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Harpsichord News

Larry Palmer

Larry Palmer is harpsichord editor of THE DIAPASON.

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A Harpsichord Christmas

Deck your music rack with a Christmas carol or two from A
Baroque Christmas
—-Carols and
Counterpoint for Keyboard
(traditional carols arranged for piano,
organ, or harpsichord by Edwin McLean),
published by FJH Music Company, 2525 Davie Rd., Suite 360, Fort Lauderdale, FL
33317-7424; e-mail

<[email protected]>.

Harpsichord-savvy composer McLean has provided interesting
and texturally-pleasing settings for eleven Yuletide favorites, among them a
rousing Adeste Fideles, a gently-moving Silent
Night
(with pungent added-note final
chord), a theme and two variations on
Good King Wenceslas
style='font-style:normal'>, a longer variation set for
We Three Kings
style='font-style:normal'>, fugue on
God Rest Ye Merry
style='font-style:normal'>, and a most attractive setting of
Greensleeves
(What Child Is This?).

These settings are all playable on a single-manual
instrument, although McLean provides suggestions for more colorful
registrations for the organ, or when playing on a two-manual harpsichord. The
arrangements work well on piano, too.

FJH Music also publishes McLean’s two well-conceived and
attractive Sonatas for Harpsichord. Both
have been recorded by harpsichordist Elaine Funaro: the first is the opening
selection of Gasparo GSCD-331,
Into the Millennium
style='font-style:normal'> (The Harpsichord in the 20th Century); the second
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> 
appears on
Overture to Orpheus
style='font-style:normal'> (Music Written for the Women Who Gave Wing to the
Muse), Centaur CRC 2517. Either disc, or both, would make fine stocking
stuffers for discriminating musical friends.

Intended for Christmas Eve music making are various baroque
pieces titled “Pastoral,” a type of pictorial shepherd music (as in the Pastoral
Symphony
from Handel’s Messiah
style='font-style:normal'>). One of these specifically intended for performance
by solo keyboardist is
the Sonata (Pastorale) in C Major
style='font-style:normal'>, K. 513 by Domenico Scarlatti
. Here we
find the traditional siciliano rhythm
suggesting sheep (baroque ones usually move in 12/8); a drone bass (
molto
allegro
) evoking “shepherds’ pipe” music;
and a concluding 3/8
presto that
could be either a representation of their joyful return “wondering at what they
had seen and heard,” or, possibly, some dramatic exit music for those angels
returning to the heights. This charming work may be found in any of the several
complete editions of Scarlatti’s keyboard sonatas, or, specifically, in volume
two of Sixty Sonatas, edited by Ralph Kirkpatrick, published by G. Schirmer.

Music for the New Year

Christoph Graupner (1683–1760) composed a keyboard
suite for each month of the year (Monatliche Clavir
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> 
Früchte
, Darmstadt 1722). January, in the pristine key of C,
comprises a
Praeludium and twelve
additional short dance movements; February (in G major), ten individual pieces;
and March (G minor), eight. These are now available in a handsome volume edited
(with no unfamiliar clefs) by Jörg Jacobi for Edition Baroque
(www.edition-baroque.de). The other three-quarters are expected to follow.

Another volume of great interest from Edition Baroque is
titled Labyrinthe,
comprising harmonically adventurous works for keyboard: Benedetto Marcello’s
Laberinto
musicale sopra il Clavicembalo
, Gottfried
Heinrich Stölzel’s
Enharmonische Claviersonate
style='font-style:normal'>, and Georg Andreas Sorge’s
Toccata per
omnem Circulum 24 modorum fürs Clavier
.
Fasten your aural seatbelts and try the challenges hidden in these unusual
musical traversals.

Early Instruments: Some Random Citings

The New Yorker, June 13 & 20, 2005: from Edmund White’s personal
history
My Women (Learning How to Love Them
style='font-style:normal'>): “The art-academy students across the street, who
were usually graduate students, had beards and long hair or, if they were
women, sandals and no makeup and unshaved legs hidden under peasant skirts.
They listened to records of Wanda Landowska playing Bach on the harpsichord
(God’s seamstress, as we called her) . . . [page 126].

The New Yorker, October 10, 2005: Jeffrey Eugenides’ eight-page short
story
Early Music tells the sad
story of a clavichordist, replete with many composer references (only
noticeable error, a transposed “ei” in Scheidemann) and an evocative print by
Richard McGuire [pages 72–79].

Dieter Gutknecht presents a reasoned, musical example-filled
overview of conflicting styles in his major article “Performance practice of recitativo
secco
in the first half of the 18th
century,”
Early Music XXXIII/3 (August 2005), pp. 473–493.

Correspondent Robert Tifft reports:
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> 

No lack of live harpsichord music in Budapest . . .

