Unfortunately, the music composed by Thomas Jefferson has been lost. On
Thursday evening, the conferees enjoyed a private tour of Monticello.

The Friday morning sessions on March 16 opened with a
presentation by Karen Hite Jacob--"Thomas Jefferson: Finding
Inspiration Beyond Our Borders." In her paper and accompanying handout,
Dr. Jacob focused upon Jefferson's lifelong interest in learning. While
he always took an active part in his family's and friends'
education, Jefferson became interested in public education only later in his
life.

It was great to see harpsichordist and musicologist David
Chung again; we missed him at the SEHKS Conclave 2000 in Greensboro, North
Carolina. Having completed his doctoral work at Cambridge University a couple
of years ago, David returned home to Hong Kong where he is currently assistant
professor at the Hong Kong Baptist University. "The Development of French
Overtures in French Keyboard Music c. 1670-1730" was the topic of
his paper. Composers such as d'Anglebert made transcriptions for
harpsichord of Lully's overtures, including the "Ouverture
d'Isis" and the "Ouverture de Cadmus." An extensive
handout showed the progression of d'Anglebert's various methods of
arranging a Lully overture. Chung also discussed post-Lully (original)
overtures for harpsichord by Dieupart, Siret, Dandrieu and François
Couperin. In summary, he noted several important elements in the French
overtures for keyboard: the union of French ornamentation and Italian harmonic
progressions and counterpoint; the art of accompaniment from a figured bass;
and composers' incorporation of virtuosic writing.

Joyce Lindorff, associate professor of keyboard studies at
Temple University, presented a lecture-recital: "Perfect Vibrations:
Pasquali's 'Art of Fingering' and the New Keyboard Aesthetic."
Pasquali's compact treatise (Edinburgh, 1758), published after the
composer's death in 1740, dealt with fingering, ornamentation, technique
and tuning; it reflected the newly emerging keyboard aesthetic--namely,
the preference for legato performance.

The ideas of Domenico Alberti (1710-1746), one of the
first composers of keyboard music to adopt the new Classical texture, impressed
Pasquali. He agreed that, in order to produce a full tone on the harpsichord,
one must not release the key too soon; further, the harpsichordist must play
with legato fingering. While C. P. E. Bach still re-ferred to the detached
style as the usual one, Pasquali insisted that it should be used rarely. Dr.
Lindorff rounded out her lecture-recital with selected passages from Handel's
Concerto, op. 4, no. 1, and Alberti's Sonata I; she played each example
twice, first in a more detached style--secondly, in the newer legato
style. Most of the audience concurred with Pasquali that the harpsichord gains
power of sound when played with more legato.

Friday morning's second session started with Sarah
Mahler Hughes (associate professor of music at Ripon College in Ripon,
Wisconsin) who presented a paper on "Two 18th-Century Keyboard Settings
of 'Adeste Fideles' from London and Philadelphia." After
tracing the origin of the tune "Adeste Fideles," which turned up in
Portugal, France, and later in London, Dr. Hughes contrasted two settings by
Veronika Dussek Cianchettini (1769-1833) and Rayner Taylor
(1747-1825). The former, a Bohemian pianist/composer, was the younger
sister of well-known pianist/composer Jan Ladislav Dussek (1760-1812).
Both Dusseks moved to London where they taught and performed; Veronika
eventually married the publisher Cianchettini. Rayner Taylor (1747-1825)
emigrated from London to America in 1793. Taking the post of organist and music
director at St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, he was also a
composer and teacher and one of the founders of The Musical Fund Society. Dr.
Hughes found both Cianchettini and Taylor's settings of "Adeste
Fideles" "pleasing and diverting," but noted important
differences between them. While Cian-chettini's version, composed for a
pianoforte with an expanded range, is more technically demanding than Taylor's,
the latter's setting was meant to be played in church, on the organ with
a limited compass.

Once again, Dr. Larry Palmer (Southern Methodist University)
amused, entertained and educated his audience by taking a fresh new ap-proach
to historical material. Assuming the role of French organist and composer
Balbastre (1727-1799), he sent us an E-mail message in the form of a
memoir --"Claude-Benigne Balbastre: From Dijon to Citoyen."  In keeping with
the Jeffersonian theme of this SEHKS Conclave, Palmer à la Balbastre
recounted his meeting Jefferson's wife Martha and daughters Patsy and
Polly during their stay in Paris. In fact, Balbastre owes his fame not only to
Charles Burney, who also met him in Paris, but largely to Polly Jefferson, an
accomplished harpsichord pupil. And Mrs. Jefferson, also a devotée of
the harpsichord, copied out the composer's pieces "La Canonade" and "War March," as well as Rameau's "Les Sauvages." Dr. Palmer informed us that these pieces by
Balbastre can be seen on microfilm at the University of Virginia Library.

Balbastre reminisced about the turbulent cultural, political
and musical changes he witnessed in the late eighteenth century, including the
waning and subsequent eclipse of the clavecin by the new pianoforte. The
composer endured the worst insult--seeing his Pascal Taskin
clavecin's innards re-moved and replaced by a pianoforte mechanism! Dr.
Palmer's lecture was enhanced by tape recordings of his performance of
several of Balbastre's clavecin pieces.

On Friday afternoon the conferees enjoyed an excursion to the
Hebron Lutheran Church in Madison, Virginia, for more presentations and
concerts. Judy Ann Fray, docent of the historic church, told us about the
historical background of the building and the organ. The original organ, made
by David Tannenberg in Lititz, Pennsylvania, was hauled by ox cart to Madison
and installed in 1802; it has been in use ever since. In 1970, when the organ
was refurbished by George Taylor and Norman Ryan, all parts were documented.

MANUAL (54 notes) (Stop names perhaps not original.)

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>           
Principal
dulci (#1-12 quintadena                                                                basses)

                  8'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>           
Gedackt
(All stopped wood)

                  4'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>           
Octave
(All open metal)

                  4'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>           
Flute
(All open wood)

                  22⁄3'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>    
Quinte (All open metal)

                  2'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>           
Octave
(All open metal)

                  13⁄5'
style='mso-tab-count:1'>    
Terzian (breaking to
31⁄5' at middle c)

                                    Mixture
II (#1-24: 19-22; #25-54: 8-12)

 

We were then treated to a recital on the Tannenberg organ by
Joseph Butler (associate professor and associate dean of the College of Fine
Arts, Texas Christian University). His program included works by Froberger,
Pelham, Handel, J. S. Bach, Böhm, Brahms and Muffat.

Andrew Willis, immediate past president and current
secretary of SEHKS, then introduced George Lucktenberg, founder of SEHKS almost
21 years ago. In his address, entitled "The Southeastern Historical
Keyboard Society--An Idea Whose Time Had Come," he looked back over
his career as a harpsichordist and founder of SEHKS and pondered the future of
our organization. "We're at another turning point," stated
Lucktenberg. Now that the specialty of early music has established itself, he
cautioned against undermining its progress with an "earlier than
Thou" attitude. He shared his many thoughts about how SEHKS can continue
to be a significant force in the musical world. SEHKS President Peter Dewitt
then presented an award to Dr. Lucktenberg.

After the group was treated to a wonderful catered buffet in
the Hebron Lutheran Church Parish Hall, Peter Dewitt presented awards to Karyl
Louwenaar Lueck and Karen Hite Jacob, past presidents, for their many years of
significant contributions to the organization. The evening's concert of
German Vespers was provided by Zephyrus, a Charlottesville-based vocal ensemble
directed by Dr. Paul Walker, professor of organ and harpsichord at the
University of Virginia. Joined by Brad Lehman at the Tannenberg organ, Jennifer
Myer and Eva Lundell, violins, and Sarah Glosson, viola da gamba, Zephyrus
performed music by Böhm, Schütz, Buxtehude, Scheidt, and Praetorius.

The Saturday morning session opened with John Watson,
conservator of instruments at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, whose paper
ad-dressed "America's Only Surviving Harpsichord and Other Glimpses
of Jefferson's Keyboard Milieu." Although Jefferson was neither a
harpsichordist nor a composer, he sought the best available keyboard instruments
for his wife and two daughters throughout his life.