Since fall 2004 the Hungarian Radio has sponsored a cycle of
Bach’s solo harpsichord music with monthly recitals broadcast live from the
Radio’s Marble Hall. The recitals have occurred with even greater frequency
this fall, with performances by Zsolt Balog on September 26, Miklós Spányi on
October 10, Dalma Cseh on October 24 and Csilla Alfödy-Boruss on November 21.
Each concert features a different soloist, all of them Hungarian, all of them
one-time students at the Liszt Academy where János Sebestyén founded the
harpsichord class in 1970. Soloists last season were Anikó Horváth, Borbála
Dobozy, Ágnes Várallyay, Angelika Csizmadia, Ágnes Ratkó, Rita Papp, Péter
Ella, Szilvia Elek, Anikó Soltesz and Judit Péteri.

In celebration of her 25 years as a harpsichordist, Borbála
Dobozy performed a tour de force concert on October 13 as soloist in four
concertos. The program included Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 5
style='font-style:normal'> (BWV 1050), C.P.E. Bach’s
Concerto in G
minor
(Wq. 6), Haydn’s Concerto
in F major
(Hob. XVIII: 3) and Martinu’s Concerto
for Harpsichord and Small Orchestra
. The
sold-out concert was broadcast live over the Hungarian Radio and Internet.
Together with Anikó Horváth, Dobozy established a Hungarian harpsichord
foundation, Clavicembalo Alapítvány, in 2004. The foundation’s goal is to
provide master classes and instruments of the highest quality for students of
the Liszt Academy and to promote appreciation of the harpsichord through
recitals and competitions. There is a website at
<www.clavicembalo.fw.hu&gt;.

Looking Ahead

Make plans to attend an early keyboard meeting: the Southeastern
Historical Keyboard Society
meets March
9–11, 2006 at Shorter College, Rome, Georgia, with the dual purpose of celebrating
Mozart and honoring the first 25 years of the Society’s history. (More
information is available on their website <www.sehks.org&gt;).

The Midwestern Historical Keyboard Society
style='font-weight:normal'> will gather in Notre Dame, Indiana, June
15–18, 2006, presenting a program featuring the music of Diderik
Buxtehude. (Website: <www.mhks.org&gt;).

Send news items or comments about Harpsichord News to Dr.
Larry Palmer, Division of Music, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX
75275;

<[email protected]>.

Related Content

Harpsichord News

Larry Palmer

Larry Palmer is harpsichord editor of THE DIAPASON.

Default

Facsimiles from Fuzeau: Sources for Lifelong Learning

Alternately fascinating and frustrating, facsimiles of original manuscripts and printed editions have become increasingly available. For the harpsichordist there is little that is more rewarding than playing from an actual musical “picture” as presented by the composer. Reading from the “original” certainly does not answer all questions, but it does give an unadulterated source as basis for making one’s own musical decisions. For this reason, I heartily recommend playing from facsimiles as a challenging, and often a cleansing, exercise in musical growth.

To utilize these recent scores from publisher Jean-Marc Fuzeau of France, it will help to have an adventurous spirit, as well as a willingness to learn the occasional unfamiliar clef, frequently used in earlier music manuscripts to avoid excessive employment of ledger lines.

Alessandro Poglietti: Rossignolo  [Collection Dominantes Number 5905].

Works for harpsichord or organ by the Italian composer who died in 1683 during his flight from Vienna following the Turkish siege of that city. Three main sources for these pieces are introduced by Peter Waldner, whose notes in French, English, and German include both biographical and bibliographical information and a listing of available modern editions. Fuzeau’s publication comprises three slim paperbound volumes in a folder: an autograph manuscript from the Austrian National Library, Vienna (Cod. 19248), an early edition from the Music Library of the Benedictine Monastery of Marienberg, Burgeis (60/q 366), and another copy of an old source, now housed in the Deutsche Staatsbibliothek, Berlin (Mus.ms. 17670). All utilize the soprano clef (notes written a third higher than the customary G clef) and the familiar bass clef on F. Individual pieces include a Toccata, Canzone, Allemande Amour, Courante, Sarban, Gigue, Ayre, as well as Il Rossignolo Capricio [sic] and a Petitte Ayre gay “in imitation of the Nightingale.”

Johann Kuhnau: Neue Clavier-übung, Partie I (1689) [Collection Dominantes Number 5716], consists of seven short keyboard suites in C, D, E, F, G, A, and B-flat, prefaced by eleven pages of introductory material by Philippe Lescat. Each group of pieces begins with a Prelude (the fourth suite, a Sonatina). The volume is engraved in a large, clear format employing the first line soprano clef and the familiar bass clef on F.

For a modern performing edition of these works (and others, including the popular and appealing Biblical Sonatas) by Bach’s immediate predecessor as Cantor of Leipzig’s  Thomaskirche, consult the beautifully-presented two-volume set of Kuhnau’s Collected Works for Keyboard edited by C. David Harris, available from The Broude Trust, New York (ISBN 0-8540-7660-4).

Christoph Graupner: Monatliche Clavir Früchte (1722) [Collection Dominantes Number 5855].

Not surprisingly, this collection of “Monthly Keyboard Fruits” comprises twelve groups of keyboard pieces illustrating the months of the year. (I suppose one could create a larger work--Seasons--by playing these suites in groups of three!) Graupner, student of and assistant to Kuhnau in Leipzig, spent most of his distinguished career in Darmstadt. Soprano and bass F clefs, notes by Oswald Bill.

Louis Marchand: Pièces de clavecin (Book I, 1699; Book II, 1702), Air (La Venitienne) [La Musique Française Classique Number 5761].

Book One contains a Suite in D minor, consisting of a (measured) prelude and eight dance movements (including an elegant Chaconne with four couplets) engraved primarily in soprano and third line F clefs (with occasional deviations to G and third line C clefs). Book Two contains a Suite in G minor, the prelude of which has some unmeasured passages. Seven short dance movements follow.

Edited by Thurston Dart, Marchand’s two suites were published by Editions L’Oiseau Lyre in 1960. Dart’s edition does not contain the short Air (printed by Ballard as the character piece “La Venitienne” [in Pièces Choisies pour le clavecin]), included in the facsimile (with easy-to-read G and F clefs). Introductory notes to Fuzeau’s publication include an essay on “French Harpsichord Makers of Marchand’s Time” by Philippe Lescat. An amusing attribution in his Bibliography replaces American harpsichord maker and instrument historian FRANK Hubbard’s first name with the more Gallic spelling FRANCK.

Christian Gottlob Neefe: Zwölf Klavier-Sonaten (1773) [Collection Dominantes Number 5880].

Twelve early classic works for clavichord by Beethoven’s teacher; published in Leipzig with a dedication to “Herr Kapellmeister [C P E] Bach in Hamburg.” The original print featured a clear, clean text (soprano, bass F clefs). The inevitable printer’s errors are noted and corrected in introductory material by Pascal Duc.

Number Twelve in the Fuzeau series Méthodes & Traités  fills two volumes, each containing more than 200 pages. Clavecin presents in chronological order selections from the most important French sources concerning the harpsichord. A reading knowledge of French would be helpful, but for those who are challenged by the language, a great amount of enjoyment may be gleaned from the generous offering of harpsichord-related images, easily-deciferable information, and the many musical examples.

Beginning with tuning and building information from Mersenne’s Harmonie universelle (1636) and Denis’ Traité de l’accord de l’espinette (1650), volume one continues with ornament tables found in the keyboard volumes by Chambonnières (1670), d’Anglebert (1689), Dieupart (1701: a volume dedicated to the Countess of Sandwich), Le Roux (1705), François Couperin (Book I, 1713), Dandrieu (1724), Dagincourt (1733), Michel Corrette (1734), Louis-Claude Daquin (1735), Rameau (1736), Van Helmont (1737), Jollage (1738), and Royer (1746), plus complete facsimiles of Saint-Lambert’s Les Principes du Clavecin, (1702) and Couperin’s L’art de toucher le clavecin (1717). [Consult the original layout of Couperin’s Troisième Prélude (page 175) to substantiate a correct reading of the never-corrected faulty first bass note at the beginning of the last score: the guide (guidon) from the preceding line shows it to be a “C,”  but the engraver actually notated a “B-flat,” creating a chord unidiomatic to an 18th-century piece.]

Also included are two documents including important information for stylistic performance of French keyboard music: a letter by Le Gallois concerning the playing of the prélude non mésurée (1680) and Rameau’s two-page commentary on proper touch at the harpsichord (1724), ending with his intriguing comment that the same techniques are applicable as well to the organ.

Volume Two continues this rich treasure trove with Michel Corrette’s Les Amusemens du Parnasse, a short and easy method for the harpsichord (1749). This includes a simple Suite in C for beginners, with fingerings provided AND utilizing the familiar G and F clefs, followed by an additional twelve pages of easy pieces. At the end of the volume Marpurg’s Art de toucher le clavecin (1797) gives a fin de siècle example of keyboard instruction, concluding with another lengthy set of easier pieces by Mr. Sorge, organist and mathematician of Lobenstein (once again using “modern” clefs).

Other gems reprinted in this second volume include composer Duphly’s handwritten remarks on fingering (1769) as preserved in the copy of his Pièces de clavecin, Book I, belonging to his student, English Lord Fitzwilliam; illustrations of harpsichord construction from Diderot’s Encyclopédie (1751- 1772); Lessons and Principles of Harmony by Bemetzrieder (1771) reproduced from a copy once owned by the important 19th-century musical reformer Choron; and several more enchanting engravings of variously styled harpsichords with other instruments from the Essai sur la musique ancienne et moderne by Laborde (1780).

For more complete details, including current prices, consult the publisher’s website: <classical-music.fuzeau.com>. A recent promotional offering, a miniature volume of selected pages from facsimile publications, is offered at this address. Let your discoveries begin!

Send news items or comments about Harpsichord News to Dr. Larry Palmer, Division of Music, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX 75275;

<[email protected]>.

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].

A conversation with Stephen Tharp

Catching up with a well-traveled recitalist

Joyce Johnson Robinson

Joyce Johnson Robinson is associate editor of THE DIAPASON.