Vera Kochanowsky and Thomas MacCracken, duo harpsichordists
and forte-pianists from Washington, D.C., then performed Mozart's only
sonata for two fortepianos, K. 448 in D Major. MacCracken played an instrument
made by John Lyon in 1986, modeled on a Walther; and Steve Dibbern made
available a fortepiano he constructed from a Zuckerman kit (Stein replica) for
Kochanowsky.

The next presentation, "Once Again: Expressive Devices
on Eighteenth-Century Harpsichords," was given by Edward Kottick,
musicologist and retired professor from the University of Iowa. He challenged
the widely-held opinion that the devices added to harpsichords by late
eighteenth-century French and English builders, in order to accommodate the
growing desire for dynamic gradations, were "accretions or
encrustations." Builders created devices such as machine stops, swells
and the peau de buffle, not to compete with fortepiano makers, but rather to
meet the needs of a changing aestshetic. 
Perhaps it is only the twentieth-century
viewpoint--"anti-pedal and anti-dy-namic," even with regards
to late eighteenth-century keyboard music--which misunderstands the raison
d'etre of these "improvements."

Judith Conrad, an active keyboard performer and technician
from Fall River, Massachusetts, evoked "Tranquility at Home" in the
late eighteenth century with "A Bit of Musick upon the Fretted
Clavichord." She performed music by Handel, Balbastre, Alexander
Reinagle, John Snow and William Boyce on a clavichord made by Steve Barrell
(Amsterdam, 1990).

Stan Pelkey, an assistant professor of music at Gordon
College in Wenham, Massachusetts, presented a paper on "Approaches to
Sonata Procedures in British Keyboard Music from 1760-1820." He
focused mainly upon the contributions of Samuel Wesley and Charles Wesley.

Conferees were able to rotate among three
"No-fear" instrument repair workshops Saturday afternoon: Edward
Kottick, changing a plectrum; Ted Robertson, changing a string; Ed Swenson,
leathering a hammer. At the annual Builder's Instrument Showcase,
conferees had a final opportunity to view and hear instruments exhibited by
Steve Dibbern, Ted Robertson, Ed Swenson, Steven Barrell, Richard Abel, and
Willard Martin. Joyce Lindorff's demonstrations were all the more
effective because she selected repertoire appropriate for each instrument.

The afternoon session concluded with a performance of Madame
Brillon's "Trio en Ut Mineur a Trois Clavecins" (1780) by
Virginia Pleasants, David Chung and Joyce Lindorff. Intended for one English
fortepiano, one German fortepiano and one harpsichord, Brillon's Trio was
played in 2001 on a fortepiano made by Steve Dibbern from a Zuckerman kit, a
harpsichord built by Willard Martin, and an 1855 Erard grand pianoforte restored
by Ed Swenson.

The beautiful Dome Room of the Rotunda at the University of
Virginia was the site of the Conclave's final event. This building, like
many others on the campus, was designed by Thomas Jefferson. Harpsichordist
Charlotte Mattax Moersch played an unmeasured prelude by Jean-Henry
d'Anglebert and three pieces by Lully arranged by d'Anglebert.
Karyl Louwenaar Lueck performed harpsichord pieces by An-toine Forqueray, four
of which were arranged by his son Jean-Baptiste Forqueray. Andrew Willis, fortepianist,
played works by J.G. Albrechtsberger, C.P.E. Bach and Georg Benda. After
enjoying J.S. Bach's Concerto in C Major for Two Harpsichords (BWV 1061),
played by Mattax and Louwenaar, the audience was treated to a hilarious
performance of "Das Dreyblatt" by Wilhelm Friedrich Ernst Bach, a
grandson of J.S. Bach. All six hands negotiated, or attempted to negotiate,
their way around a single fortepiano!

The SEHKS Conclave 2001 was successful in all respects, from
excellent presentations and recitals to terrific hospitality; the experience
was enhanced by the rich historical setting of the Charlottesville, Virginia
area. Thanks to Vicki Dibbern for making all the local arrangements, to builder
liaison Steve Dibbern, to the program committee (Ardyth Lohuis, Ed Kottick and
Andrew Willis), to Karen Hite Jacob for the program book, and to Dr. Paul
Walker for making arrangements at the University of Virginia.

 

Dana Ragsdale is professor of harpsichord and piano and
director of Southern Arts Pro Musica at the University of Southern Mississippi.
Having played her New York debut harpsichord recital in 1977 in Weil Recital
Hall, she has also been a guest artist on the Winterfest Concerts and with the
Fiati Chamber Players in New York City. A participant in the Performing Arts
Touring Program, Dr. Ragsdale has also made numerous appearances at Piccolo
Spoleto USA in Charleston, South Carolina. Promenade, the Baroque ensemble in
which she performs, can be heard on a compact disc, "Music from the Court
of Versailles."

Four Centuries of Great Keyboard Instruments:

Vermillion, South Dakota

Larry Palmer

Larry Palmer is a contributing editor for The Diapason.

Default

In an historic first for the United States, three regional
early keyboard societies (Southeastern, Midwestern, and Western) met for a
joint conference ("Four Centuries of Great Keyboard Instruments: What
They Tell Us") at the National Music Museum, Vermillion, South Dakota,
May 16-19. Gratifying as it was to participate in this possible first
step toward a national organization, the main attraction of the Vermillion
gathering was the Museum and its superb collection of historic musical
instruments.

150 registrants overfilled the concert venue named for
Museum founder Arne Larson, and the group often spilled from the tearoom into
hallways for breakfast and coffee breaks. Still, the capable and welcoming
staff were able to overcame most difficulties and make all feel
welcome--sometimes rather warmly so! From an elegant buffet reception at
the home of University of South Dakota President Jim Abbott to the closing
party at program co-chair John Koster's rural retreat, physical hungers
and thirsts of the crowd were well served. All other meals, included in the
modest registration fee, were taken together in the University's Coyote
Student Center. Communal dining, a feature of previous gatherings in
Vermillion, was an appreciated convenience in this small Midwestern college
town.

A recital capped each jam-packed day. Two of these proved to
be especially fortuitous partnerships between artist and instrument. Closing
the conference, Andrew Willis played his aptly-chosen program on an
early-19th-century Viennese piano by Anton Martin Thÿm. For the first half
he chose works by Moscheles, Field, Hummel, and the rarely-performed Sonata
in E minor
, opus 70 of Carl Maria von
Weber. Following intermission Willis gave transcendent performances of
Schubert's
Moments Musicaux
(the fifth, in F minor, will never sound right again without the piano's
Turkish percussion effects) and Beethoven's
E Major Sonata
style='font-style:normal'>, opus 109, perhaps the musical highpoint of the
conference. Among several visiting European artists, Miklós
Spányi stood out for his effortless musicality and consistently
interesting playing in a program of sonatas by Johann Eckard, C. P. E. Bach,
and Joseph Haydn, performed on the colorful Spath & Schmahl 1784
Tangentenflügel (using the correct spelling of Spath, without its
ubiquitous umlaut, as discussed by Michael Latcham in an illuminating lecture
on this instrument and its maker).

A concert by Tilman Skowroneck (earnest performances of
works by Louis and François Couperin and Rameau) introduced the resonant
1785 Jacques Germain harpsichord. Luisa Morales gave straightforward readings
of Iberian sonatas, allowing only two of them to be heard on the wiry and
virile José Calisto Portuguese harpsichord of 1780, and playing far too
many more on a beefy 1798 Joseph Kirckman double harpsichord, utilizing the
kaleidoscopic possibilities for registrations available on this instrument.
Morales was joined by Spanish folk dancer Cristóbal Salvador for her two
concluding Scarlatti sonatas, after which Salvador led a post-concert dance
class for those brave enough to participate.

The conference schedule listed an additional (and
overwhelming) 32 lectures or short performances! This attendee, for one, found
it impossible to attend all of them, especially those given late in the afternoons.
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> 

Some memorable programs included: 

* A deeply moving clavichord recital of Bach preludes
and fugues, played by wounded warrior Harvey Hinshaw, who had tripped while
loading his instrument late at night for the trip to Vermillion. Fortunately
neither Harvey nor his fine Lyndon Taylor clavichord sustained permanent
damage, although each showed bruises from the unfortunate altercation.

* Carol lei Breckenridge's Mozart played on two
clavichords from the Museum's collection: a 1770 Swedish instrument and
an 1804 Johann Paul Kraemer & Sons, built in Göttingen.

Three consecutive Sunday afternoon programs dealt with
repertoire from the now-historic 20th century, as well as some new works of the
fledgling 21st:

* Larry Palmer spoke about Herbert Howells' Lambert's
Clavichord, the first published clavichord music of the revival period.
Recorded examples played on clavichord, harpsichord, and piano served as
illustrations. Inferior sound equipment forced an impromptu performance of the
first clavichord example on the Wolf harpsichord.

* Attractively garbed in gold happy coat,
Berkeley-based Sheli Nan presented some of her own harpsichord compositions,
complete with video camera to record her every gesture.

* Calvert Johnson, with understated virtuosity, presented
a superb concert of harpsichord music by Japanese women composers Makiko
Asaoka, Karen Tanaka, and Asako Hirabayashi (now there is a focused
specialization!) on the Museum's 1994 Thomas & Barbara Wolf
harpsichord, an instrument tonally modeled on the Germain instrument, but
tastefully decorated in sober black and red with gold bands, rather than the
18th-century instrument's unfortunate color scheme of raspberry pink and
ultramarine, with a gratuitous 20th-century "French bordello" lid
painting

The original Germain, an exceptionally fine-sounding
instrument, was the most utilized harpsichord of the conference. It was heard
in programs played by Elaine Thornburgh, Paul Boehnke, Nancy Metzger, Nanette
Lunde, and Jillon Stoppels Dupree, who proved to be a passionate advocate for
the far too little-known music of Belgian composer Joseph-Hector Fiocco.

A smaller gem, the Museum's recently-acquired Johann
Heinrich Silbermann spinet (Strasbourg, 1785) was heard in performances by Paul
Boehnke and Asako Hirabayashi.

The "home team" of faculty members from the
University of South Dakota made major contributions:

* Piano professor (and program co-chair) Susanne Skyrm
played appropriate music on the soft, clavichord-like piano by Manuel
Antunes  (Lisbon, 1767) as well as
a much-appreciated traversal ("from the sublime to the ridiculous,"
she noted) of music by Beethoven (three Bagatelles
style='font-style:normal'>), Vorisek, and Herz. This program concluded with the
bellicose
Siege of Tripoli: An Historical Naval Sonata
style='font-style:normal'> by Benjamin Carr, for which Professor Skyrm employed
all the "Drums, Bells, and Whistles" available on the Thÿm
piano. Her partner in hilarity was handkerchief-waving narrator, Dr. Matthew
Hardon.

* Organ professor Larry Schou demonstrated the fine
six-stop organ by Christian Dieffenbach (Pennsylvania, 1808) as well as the
1786 Josef Loosser house organ from the Toggenburg Valley of Switzerland.

Virtuoso lectures included:

* Peggy Baird's slide presentation showing
keyboards in a wide variety of paintings ("Music for the Eye and Art for
the Ear"), delivered with her usual irrepressible wit.

* Ed Kottick's informative and entertaining
"Tales of the Master Builders," amusing vignettes from his
just-published book A History of the Harpsichord (Indiana University Press).
Hermann [Pohl] the Hapless, indeed!

* Sandra Soderlund's well-organized, informative
talk on Muzio Clementi, enriched by musical examples played on a square piano
by John Broadwood, London, circa 1829.

San Francisco's Laurette Goldberg invented some
Goldberg Variants on harpsichord history in an amazing after-dinner ramble
following a memorable vegetable, chicken, or beef Wellington banquet on Monday
evening.

Throughout the meeting several instrument makers displayed
examples of their work. Among these a French double harpsichord by Knight
Vernon featured a splendidly light action; Paul Irvin's 1992 unfretted
clavichord produced a generous volume of sound; and Owen Daly's
Vaudry-copy harpsichord delighted these ears and fingers, as did finely crafted
instruments by Robert Hicks and Douglas Maple.

During her first visit to the United States in the early
1960s, harpsichordist Isolde Ahlgrimm was especially amused by the ubiquitous
pink flamingo representations she saw in many suburban front yards. It was with
a sense of recurring cultural history that my eyes were captivated by the colorful
pink bird statue displayed at the Museum's visitors' desk, visible
through the windows of the Larson Concert Hall. Closer inspection showed it to
be a hand drum, dubbed the "Flabonga," a gift to Museum Director
André Larson.

Because of unavoidable travel difficulties, papers by David
Chung (Hong Kong) and Eva Badura-Skoda (Vienna) were read by Museum staffers.

So what did these examples from four centuries of great
keyboard instruments have to teach us? For this listener they reinforced, once
again, that most music sounds better, and far more interesting, when played on
period instruments tuned in appropriate temperaments. They underscored how vast
the variety of historic keyboards is. They showed how comparatively
monochromatic a tonal range the contemporary piano presents, and how
impoverished it is by its paucity of coloristic devices such as modulators,
bassoon stops, bare wood (or variously-covered) hammers, and Janissary
percussion.

Keyboards from Vermillion's National Music Museum
(formerly known as The Shrine to Music) demonstrated that informed restoration
and constant care permits them to function as superb instruments for music.
Curator John Koster announced early in the proceedings that keeping 1588
strings in tune for the weekend would be a major task! He managed it with grace
and skill, as he did his many other responsibilities during the conference.

It was encouraging to note a number of other visitors to the
Museum during our time there. Many of them were young students, a group
distinctly, and disturbingly, not well represented on the rosters of our
keyboard societies. I would urge each reader to plan a visit to this
outstanding American museum, and, if possible, to make this collection of early
keyboard instruments known to a student. A virtual visit to these holdings is
available through the Museum's website: <www.usd.edu/smm&gt;.

Baroque in Boston: The 13th Biennial Early Music Festival

Larry Palmer

Larry Palmer is harpsichord editor of THE DIAPASON.

Default

Anticipation was high as the hour drew near for the first staged performance
of Johann Mattheson's Boris Goudenow.
Composed in 1710 for the Hamburg Opera, but never performed (probably for
political reasons), the opera slept the long sleep of libraries, narrowly
surviving destruction in the World War II bombing of northern Germany. Moved
secretly for safekeeping, the score remained in Armenia, was returned to
Hamburg in 1998, and now, on June 14, 2005, after almost 300 years, this ink on
paper was about to become living sound for an audience.

Just as I joined the capacity crowd entering the Cutler Majestic Theatre, a
celebratory fanfare sounded forth. I was one of the lucky ones who made it to
my mezzanine spot in the 1200-seat Beaux Arts hall before the overture began.
Those who were not so fortunate created a fair amount of chaos during the
opening scene of the opera, possibly adding some 18th-century-style realism to
the occasion!

Brilliant ceremonial rites at the Russian court, colorful dancing
(especially a divertissement of the disabled that closed the second act, and
the final chaconne), some striking stage pictures (sunrise over the Kremlin at
the beginning of Act III was particularly effective), and the luminously
stylistic, homogeneous playing of the BEMF Orchestra made this a memorable
evening at the opera. Mattheson's music was nothing out of the ordinary, and
gripping, engaging singing, especially from the women, was in short supply. A
bawdy, comic role--the servant Bogda (sung by William Hite)--stood out, as did
some touches such as the percussive clatter of thrown coins (in the Coronation
scene: a foretaste of Britten's slung mugs from Noyes Fludde
style='font-style:normal'>?), and the festive addition of handbells and
castanets for the final tableau.

One strange facet of Mattheson's work is its macaronic text: Italian arias
inserted freely into a primarily German libretto. An added oddity of this particular
performance in 18th-century style was the decision to keep the house lights
dark, although, with a (21st-century) projected text, it might be considered
unnecessary for the audience to refer to the printed texts that had been
provided. 