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Advocate and proponent of new organ music as well as transcriptions of older works, Stephen Tharp is one of today's most active concert organists, having already made over twenty intercontinental tours throughout North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia since 1987. He has held positions at New York City's St. Patrick's Cathedral and St. Bartholomew's Church, but at present forgoes a church position in order to focus exclusively on performing, recording and teaching. As a champion of new music, he commissions and premieres numerous new organ works--many of which are dedicated to him--including compositions by Thierry Escaich, Jean Guillou, Anthony Newman, Martha Sullivan, and Morgan Simmons. Stephen Tharp also promotes the transcription, having adapted, and often recorded, works from a variety of styles and eras, from Bach and Handel to Shostakovich and Stravinsky. The most recent of his six recordings, made at St. Sulpice in Paris, was the first commercially released recording by an American organist on that instrument. Stephen Tharp is represented by Karen McFarlane Artists.

We recently spoke with Stephen as he was preparing for another trip abroad.

JR: How did your interest in the organ begin? What was your early training?

ST: I first "responded to" music at the age of three, playing Christmas carols by ear on the piano from the radio and records. It was finally church music, however, that sparked the interest in the organ. I recall hearing this colorful, powerful instrument and thinking about how I absolutely had to learn to play it. Of course, my first teacher started me on the piano, which I think made me a little unhappy at the time. That was at the age of six. By age eight, the same teacher started me on the organ, and the two of us worked together on both instruments for the next several years, mostly at my home in Chicago.

JR: Age eight is an early start! --I'm thinking of the pedals here.

ST: I spent two years in piano. At age six I couldn't reach the pedals. By age eight, it was still a bit of a challenge, but I could start. My organ playing improved along with the piano playing. The transition time from doing one to doing both was actually kind of short. And at eight years old I was just barely able to reach the pedals too!

JR: So what things were you playing? Were you playing any repertoire, perhaps really easy things where you just had a pedal note here and there?

ST: I think the first real pieces of music were the Eight Little Preludes and Fugues, and not all of them. I've never practiced right hand, then left hand, then pedal, then do right hand and pedal, then left hand and pedal--because then you leave one out. You have to develop all three together. So I never did part practicing. No matter how long it took or how slow I did it, it was always everything at one time. Another thing was that I never went through method books per se, doing scales and things like that. There should be a musically relevant reason to attack any given technical issue. So if you have a particular technical challenge you want to hit, find a piece that targets it so that musically there is relevance to it.

By age eleven, I switched to a teacher named James C. Thunder, the director of music at Christ Church in Des Plaines, Illinois, again studying both organ and piano with him. It was Thunder who introduced me to a great deal of the mainline organ composers and their music, recordings of their music, and so on. After working with him for a few months, he made me a sort of "music assistant" at Christ Church, and in this capacity I learned and played on the organ many major anthem and oratorio accompaniments--Handel's Messiah and the Brahms and Mozart Requiems were among the first.

I stayed with James Thunder and Christ Church through 1985 when, at age fifteen, I became a private organ student of Wolfgang Rübsam at Northwestern University, perhaps to this day the person who, for many reasons, has had the greatest influence on my artistic temperament. It was Rübsam who introduced me to the discipline of intricate fingerings (somewhat ironic now, as I rarely ever write in fingerings at all), stylistic awareness and articulation in Baroque music and, most powerfully, the kinds of phrasing, rhapsodic gestures and rhythmic idiosyncrasies possible in Romantic music. I returned to Rübsam to do my graduate studies at Northwestern University in 1993, after four years at Illinois College in Jacksonville, Illinois for my B.A. in music. There I was very lucky to work with two wonderfully musical, insightful and imaginative teachers: Rudolf Zuiderveld in organ and Garrett Allman in piano, accompaniment and conducting. So many of my thoughts on lyricism, projecting musical structure and balance, etc., come from my time with them, and I must say that at a small liberal arts school I had access to perhaps a wider range of study than might have been the case elsewhere. This proved to be invaluable later, especially as I began traveling more and more to Europe. It was also at Illinois College that my interest in new organ works began. I had many opportunities to play a lot of music that was unpublished at the time. One particular performance at Illinois College of William Albright's 1732: In Memoriam Johannes Albrecht for Organ and Narrator, with Albright himself narrating, stands out. Jean Guillou's Hyperion and William Bolcom's Gospel Preludes Book IV are two further examples. There are many others.

JR: You were based in Chicago and then moved to New York and held positions at both St. Patrick's Cathedral and St. Bartholomew's Church, respectively, over the course of seven years. You then made the decision to "fly solo" as an artist without any church job. What prompted this?