Festival Concerts

Just how important a mesmerizing singer can be to an opera was borne home
the following evening at Jordan Hall when the Festival offered Nights at the
Opera: Highlights from Beloved BEMF Productions. Opening with a superb reading
of orchestral excerpts from Lully's Thésée
style='font-style:normal'> (staged in 2001), continuing with ravishing and
riveting arias from Conradi's
Ariadne (2003), delivered with dramatic intensity by Canadian soprano Karina
Gauvin, this was voluptuous music presented with authoritative diction and gorgeous
sound, to boot.

It was especially enlightening to have the orchestra front and center, on
stage rather than in the pit, allowing one to observe the close interaction
among the players, and the ways in which they were led by Festival musical
co-directors, lutenists Paul O'Dette and Stephen Stubbs, and concertmaster
Robert Mealy. These leaders, along with the two continuo
harpsichordists--Kristian Bezuidenhout and Jörg Jacobi (who had produced
the printed score and parts used for the Boris premiere)--kept the music moving
with gut-wrenching inflections, infectious dance-based rhythmic nuance, and
some of the most satisfying cadential resolutions to be enjoyed on the planet.
For those not in attendance, these musical splendors may be heard at home in BEMF's
first commercial recording. Their performance of Conradi's Ariadne
style='font-style:normal'> has just been released as a three compact disc set
on the German CPO label (777 073-2).

Excerpts from Luigi Rossi's L'Orfeo,
a back-to-back demonstration of Handel's wholesale borrowing from Mattheson
(nearly-identical arias from the latter's
Porsenna
style='font-style:normal'>, 1702, as used by the former in his
Agrippina
style='font-style:normal'>, 1709), and Mattheson's undistinguished, lengthy
serenata concerning the virtues of chastity,
Die Keusche Liebe
style='font-style:normal'>, failed to achieve the musical excitement generated
in the first half of the program.

Sequentia, ensemble for medieval music, presented the 8 o'clock Jordan Hall
concert on Thursday evening. This was not the ticket I had requested (thinking
that I should at least try to hear one of the 11 o'clock late-night concerts),
but I decided to accept providence and attend Lost Songs of a Rhineland Harper,
a program that proved to be a stunner! Framing two large parts of the program
with songs to texts by the learned medieval musician Boethius, the four-member
ensemble was heard in a variety of voicings, from unaccompanied monophony to
settings with harp, lyre and several flutes, including one made from a delicate
swan's bone. With translations projected on a large central screen hung from
the organ case, it was not difficult to follow the lengthy Latin texts.
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> 

After intermission the dramatic impact was ratcheted up several notches,
especially in the  gripping
Icelandic saga, Atlakvida (Lay of Attila
the Hun), the earliest known retelling of the Rhinegold story later the basis
for Richard Wagner's four-opera
Ring of the Nibelungs
style='font-style:normal'>. In considerably less time, Sequentia founder
Benjamin Bagby related the violent tale, becoming the embodiment of an
Icelandic harper, concentrated and severe in expression, and with such incisive
diction that the old Scandinavian text was chillingly clear. We listeners
experienced grim history as our ancestors might have done. Bagby's performance
was a startling, unforgettable theatrical tour-de-force.

Drama of another sort--that of program changes--informed the Friday evening
program Five Concerti and a Magnificat. An Overture (to the opera Porsenna
style='font-style:normal'>) and the double chorus
Magnificat
style='font-style:normal'> were by Mattheson. The Overture, featuring BEMF's
principal oboist Washington McClain, was followed by the first program
substitution: the Bach
Concerto in D minor for Two Violins
style='font-style:normal'> (with soloists Andrey Reshetin and Maria
Krestinskaya) replacing the scheduled Vivaldi Concerto to have been played by
Giuliano Carmignola, indisposed in Italy. Matthias Maute romped through two
Recorder Concerti (in F Major by Telemann and the G Major, RV 443, by Vivaldi)
with musical insight and astonishing virtuosity. Like soprano Gauvin, he was
unafraid to make the occasional ugly sound for dramatic effect. Replacing
Carmignola's second star turn was Johann Wilhelm Hertel's
Cello
Concerto in A minor
, featuring BEMF's
superb principal cellist, Phoebe Carrai, a satisfying and expressively kinetic
player.

Announcing the program changes, Paul O'Dette quipped that it was probably
the first time, at least in North America, that a program would feature two
Hertel Concerti. A native of J. S. Bach's hometown, Eisenach, the unfamiliar
Hertel (1727-1789), proved his worth in the works heard on this program, with
the Concerto in F minor for Fortepiano and Strings
style='font-style:normal'> a stronger composition. It was lovingly played by
Kristian Bezuidenhout, who achieved hushed, nearly inaudible pianissimi in the
poignant Largo, and also improvised an extended cadenza at the end of this
movement.

A Plethora of Offerings: Fringe and Beyond

The large number of concerts during Festival Week forced would-be listeners
to make difficult choices. For example, two further sets of daily concerts at 5
and 11 included duos for bass violas da gamba; choral music for the Holy Roman
Emperor Maximilian I and his daughter Marguerite of Austria; violin and
harpsichord music for the 18th-century Russian manor house; Gypsy Primadonna
music of 1820s Moscow; "Waild and Krejzy: secular music in 1730s
Slovakia"; and baroque lute music played by the indomitable duo of Stubbs
and O'Dette, who seemed to be everywhere--opera orchestra (Boris was played
four times during the week) as well as all other appearances of the BEMF
Orchestra, master classes, solo recitals, administrative matters--an amazing
musical (and physical) expenditure of energy. Every involvement I noted was at
a very high level, as well.

There were at least 57 scheduled "fringe" concerts in various
nearby venues, plus the concurrent Early Music Exhibition (Wednesday through
Saturday) at the Radisson Hotel, where dozens of demonstration recitals were
sponsored by instrument makers and dealers. As harpsichordist for the Texas
Camerata concert on Thursday (Lindsay Chapel of Emmanuel Church), I experienced
a sold-out house of involved and appreciative auditors. It was not possible to
attend many of these added events (all by groups that had been screened before
receiving an invitation from the Festival management), but I heard enthusiastic
reports about many programs. Of the Exhibition concerts I heard two: the first
a morning program with Team Mattheson (Matilda Butkas and William Carragan),
duo harpsichordists, performing works by the featured composer of the week.
They played fine harpsichords by David Werbeloff [Boston] after Zell and Robert
Hicks [Vermont] after Stehlin for an overflowing complement of listeners, many
seated on the floor or leaning against any available wall space.

In the afternoon Duo d'amore (Geoffrey Burgess, baroque oboes; Elaine
Funaro, harpsichord) again played to a capacity audience in the ample
exhibition space occupied by The Harpsichord Clearing House. Perhaps, like me,
these auditors were eager to escape "the din of antiquity" (to borrow
Daniel Pinkham's apt phrase) and to experience old instruments in some new
music. Both players made cogent cases for their commissioned repertory; the
program included two world premieres (works by Chris Lastovicka and Edwin
McLean, whose contribution Incantations gave opportunity to hear the darker,
smoky timbre of the baroque oboe d'amore)! Funaro programmed two short
harpsichord solos by Tom Robin Harris and Stephen Yates. Additional duets were
by John Mayrose, and Andrew Ford, plus Yates's hauntingly beautiful Canto
style='font-style:normal'> (2004), a lyric fantasia well suited to both wind
and keyboard. For contrast one piece of earlier music could have benefited this
program, although all of the new works were of interest. The only other
insertion of "later music" into the Festival program was a Zuckermann
Harpsichords-sponsored program by California harpsichordist/composer Shelli
Nan.

Events with a particular educational focus included a morning clavichord
symposium at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts; "Performing Baroque Music
According to Mattheson" at the Goethe Institute; "Rediscovering Boris
Goudenow
: Performance and Production Issues
in German Baroque Opera"; a wide variety of instrumental and vocal
masterclasses; and organizational discussions on audience building and other
practicalities sponsored by Early Music America and a panel of early music
concert promoters. 

Friday's day-long celebration of the North German organ featured a recent,
refined Richards and Fowkes organ (opus 10, 2000) at First Lutheran Church,
with organists Edoardo Bellotti, Hans Davidsson, and William Porter playing
literature that demonstrated the organist-composer as contrapuntist, as
preacher, and as orator. In the first of the afternoon sessions, Porter used
the rich plenum and full, singing principals of this modest-sized two-manual
instrument in Buxtehude's monumental Praeludium in E minor
style='font-style:normal'> (BuxWV 142), followed by Krebs's
Fantasia
on Herr Jesus Christ, dich zu uns wend

(idiomatic reed solo) and trio on
Herzlich Lieb hab' ich dich, o Herr
style='font-style:normal'> (piquant, lively flutes). C. P. E. Bach's
Fantasia
con Fuga in C minor
served up the gravitas
of a satisfying 16-foot plenum, complete with Sesquialtera.

This provided the perfect musical segue to my other choice of fringe
program, heard in a religious edifice just across the street. First and Second
Church, destroyed by fire in 1968, was replaced, behind its damaged
façade, with a striking, contemporary building, including a second-story
high-ceilinged, freely-angled chapel. In this sky-lit quiet space Iowa's Carol
lei Breckenridge played all six of C. P. E. Bach's Sonaten für Kenner
und Liebhaber
[Sonatas for Connoisseurs and
Amateurs] (Volume I, 1779) in a musical salon concert, with period poetry read
in German by Michael Herrick. 

Breckenridge, heard several years ago in memorable Mozart performances,
maintained her reputation as a master of the clavichord. Playing a large
unfretted instrument by Paul Irvin [Chicago], she limned the rapidly shifting
emotions of these Sturm und Drang compositions with unflappable technical ease.
The six sonatas, each comprising three movements, are not of equal length, nor,
frankly, of equal interest. Among all 18 movements, the very first (a dazzling
Prestissimo) was breathtaking, as was the complete (and shorter) Fifth Sonata
(F Major). Sonata Three, the only one in a minor key, required a brief retuning
(B-flat becoming A-sharp)--as did the amazing chromatics introducing the middle
movement of the final sonata.

Mid-afternoon on Friday was not a fortuitous time to attract a crowd: about
20 listeners shared this perfect pendant to the organ symposia.

At the Exhibition: An Abundance of Fine
Keyboard Instruments

At least 22 makers and distributors of keyboard instruments were listed in
the 276-page Festival program book (itself a work of art). Fine harpsichords
were much in evidence. In addition to those by builders already mentioned, some
that attracted  attention
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> 
were made by Adam Decker (the
Harpsichord Gallery, Atlanta); Marc Ducornet (the Paris Workshop); and by
consistently satisfying makers Richard Kingston (North Carolina)--whose Flemish
single harpsichord with colorful abstract lid painting by June Zinn Hobby was a
visual and sonic feast, Allan Winkler (Boston), and Douglas Maple
(Pennsylvania). (Harpsichords by Kingston, David Sutherland [Ann Arbor],
Winkler and Dowd were used in the opera performances and for the BEMF
orchestral programs.)

Gut-strung Lautenwerks from Steven Sorli (Amherst, MA) were beautifully
crafted, exciting instruments, as was a portable high-pitched clavichord by
Gary Blaise (San Francisco). I could not resist the 1939 John Challis
clavichord displayed by Glenn Giutarri and The Harpsichord Clearing House among
their many fine instruments, including 
chamber organs. Another triple-transposing continuo organ from Les
Ateliers Guilbault Bellavance Carignan (Quebec) had a pleasingly gentle wooden
4-foot Principal among its four stops.

Also tempting were displays on tables laden with musical facsimiles and
other scores, eye-catching recordings (among the most enticing were the 18
unorthodox and brilliant covers for the Vivaldi Edition CDs issued thus far by
the Italian label Naïve) and opulent publications such as Goldberg Early
Music Magazine, now publishing collectible single-composer issues. It was
necessary to keep checkbook and credit cards firmly under control, although
failing to do so also had its rewards (until the bills arrived).

Boston: Convenient and Memorable

Nearly all the concert venues were within walking distance or accessible by
inexpensive public transport. Food of all varieties and prices was available,
ranging from pre-packaged sandwiches to elegant restaurant menus (Legal
Seafoods was just across from the exhibition space).

And central Boston itself held so many musical associations and personal
memories. For instance it was not possible to be in Jordan Hall without
remembering Ralph Kirkpatrick's 50th anniversary harpsichord recital (in 1981,
during the very first Early Music Festival); or to walk into King's Chapel
without recalling composer Daniel Pinkham, who graced the organist/ choirmaster
position there for so many years. Lovely, now historic, harpsichords built by
William Dowd were in evidence and in use. A photograph of early music pioneer
Arnold Dolmetsch, once employed to direct the making of early instruments at
the Chickering Piano Factory across the river in Cambridge, graced the front
cover of a Boston Clavichord Society brochure.

Inexpensive dormitory housing, available in a building now owned by Emerson
College, was only steps away from Steinert Hall, endowed by one of America's
first early instrument collectors, piano dealer Morris Steinert. Directly
across the street, in the old burying ground on Boston Common, the remains of
composer William Billings are thought to be buried, and he is commemorated by a
plaque placed there during the 1976 American Guild of Organists national
convention (a conference memorable for E. Power Biggs's late-career performance
of Rheinberger Organ Concertos with the Boston Pops, despite EPB's
stress-fractured arm!).

Wagnerian swanboats long have been a feature on the pond of the Public
Garden (founded in 1839). Recent, however, is the reverent, nostalgic addition
to this venerable and well-utilized park: a Garden of Remembrance for the
victims of the 9/11 attack. Many people pause at the simple stone memorial to
meditate, and to read these touching words from Boston and Sea Poems by
Lawrence Homer, poet-laureate of Faneuil Hall:

Time touches all more gently here,

Here where man has said, No:

Trees and grass, and flowers will remain:

. . . watching swanboats glide in season.

It was a pleasure to attend this Boston Early Music Festival and Exhibition,
after a 20-year-long interval of not being there, and to observe the breadth
and vitality of the current early music scene. If Johann Mattheson's music did
not prove him to have been a composer of extraordinary genius, the event was,
nevertheless, a welcome opportunity to learn more about this 18th-century
musician and writer, to assess more knowledgeably his place among his
well-known contemporaries, and to experience yet another from the
ever-lengthening list of forgotten or unknown operas, transformed from dusty
scores to living stage productions through the inspired efforts of America's
premier early music festival. More, please.

Further Information

Stephen Stubbs: "Johann Mattheson--the Russian connection: the
rediscovery of Boris Goudenow and his other lost operas," Early Music
style='font-style:normal'> XXXIII/2 (May 2005), 283-292.
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> 

Previous BEMF reports by Larry Palmer

The Diapason, August 1981, 1, 3 [the
first Early Music Festival].

The Diapason, April 1985, 9 [the 1983
Festival].

The Diapason, October 1985, 10-11
[the 1985 Festival].

Jurow Harpsichord Competition, SEHKS, MHKS in Bethlehem

by Larry Palmer
Default

From Thursday March 7 through Saturday March 9, 2002, two concurrent events at Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania vied for the attention of early-keyboard enthusiasts. In one of them, the fifteen semi-finalists of the fifth international harpsichord competition organized by the Southeastern Historic Keyboard Society competed for a place in the final round and more than $9,000 in prize money.

 

Throughout the competition the absence of the fifth judge, Kenneth Gilbert (who withdrew only days before the event began), may have accounted for several seemingly-split decisions. Rather than three finalists, four were advanced to the finals, resulting in a four-hour harpsichord-playing mara-thon. Each contestant was heard in Couperin (Ordre 25 or 27), Bach (Partita in A minor), Scarlatti (Sonatas K 298-299 or 435-436), plus a work of choice (pieces by Buxtehude, Milán, Cabezón, Froberger, or additional works by Bach and Scarlatti). Judges Arthur Haas, Charlotte Mattax Moersch, Davitt Moroney, and Jacques Ogg deliberated for quite a long time to determine the order of prizes.