ST: My move to New York City came in 1995, when I was appointed associate organist and director of cathedral concerts at the Cathedral of St. Patrick, where I stayed for two years in a prestigious but very busy position. I decided to leave there when my own career became busier and busier, at that point maybe two or three trips to Europe per season interspersed with U.S. concerts. I can honestly say, however, that much of what really boosted the success I was having already in Europe to another level was the position at St. Patrick's, and the people I met while I was there. Booking all the solo organ recitals was part of my duties as concerts director; there were occasions when organists would reciprocate by extending to me performing invitations overseas, and it was then that perhaps three tours a year began turning into five and six, a schedule that I maintain to this day. In late 1997, I became the associate organist at St. Bartholomew's Church, but only in a part-time capacity, which allowed me to continue my concert schedule. Of course, as the church continued to grow, so did the size of the position, and eventually I became full-time. Altogether, I was at St. Bartholomew's for just over four years. The music program there--everything from Praetorius and Carissimi's Jephthe, to Christmas concerts with The American Boychoir and Jessye Norman, to the U.S. premiere of James MacMillan's Cantos Sagrados and the N.Y. premiere of Howells' Hymnus Paradisi--is truly staggering for a church of its size. Therefore, when I made the decision to leave there in 2002, it was far from an easy one. But my performing schedule became simply too large to manage alongside a full-time position. It came time for me to focus all of my artistic (not to mention physical!) energies in one direction instead of several.

JR: These days it seems your career is based more in Europe than in the United States. Is this by choice? How did it come about?

ST: It is ironic that, as an American organist who plays about 60 concerts a year, the majority of them are elsewhere in the world. This was never really intended, but strangely enough, it has turned out that way. For one thing, I began playing publicly on a large scale much earlier in Europe than I did here. My first European concert was in London in 1989 at The Royal Albert Hall. Subsequent trips to England, then The Netherlands, then Germany, then France, really got things going, and they continued like a domino effect.

There is also what is known as an "association factor." I think that without having something like a major competition prize or a well-known teaching post, you don't necessarily get the same kind of attention for what you do. In an ideal world, this should not be such an important factor, but marketing is never that simple. Thanks to JAV Recordings and the Organ Historical Society, especially their websites, all six of my commercial recordings are very easy to find and obtain. And it goes without saying how wonderful it has been with Karen McFarlane Artists since 1998. Of course, we live in an era when massive amounts of information are bombarding you from all sides.

JR: How much are you on the road? What kind of performing schedule do you keep?

ST: It really depends. There are factors such as how many concerts are a part of any given tour, how many different tours are planned close together, how much travel is happening back and forth from the U.S., and what is going on in between--in other words, is there "down time."

Let me give you an example of how extreme it can become by describing my activities during the fall of 2002. Fall seems to be the heaviest time for traveling and playing. Following late August recording sessions at St. Luke's in Evanston, Illinois, I began in early September (four days after the recording) by playing an organ and orchestra concert in Krakow (Bielsko-Biala), Poland, consisting of the Piston Prelude and Allegro for Organ and Strings, and the Jongen Symphonie Concertante. This was followed by a few concerts in the Czech Republic and Germany with a more "mixed" general program, including Mendelssohn, Handel, and Karg-Elert. Next was a concert at St. Laurent's Church in Diekirch, Luxembourg (the oldest church in Luxembourg) on a beautiful new North German-style instrument by the builder Seifert of Kevelaer, Germany. That concert consisted of Bach, Bruhns, Buxtehude, and Murchhauser. Three days later were two concerts as part of the Merseburg Organ Festival, but with all American music, which they requested. This particular invitation arose at the last minute, while I was in Chicago recording at St. Luke's. Karel Paukert, who had been scheduled to play but had to withdraw at the last moment, graciously recommended me as his replacement for the concerts. I was lucky because these two dates, back-to-back, happened to be within a gap between Luxembourg and the other concerts that followed Merseburg elsewhere in Germany, although it was now necessary to "cram" in music that, in a few cases, I had not actually played in quite a while, and with only two days to prepare before the first of the concerts. Those consisted of Buck, Paine, Parker, Hurd, Newman and Sowerby. The rest of the tour (which spanned three and a half weeks altogether) meant a great deal of train travel and concerts roughly every two days as far north as Norden and as far south as Frankfurt.

During October, I went back to Europe with a second fall tour that began at the Passau Dom, which houses the largest organ in Europe. The highlights there were the premiere of my newest commission at that time, Thierry Escaich's Trois Poèmes, and a superlative work by Jean-Louis Florentz called The Cross of the South. Two days later at the Arcore (Italy) Organ Festival, I played my organ adaptation of Bach's Goldberg Variations. Thereafter came more of the Passau program in Innsbruck, several cities in southern Germany and then Strasbourg. To conclude this trip, I was in residence for a week at the Hochschule für Musik in Trossingen, Germany, at the invitation of organ professor Christoph Bossert, not only teaching his students in masterclasses on Vierne, but then performing as part of a theatrical concert of live improvisational dance with the dance department students, featuring live organ improvisation as the incidental music "in reaction to" the stage improvisation.

In November, I made my second trip to Australia, playing in Sydney and Adelaide, and concluded everything with a December Christmas concert at Spivey Hall in Atlanta, the last of several U.S. performances between the trips to and from Europe and Australia. In addition, I have been "guest teacher" at the Hochschule in Stuttgart when in Europe but not actually playing somewhere, and also at Yale University when in the States for a longer stretch.

This is not always the norm, but when it rains, it pours, and my upcoming calendar already indicates that this kind of agenda will happen more frequently. A lot of that has to do with the freedom with which I can now plan my concerts without a regular church job. Usually, larger tours are put on the calendar as far in advance as two years, and so a festival or organization will say, "Oh, this is your date and concert? Well, this is our theme, so you will play this and this and that." Put enough of those close together for when you are in Europe at one time, and your schedule fills very quickly! But, I love it.

JR: Do you find any differences between American and European audiences? You've said that they are larger in Europe.

ST: Right. In general that's true.

JR: Can you talk about European attitudes and their appreciation of your playing the organ, and how you plan your programs for a European audience versus here?

ST: It's very interesting. Of course, everything you do has to be accessible to your audience, but I don't believe that we're beyond being able to educate someone or at least spark their interest in hearing things that otherwise they wouldn't have considered. You know, when you push envelopes, other people who want to do something similar don't necessarily stretch themselves as far as you might, but they'll stretch themselves farther than they would have otherwise, just because they see a bigger realm of what's possible. I think more of that is ingrained earlier on in European audiences. Consequently, I have found that overseas you can get away with a lot more experimentation, and that allows you to be somewhat more adventurous with new music or transcribing.

Transcribing can mean so many things; I've seen people do transcriptions of Schoenberg on organ. I saw someone--Bernard Haas, from Stuttgart--do a transcription of one of the Five Orchestral Pieces of Schoenberg at St. Eustache the same week I was in Paris doing my St. Sulpice recording, which was October 2001. And he did it from memory, with double pedal, triple pedal playing, all of these things that were so intricate, yet he kept the dynamic level very contained and small, based on the chamber quality of the original piece. And people just ate it up, and in a sense it was the most adventurous thing on the program, and while there were many organists present, there also were a lot of people who came because it said "organ concert"--but it was a very intensive 20th-century program, with some Webern transcriptions, and some of Jean Guillou's pieces, and then the Schoenberg in the middle, and people were just perplexed by it. But there were more comments, questions, and curiosity about that work than anything else on the program, and it certainly was the most envelope-pushing piece.

To try to do something like that over here, it depends on how you present it and how you talk about it first to your audience. But it seems that certain kinds of transcriptions are much more popular here than 20th-century music and yet in some ways 20th-century music, especially in certain circles in Europe, has always been more popular than transcriptions. You hear a lot against transcriptions with these kinds of dogmatic black and white ideas about what a transcription should be: is it necessary, why are we doing this if you have all this music of Bach, is a transcription anything compared to that? I've found that I can introduce a transcription to a skeptical European the way you try to do the same thing with modern music for an American audience, and if you do it the right way, I think you can sell something new or at least get people curious.

JR: Tell us your thoughts on commissioning new organ works.

ST: I had a very special experience while I was still in high school. My earlier studies, both organ and piano, engaged fewer pieces for longer periods of time than would be the case later as my technique advanced. So, when I worked on a piece, I really lived with it for a long time before it went before anyone except my teacher.

At one point, I had spent about a year with James Thunder on Aaron Copland's Piano Variations when, one day, after a lesson, Thunder said to me, "You know, Copland is coming to Chicago to give a lecture at the Cultural Center downtown. I made some arrangements this morning on the telephone--do you think you'd be up to playing this for him next week?" Well, I was not about to be stupid and say NO (which Thunder knew), although the idea scared me to death (which Thunder also knew). Even at that age, I could grasp what it meant to play something important for the composer himself, much less Aaron Copland! After six more days of polishing my memorization, I attended the lecture at the Cultural Center and was introduced to Copland afterwards by my teacher. A half an hour later, I sat down in a private piano studio some blocks away at Roosevelt University and, nervous as a ninny, played the work for Copland. He was extremely kind, complimentary enough that I still enjoy talking about it, especially about the fact that I was, as he put it, "crazy" enough at my age to have memorized it, insightful on tempi, some phrasing, and so on. But, the one major awakening was how incredibly inspiring it is to sit down with the source of a creation and share thoughts on it, the ideas that sparked it, concepts and such related things. That was a turning point for me, as it also spawned a real hunger for more music that was new, different, fresh, and intense, sometimes vehemently intense.

At that age, I found pieces that were off-the-wall, learned them, and played them in recitals because I felt a need to do so. What I began to learn was that, when you present something "dicey" to an audience, even knowing that all or many of them may be hearing it for the first time, you get further with that audience by talking to them about what they will hear and why they would want to hear it, even again and again, than you do by just handing them written program notes. Once you do this, the audience feels that there are good reasons for being curious about something that will be not only unfamiliar, but also likely push a few envelopes too, and that this is a positive and enriching thing! If you play down to your listeners, especially with your choice of programming, like they're dumb, then they will respond that way a lot of the time. If you show them that you trust their minds and ears enough to KNOW that they can be interested in what you are offering them, people tend to be more open-minded for you. Despite a lot of thinking these days to the contrary, when it comes to "modern music," I still find this to be unmistakably true, if you as the presenter handle it the right way.