For this auditor, Michael Sponseller's canny ability in producing particularly beautiful sounds from Willard Martin's Saxon-style harpsichord elevated his playing to a higher plane. While there was little doubt about the musical gifts of young Martin Robidoux, his playing had far too many technical glitches for a prizewinner in this competition.

The second event, a joint meeting of the Southeastern and Midwestern Historical Keyboard Societies, began Thursday evening with a bi-sited, festive recital. Fortepianist Richard Fuller started the evening in Moravian College's Peter Hall, playing a "fuller-sounding" instrument by Keith Hill in Sonatas in d and f-sharp of Moravian composer Christian Latrobe and Italianate Londoner Muzio Clementi.

Continuing the program (in Foy Concert Hall), Funaro gave rhythmically-irresistible performances of dance-inspired pieces by Stephen Dodgson, and, from prize-winning Aliénor Competition works by Timothy Brown, Dimitri Cervo, Sally Mosher, and Kent Hollday, who additionally had been commissioned to write a Toccata as the required new work for the semi-final round of the Jurow Competition.

As a highlight of Friday's banquet at the 1758 Sun Tavern (graced with original engravings of "His Excellency" George Washington and "Lady" Washington, as well as a truly historic straight "bent-sided" Zuckermann kit harpsichord), Bethlehem native Willard Martin, one of America's most insightful and important harpsichord builders, was honored with career achievement awards from both societies.

SEHKS past-president Karen Jacob included two hymns to be sung by the audience in her aptly-chosen organ recital, which began a very long evening of Moravian music. The hard benches in Peter Hall (former chapel of the Women's Seminary) made one admire both physical stamina and patience of Moravians past. Pennsylvania chamber music ensemble Satori, using modern strings, flute, and guitar, gave devoted readings of an interminable number of works by John Antes, Haynack Otto C. Zinck, Johann Christian Till, and Johann Baptist Wendling, interspersed with Paul Larson's readings from early Moravian church diaries.

Another 18th-century organ, a single-manual instrument built by David Tannenberg in 1776, was heard in a short program played by Philip Cooper during a Saturday morning excursion to the George Whitefield House Museum in nearby Nazareth. This gentle four-stop instrument, almost surely originally built for the Moravians of the Bethlehem Brothers House, is an unaltered example of a Moravian organ, used primarily for hymns and as "continuo" with other instruments. The Thuringian-styled 8-foot Viola da Gamba, wooden 8-foot Flauto Amabile, 4-foot open wood Flaut, and 2-foot Principal played individually and in various combinations, showed the full range of the instrument's capabilities.

Many papers and mini-recitals overfilled all remaining time slots, with concurrent sessions programmed for Friday afternoon, and a further double booking necessitated by one presenter's late arrival early Saturday afternoon. For the complete listing of all events, see the SEHKS website <www.sehks.org&gt;.

A few presentations that stand out in memory include two clavichord programs (Bach beautifully rendered by Harvey Hinshaw, Moravian devotional music played by Judith Conrad); Geneviève Soly's fleet-fingered and enthusiastic presentation of harpsichord works by the Bach-contemporary Christophe Graupner; David Chung's brilliant performance of Buxtehude's Praeludium in g as example of the stylus phantasticus; Edward Parmentier's insightful session on formal structures in Bach's second volume of The Well-Tempered Clavier. (He surely deserved an audience prize for the largest-sized handout!) And yes, there was considerable interest in my presentation on Richard Strauss' Capriccio Suite for Harpsichord, especially at the opportunity to hear a (non-issued) recorded performance by the work's dedicatee, Isolde Ahlgrimm.

Providing historical background and considerable insight into important early examples of piano making in the Pennsylvania Moravian communities, Laurence Libin and keynote speaker Michael Cole detailed the construction of several instruments from the collection  of the Whitefield House during the group visit there.

With so many fine, well-prepared harpsichordists on site for the competition, it seemed almost perverse not to utilize the non-finalists as demonstrators of the instruments during the builders' showcase time slot. If the Societies hope to enroll a new generation of players as members in their organizations every effort should be made to involve these younger talents. In yet another instance of how two concurrent events seemed to have little congruence, there were no scheduled public presentations from members of the competition jury (although they were available for comments to the competitors). With artists of such distinction, this was a decided disappointment to many, especially since Moroney and Ogg were making their first visits to a SEHKS or MHKS event.

At another level of involvement, members of the Societies' executive boards scurried to meetings, often during meal times, and drafted resolutions at all hours of the day and night. At separate annual business meetings, SEHKS elevated Ardyth Lohuis to its Presidency with Dana Ragsdale assuming the Vice-Presidential post; MHKS  retained President Nina Key and Vice-President Martha Folts in their positions.

Bethlehem, a small city with a well-preserved 18th-century core, provided an engaging historic setting for early music events. Several outstanding restaurants were situated within this central core. Staying at the downtown Radisson Bethlehem Hotel, conveniently only a block from the Moravian College music venues, meant that all events were within easy walking distance. We were not the only conventioneers at the Hotel, however: collegiate wrestling teams from Harvard and Lehigh were in town, providing muscle to complement our music. (Too bad the planners hadn't known in advance: potential harpsichord movers, perhaps!)

As an especially appreciated gesture, multiple copies of The Square Piano in Rural Pennsylvania 1760-1830, the catalog from a 2000 exhibition, were provided to attendees by Paul Larson, editor of the volume.

A stroll on Sunday morning (made somewhat challenging by the sudden return of a blustery cold wind) took me past the Moravian Book Shop (established in 1745) to walk by the offices of the Bethlehem Bach Choir, founded in 1898 (quite modern, though, in relation to Moravian College, dating from 1742!). An historic marker at the edge of the campus remembers John Frederick Wolle (1863-1933), "organist, composer, and conductor, born and raised in Main Hall [of Moravian College], founder and conductor of the Bach Choir, 1895-1905 and 1911-1932."

Also observed, a 1911 fountain at Main and Market Streets, with this inscription:

Drink, Pilgrim/ Here And if/ Thy Heart Be/ Innocent/ Here too shalt/ Thou refresh/ Thy spirit.

Even for those of us long past innocence, there was nourishing musical refreshment to be found in Bethlehem.

Some Sins of Commission

Larry Palmer

Larry Palmer is harpsichord editor of THE DIAPASON.

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Each one of us surely has an individual concept of sin, generally from direct personal experience: I sometimes describe it as “anything that is more fun for the doer than for someone else!” Defining commission might be slightly more difficult. For the purpose of this narrative, I choose to define the term as “the solicitation of a new musical composition, whether or not money is involved.” In my nearly half-century of commissioning new music, much of the time I have been the recipient of extraordinary generosity: most of my composers have donated their music, while others have asked for only modest fees.

Calvin Hampton

The first time I solicited a composer to write something specifically for me was in 1957, when I asked my Oberlin classmate and fellow organ major Calvin Hampton if he would provide an offertory for a summer service at First Presbyterian Church, Canton, Ohio--my first major (if only month-long) church “gig.” His response came in the form of a lovely three-minute aria, titled Consonance. While not a major work by this important composer, it does illustrate the advantage of choosing the right friends; namely, ones who go on to become well-known, thereby considerably increasing the value of their manuscripts. Equally useful, subsequently such friendships may provide one with material for articles about “what they were like before they became well-known”--a perfectly good academic topic indeed, if one includes the proper footnotes.

Neely Bruce

In the fall of 1960 I moved to Rochester, New York to begin graduate study. There I met the next of my composer friends. On my second day at the Eastman School, as I waited in the fourth floor corridor to meet with my advisor Dr. M. Alfred Bichsel, head of the newly established Church Music Department, a striking younger student walked up to me and asked, with lilting southern inflection, if I could tell him where to find Dr. Bitch-el. I was captivated by Neely Bruce, a freshman who had come to audition for the Polyphonic Choir, a new choral ensemble established for this sacred music area. As Dr. Bichsel’s rehearsal assistant, I saw young Bruce regularly. We became friends, and Neely, a precociously talented pianist and composer, eventually supplied the concluding piece for my 1961 master’s recital Organ Compositions Based on the Kyrie fons bonitatis.