Put all of this together with the opportunities to meet and work with more and more living composers that really began at Illinois College, and the result is a list of varying and remarkable works that I feel privileged to play as often as I can. There is a very challenging three-movement pedal solo work called Sequentia Pedalia by Chicago composer Morgan Simmons, which he gave me in manuscript just prior to my appointment to St. Patrick's in New York; Anthony Newman, one of my best friends in the world, and one of my most devoted supporters, has written three very large but different works for me of brilliant intricacy (these get played perhaps the most frequently and are always very well received); there is Jean Guillou's massive and intense seven movement symphonic poem called Instants (his second largest solo organ work), improvisational but thematically interwoven, written for my concert at King's College, Cambridge; and a jazzy, witty piece based on Bulgarian folk rhythms for organ, percussion and women's chorus called Slingshot Shivaree, composed for a program at St. Bartholomew's called "Organ Plus" by my friend Martha Sullivan. She is an especially talented composer whose star is on the rise, with her works being performed all over the U.S.; there is the haunting and nostalgic 4-movement Sinfonietta by Philip Moore of York Minster, England; and the most recent to date, the Trois Poèmes by Thierry Escaich, works of pure genius, contained electricity with balance and proportion. There are more to come, the next being in 2004 from Bruce Neswick.

JR: About your championing of transcriptions: You've recorded a number of transcriptions, including a good half-dozen of your own.

ST: Right.

JR: What originally got you on the transcription bandwagon? And how do you prepare these? Do you write them down note for note, or do you just sketch them out for yourself? Would you consider having any of them published?

ST: There are several issues here. I have not actually written down anything per se; there's nothing that exists in any formatted way. Usually the bigger transcriptions are the most complicated ones that would take the most work--things that are orchestral versus piano, like a symphony, the Shostakovich 5, or the Petroushka dances, which are all marked from the full scores. You go through and find the things that are more important in the texture, and then find out by process of elimination what you have to take out, because obviously with two hands and two feet there's only so much you can play. So you must decide what to keep and what has to go--and how to eliminate things in an orchestral score so that you can play it on the organ without changing the piece or leaving out something important.

Through looking at a score that I've marked up, I work it up slowly and memorize it, and then essentially play the transcriptions from memory. So none of them are actually written out; they're just marked-up adapted full scores.

In the end, as crazy a process as that sounds, it ends up being easier come performance time, because there's too much to follow and certainly to have an orchestral score in front of you, to have someone try to page-turn that would be crazy. It's very distracting to try to read ten lines of a score while playing and doing registrations and keeping your focus in front of an audience. Anything that limits other senses is more focused--in other words, by playing from memory, the other senses become more acute, because the visual distraction of looking at a page and reading something takes away from the ear, takes away from things that are tactile. So playing from memory certainly hones in on what you feel under your fingers, what you listen to, in a different way. This is never more important than in a very complicated transcription. That's one reason I've never actually written anything down.

Another reason is that a lot of the repertoire is not really of interest to publishers; they don't think it's mainstream enough to sell. So, no, at this point, nothing is published. I think at some point, if either a publisher decides they would like something specific or if I could get a couple of players who were interested in a certain transcription, then I would take the time to write something down.

JR: Your repertoire is very diverse and you strive to present each piece with a sense of stylistic awareness. What then are your thoughts on organ transcriptions vs. organ repertoire, and on performance practices? As a performer, how do you strike a balance among these?

ST: I have some very specific and passionate thoughts on this. To start with, I think that the art of transcription is very important, and it is ironic that it gets both incredible support and simultaneously a great deal of criticism nowadays.

Realize that when we say transcriptions, we are not just talking about Danny Boy, Ave Maria and Flight of the Bumblebee. We are also talking about large-scale, often mainstream repertoire that demands as much care and subtlety from an organist as it would from a pianist, a singer or an orchestra. Art at a very high level transcends its chosen medium. It is not just a matter of whether or not the organ becomes an orchestra, a piano, or anything else.

A successful transcription should not sound like it is a transcription, but rather be idiomatically adapted to the new medium while preserving the soul and stylistic context of the original in a carefully struck balance, and this is why transcribing is such an art form and anything but trite. I would challenge those who flippantly dismiss transcriptions as circus tricks as not understanding these ideas on a very profound level, nor having experimented with transcriptions enough personally to see what is really possible, and how. Consider the Bach-Vivaldi Concerti, several Liszt works that began on piano or organ and then went the other way, in the composer's own hand nonetheless, or the most obvious example, Mussorgsky's piano work Pictures at an Exhibition (transcribed later by other composers for a medium of immense color possibility, and now part of the standard orchestral repertoire). So, ultimately, we do accept transcriptions--we always have. Moreover, awareness of style must be applied here too--transcription does not always mean swell boxes, string divisions and tubas. Take for instance Bach's Italian Concerto or his Goldberg Variations. I have had as much musical satisfaction from playing these on organs by Fritts, von Beckerath, Gabler, Fisk and so on, as I have had sitting at a great E.M. Skinner with the Liszt B-Minor Sonata or something as monumental as the Shostakovich Symphony No. 5.