When he left Eastman after that single year to attend the University of Alabama, I was devastated. I wrote sad poems (a la Edna St. Vincent Millay and Dame Edith Sitwell)--filled with lines such as:

Our night for love designed, speeds silent on and on,

And time, which only breathless seconds since had seemed so kind,

Is gone.

Neely didn’t answer letters or write poetry. He did, however, write music, and some months later I received the penciled score of his first work for harpsichord--Nine Variations on an Original Theme. The piece held such emotional intensity for me that it was not until 1979 that I copied it out while on my first sabbatical leave, prepared it for performance, and then gave the premiere the following year. Whatever one may think now of such a youthful endeavor, the work certainly is well-crafted for harpsichord--one result of Neely’s frequent opportunities for experimenting with the instrument’s textures at the small two-manual Sperrhake harpsichord, shoehorned into the third-floor dormer room I rented at one of Rochester’s “organ student houses,” 20 Sibley Place.

During my seven years of teaching in Virginia I played a fair amount of 20th-century harpsichord music: Ned Rorem’s Lovers, the Falla Concerto, the Martinu Sonate. But there I was primarily a choral conductor and organist (and enjoyed premiering several new works written for choir or organ by St. Paul’s College colleague Walter Skolnik and New York composer Robin Escovado). My only harpsichord “commission” of this period went to the builder William Dowd, along with almost half a year’s salary, for my first truly first-rate harpsichord, one of his early Blanchet-inspired instruments, delivered to Norfolk in January 1969.

Rudy Shackelford

Shortly after moving to Dallas in 1970, an unanticipated package reached me at Southern Methodist University. This contained Virginia composer Rudy Shackelford’s piece Le Tombeau de Stravinsky. Since my SMU colleague Robert Anderson was a devoted exponent of wild and wooly new organ music, it seemed fitting for me to take on Rudy’s serialism. I also liked the work, and included it on my first Musical Heritage Society disc, The Harpsichord Now and Then, released in 1975.

Ross Lee Finney

Another challenging work, more thorny than I usually care to learn, is Ross Lee Finney’s unique essay for the instrument, Hexachord for Harpsichord. In four movements (Aria, Stomp, Ornaments, Fantasy), the 12-minute work was commissioned for me to play at a Hartt School of Music contemporary keyboard music festival scheduled for June 1984. Drawing few registrants, the event was cancelled, so I gave the first performance that fall in Dallas, not playing it in the composer’s presence until a concert in Hartford the following year.

Working with Finney was quite daunting. A most distinguished and individual composer, he basically disregarded my several suggestions as to texture, and provided me with a nearly-illegible score, the successful realization of which absolutely required a damper pedal, unfortunately not available on most harpsichords. I struggled to read his chicken scratches and tried to parlay his ideas into something that made sense on a plucked instrument. Eventually I wrote him a detailed letter filled with questions and suggestions for possible improvements, not knowing if I would be ignored, despised, or possibly even removed from the project.

Instead, this generous and intelligent man wrote back that it was all very helpful--reminding him of the careful editing his Piano Sonata had received years earlier from its first performer, John Kirkpatrick. For Hexachord’s last movement, the most unplayable of the four, he promised a revision, although current work on his opera left him little time. When the promised revision arrived, it was accompanied by this note: 

I don’t know whether this is better or worse. I’ve spent the vacation week on it and now am so loaded with commitments that it’s the best I can hope for. . . . I tied my right leg to the piano stool so I hope I didn’t think in terms of pedal. . .

Responding to a tape of the first performance, Finney wrote,

I like immensely your performance . . . It seems to me that you have done a wonderful job of projecting the music and it sounds better to me than I feared it would. I like all of your revisions, particularly the ending of the last movement, and I will see that your corrections get in the copy with Peters so that when it is published, they will be included. . .

Unfortunately, this was not to be the case. The printed score from Peters does not present the preferred ending, but rather a more-protracted, rather anemic one.

Herbert Howells

A major commission from the 1970s was Herbert Howells’ Dallas Canticles, the unique Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis composed for St. Luke’s Church, where I was organist and choirmaster from 1971 until 1980. This lovely work was first performed there in 1975. The dedication and copyright of the work, basically a gift from the generous English composer, led to some early adventures in music publishing and the nurturing of  professional and personal connections with the American composer, church musician, and publisher Gerald Near.

Gerald Near

Undoubtedly the most ambitious of my commissions thus far is Near’s three-movement Concerto for Harpsichord, composed for performance at the 1980 national convention of the American Guild of Organists in Minneapolis. Gerald, a Minnesota resident at that time, had not been included in the group of composers invited to provide new works for the gathering, so I asked him to write a concerted work for my program in Orchestra Hall. He took on the project, and, most generously, accepted no fee for this major work.

The performance was carefully prepared, with the composer conducting a superb string ensemble comprising players from the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. The work was greeted with warm applause and considerable affection by the large crowd of attendees. And why not? The piece is very appealing, with memorable melodies, lush harmonies, and an appropriately balanced scoring. Critic Byron Belt, writing in The American Organist for August 1980, concentrated his remarks on the plethora of new scores heard during the convention. Of the Near he commented “ . . . its obvious popular appeal was instantly audible in a splendid performance by Larry Palmer (to whom it is dedicated) and the orchestra under the composer.” In The Diapason (August 1980), Marilou Kratzenstein opined, “The Distler [Allegro Spirituoso e Scherzando] and Near works are both very idiomatic to the medium. By skillful orchestration, the harpsichord part comes through clearly even when accompanied by a 22-piece string orchestra. Both of these attractive works were given clean, crisp performances. It was a pleasure to be present at the premiere of the Gerald Near concerto, which will likely become a favorite with harpsichordists in the near-future.” A future “for the Near” has taken considerably longer than anticipated, but, at last, Gerald’s lovely work had its second performance in October 2004, this time with the SMU Meadows Symphony under Paul Phillips.

Ever peripatetic, Near lived in Dallas for a time, where he held several church positions. When I needed a piece to conclude a program given in conjunction with the Dallas Museum of Art’s major show of El Greco paintings I turned again to Gerald. He spent some time at my house trying various ideas on the harpsichord. The resulting Triptych, completed in 1982, was first played in public at the Museum in January 1983. It certainly achieved its requisite Spanish flavor in the concluding movement, a brilliant neo-Scarlattian romp. Before that Final there are two lovely miniatures--an impressionistic Carillon, and the lyrically Italianate Siciliano (inspired by the composer’s love interest at the time). All three movements are idiomatically conceived for the instrument.

Vincent Persichetti

Dear Vincent Persichetti responded to questions concerning his then-unpublished 1951 Harpsichord Sonata by sending a copy of the manuscript. I loved the work immediately, and still find this first essay for harpsichord to be Vincent’s most arresting and accessible work for the instrument! By the time I was engaged to play a harpsichord recital for the Philadelphia gathering of the International Congress of Organists in 1977, his Sonata was available in printed form. The concert was scheduled to be played in historic St. George’s Methodist Church in the central city, so Persichetti, who lived in Philadelphia, planned to attend, but heavy rain that afternoon delayed him. (It also knocked out power to many venues, causing consternation, and cancellation, for some concurrent organ recitals.) The composer arrived at the church just as my program ended, so I offered to play his Sonata for him after the audience departed. I did so, he made cogent comments (some of them concerned keeping steady tempi and he advised playing the work exactly as he had notated it), and he autographed my printed score (“Thanks to Larry Palmer for a meaningful Benjamin Franklin performance in my own city.” [The reference to Franklin refers to the bridge bearing his name. St. George’s is adjacent to the bridge access road, allowing considerable noise every few minutes from public transit vehicles.]). Then he drove me back to the hotel.

Thus began an acquaintance, nurtured by a Sonata commission from me, occasional piquant notes, or the random, unexpected telephone call from the composer. When he published an incorrect wording of the dedication in my commissioned Sonata VI (crediting Southern Methodist University with payment of the commission fee, an error that I feared might cause problems with some of my academic colleagues), Vincent assured me that he would think of some way to make it up to me. A year or so later, he telephoned with the news that his latest piece, Serenade Number 15, would bear the inscription “Commissioned by Larry Palmer.” “To make it official,” he said, “send me a check for one dollar.” Because this was a time of high inflation, I sent him a check for two dollars, eliciting the response, “How wonderful--this is the first time I’ve ever had a commission doubled!”

It was even more gratifying for me, since I gained two works from a significant composer for a total fee of $502.

Persichetti’s concise Serenade consists of five short movements: the moody Prelude, marked desolato; a quicker Episode; the even faster Bagatelle; a gentle, cantabile Arioso; and the closing Capriccio--made up of a delicato single line, in the texture of a Bach composition for solo stringed instrument. The seven-minute work reminds that, while Persichetti was a distinguished academic, whose mind espoused complicated serial techniques, his soul remained true to the song-inspired expressivity of his Italian heritage.

Rudy Davenport

The 1990s saw a veritable spate of harpsichord writing by Texas-based composer Rudy Davenport. First introduced to me in 1992 through Fr. Tom Goodwin, a harpsichord-playing Catholic padre on Padre Island, Rudy provided me with nine unique works for solo harpsichord or small ensemble with harpsichord. His first national exposure came at the combined 1998 Southeastern and Midwestern Historical Keyboard Societies’ meeting in Texas, where a program devoted to Davenport’s harpsichord writing concluded with the haunting Songs of the Bride, the composer’s settings of texts from The Song of Solomon for solo soprano, oboe, and harpsichord. (Six of these works comprise the program for the compact disc Music of Rudy Davenport, issued by Limited Editions Recordings in 2003.)

Some of my most enjoyable concert experiences have been those involving making music with others, and none has offered more delight than performing music for multiple harpsichords (usually two prove difficult enough to nudge into some semblance of compatible tunings). A Davenport work of exceptional charm, but one not graced with a completely written-out score, is his At Play with Giles Farnaby, a set of seven variations and a fugal finale on Farnaby’s For Two Virginals (Number 55 in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book). Rudy heard this short piece when it was performed by colleague Barbara Baird and me during our 1994 summer harpsichord workshop in New Mexico. His jaunty take on it, as well as the delightful and crafty contrapuntal ending have been an audience favorite on the two occasions we played together. This duo harpsichord work was an especially intensive collaboration, in its creation as well as its performance. Since the divergence of our ways after 1999, I have missed such exuberant music making, as well as the active involvement in fine polishing and editing Rudy’s engaging works.

Glenn Spring

But that void has been filled by the reintroduction into my artistic life of the Denver-based composer Glenn Spring, first encountered at the 1990 Alienor Harpsichord Composition competition finals in Augusta, Georgia. There his William Dowd: His Bleu was one of the winning works. Eventually Spring’s composition was published in The Diapason’s February 1992 tribute to the eminent harpsichord maker. A short while later Glenn’s son Brian moved to Dallas, giving us yet another reason to “stay in touch.” After Brian’s departure from this part of Texas there were years of diminishing communication, a situation suddenly reversed by Brian’s “out-of-the-blue” early morning call from Korea, where he was employed as an English teacher. He must have told his father about this call, for shortly thereafter I received a copy of a 1999 keyboard work, Glenn’s seven-movement charmer Trifles (now a prize winner in the most recent Alienor Competition, 2004). I liked it, learned it, and began playing it in recitals here and there.

A special confluence of friends occurred when Charles and Susan Mize, having contracted for Richard Kingston’s opus 300 Millennium harpsichord, a spectacular nine-foot Franco-Flemish instrument with contemporary brushed steel stand and computer-compatible music desk, asked me to play the Washington, D.C. dedication concert on the instrument. I thought it desirable that Charles should play on his new instrument at that event, so I commissioned Glenn Spring to write a work for two players at one instrument. The pleasing result was Suite 3-D, comprising Denver Rocket, Big D[allas] Blues, and D C Steamroller (honoring the three D’s of our home cities), interspersed with two quiet, lyrical movements (Romance, Night Thoughts). For a second performance on my home concert series (Limited Editions), long-time colleague Charles Brown brought both his musical and histrionic skills to the work, serving as collaborative harpsichordist as well as creator and reader of witty verses before each movement.

The most recent sins of commission, from the year 2004, have included another ensemble work by Spring, Images from Wallace Stevens for Violin and Harpsichord, first performed February 13 in celebration of the 20th season of house concerts (program number 60). Meeting Glenn’s wife, violinist Kathleen Spring, at the Mize harpsichord dedication program, I invited her to join me in this anniversary season, and inquired about possible violin and harpsichord pieces from her husband’s catalog. He responded by offering to compose something for us. Consisting of seven movements, the Images are inspired by short bits of Stevens’ poetry, so much of which evokes musical connections.

Tim Broege

Tim Broege’s score Songs Without Words Set Number Seven, composed for the SMU Wind Ensemble’s conductor Jack Delaney and me, had its first performance by the group and mezzo-soprano Virginia Dupuy on April 16, 2004. The most notable and prominent part for harpsichord is Broege’s reworking of the famous Lachrimae Pavan by John Dowland as each section is presented by the solo harpsichord, then reprised by the full ensemble, heard as the fifth of the work’s nine movements. (This setting may be extracted and played as a solo harpsichord composition).

Simon Sargon

My 35th annual faculty recital at SMU in September 2004 featured the first public hearing of composition professor Simon Sargon’s harpsichord reworking  of Dos Prados (“From the Meadows”), another lovely pavan, originally conceived for the single-manual 1762 Iberian organ in SMU’s Meadows Museum, and now, with a few changes of texture and tessitura, effectively adapted for solo harpsichord.

Involving composers in our performing lives is one of the most rewarding actions we can take. For us it provides the excitement of adding new pieces to our repertoire; for them, it is an affirmation of their necessary contributions to the ongoing vitality of our art; and perhaps not least, this is one pleasure that is neither life-threatening nor fattening! I urge each of you to join me in committing some sins of commission in the near future.

Sources

Calvin Hampton: Consonance remains unpublished; however an increasing number of his organ works are available from  Wayne Leupold Editions (available through ECS Publishing).

Neely Bruce: Nine Variations is available from <[email protected]> (or 212/875-7011).

Rudy Shackelford: Tombeau de Stravinsky is published by Joseph Boonin (B.319).

Recording: The Harpsichord Now and Then (Larry Palmer, harpsichord), MHS LP 3222.

Ross Lee Finney: Hexachord for Harpsichord is published by Edition Peters (67034).

Herbert Howells: Dallas Canticles, Aureole Editions (available from MorningStar Music).

For additional information about the commissioning of this work, see my article “Herbert Howells and the Dallas Canticles” in The American Organist, October 1992, pp. 60-62.

Gerald Near: Concerto for Harpsichord and Strings 1980 (Aureole Editions 149; performance materials on rental only) and Triptych for Harpsichord (Aureole Editions 02) are both available from MorningStar Music.

Recording (Triptych): 20th Century Harpsichord Music, vol. 2 (Barbara Harbach, harpsichord), Gasparo GSCD-266.

Vincent Persichetti: his nine Harpsichord Sonatas and Serenade 15, are published by Elkan-Vogel.

For additional information see my article “Vincent Persichetti: A Love for the harpsichord (Some Words to Mark his 70th Birthday)” in The Diapason, June 1985, p. 8.

Rudy Davenport: Scores are available from the composer at <www.RudyDavenport. com>.

For additional information, see my article “Rudy Davenport’s Harpsichord Music of the 1990s” in The Diapason, April 2004, p. 18.

Recording: Music of Rudy Davenport (Patti Spain, soprano; Stewart Williams, oboe; Larry Palmer, harpsichord), Limited Editions Recordings LER 9904.

Glenn Spring: Scores are available from the composer at <[email protected]>.

Tim Broege: Scores are available from the composer at <[email protected]>.

Simon Sargon: Scores are available from the composer at <[email protected]>.

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