For me, all of this leads to a larger issue, and that is how we often see performers "mixing menus," which just confuses everything. I once heard an organist pull out stops at 8', 4'and 2' on a neo-Baroque organ and make his way through Elgar's Nimrod on that one sound, and briskly at that, like it was just this pretty piece to play for the audience, and that was enough. It was evident that the player did not understand anything about the intimacy of this music, or that perhaps this was not the right organ for it. On the flip side, I recently heard a Bach prelude and fugue played with all the swell shades flapping around like window blinds in a storm, with as many pistons as there were notes and Romantic rubato everywhere. Although the result was extremely musical in its own way, the total change of esthetic was so foreign to the score tha

Four Centuries of Great Keyboard Instruments:

Vermillion, South Dakota

Larry Palmer

Larry Palmer is a contributing editor for The Diapason.

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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;.

Her Best Friends Were Archbishops

An interview with Elise Cambon, organist of New Orleans’ St. Louis Cathedral for 62 years

Marijim Thoene

Marijim Thoene received the DMA in Church Music/Organ Performance from the University of Michigan. She is currently organist at Church of the Immaculate Conception, “The Jesuit,” on Baronne Street, in New Orleans, and is an active recitalist.<span style=&quot;mso-spacerun:yes&quot;> </span>Her CD, “Mystics and Spirits,” recorded at St.
Joseph Abbey in St. Benedict, Louisiana, has recently been released by Raven
Recordings.

Default

Elise Cambon, affectionately called "The First Lady of Sacred
Music," is a living legend in New Orleans. This spirited woman, who calls
herself a tiger, was born in New Orleans in 1917. Her accomplishments in church
music read like an entry in Who's Who in America normal'>; a summary of her life's work will be published in the 2004 edition.
She graduated from Newcomb College, part of Tulane University, in 1939. Her
first organ lessons began in 1939 with Ferdinand Dunkley, a graduate of the
Royal School of Church Music, a professor at Loyola and organist/choirmaster at
St. Charles Ave. Presbyterian Church. A pivotal moment occurred in her life
when she was playing as a substitute organist for a Boy Scout Mass at the St.
Louis Cathedral in 1941. As she played Widor's
Toccata
style='font-style:normal'> as a postlude, Archbishop Rummel decided to offer
her the position of cathedral organist. As she is fond of saying "Timing
is everything." (See photos
#1 and #2 taken shortly after she became cathedral organist, dated 1944, 1946.)

While cathedral organist she taught music at the Ursuline Academy 1942-1951,
at the Ursuline College 1949-1951, and at the Louise McGhee School for Girls
1953-1961. (See photo #3 taken with choir from McGhee School, dated 1958.) She
was the founder and first Dean of the New Orleans Chapter of the AGO in 1942.

She received a Master of Music degree in organ performance in 1947 from the
University of Michigan where she studied wtih Palmer Christian. She continued
organ studies with Arthur Poister at Oberlin College and Syracuse University.
Throughout her tenure as organist at the cathedral she conducted choral
concerts and played organ recitals to a packed house. Photo #4 dated March 23,
1952, taken after one of her cathedral concerts shows from left to right Norman
Bell, Most Reverend Joseph Francis Rummel, Elise Cambon and Reverend Father
Robert Stahl, S.M.

In 1951-1953 she attended the Hochschule für Musik in Frankfurt as a
Fulbright fellow and studied organ with Helmut Walcha, harpsichord with Maria
Jaeger and conducting with Kurt Thomas. After her Fulbright she spent summers
studying Gregorian chant at the Benedictine Abbey of Solesmes and at Pius X
School of Liturgical Music in Purchase, New York. In 1959 she was invited to
teach at Loyola University and received a grant to found the School of
Liturgical Music. (See photo #5 showing, from left to right, the Rev. C. J.
McNaspy, S.J. dean of the College of Music, Frederick W. Salmen, president of
the foundation, and Elise Cambon receiving grant to found the School of
Liturgical Music at Loyola University.)

Not only did she obtain grants for two Holtkamp organs, but also funds to
install air conditioning in the practice rooms. She founded the New Orleans
Bach Oratorio Society in 1959. She earned her Ph.D. in musicology from Tulane
University in 1975 and was awarded first prize in musicological research from
Mu Phi Epsilon International Music Society for her dissertation "The
Italian and Latin Lauda of the 15th-century." She retired from teaching at
Loyola in 1982. Photo #6 shows Elise Cambon at the organ console in St. Louis
Cathedral taken the year she retired from Loyola University.

She received grants and raised funds for the St. Louis Cathedral Choir to go
on "Pilgrimages," to sing five concerts in Europe, England and
Ireland from 1987-1998. In 1987 she took the Cathedral Choir on a concert tour
to Italy and France and performed in Rome, Assisi, Florence and Paris. In 1991
the Cathedral Choir sang concerts in Austria, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. And
in 1994 she directed the Cathedral Choir as it performed in Spain and
Portugal. Her last two
"Pilgrimages" with the choir were in England in 1996 and in Ireland
in 1998. In England the choir sang at
St. Martin-in-the Fields, Clifton Cathedral, Westminster Cathedral, Ely
Cathedral, Canterbury Cathedral and St. George's in Bloomsbury (London). In
1989 she became coordinator of five choirs plus a brass ensemble from the
Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra for "One Shell Square" for Christmas
concerts, which she continues to do.

These are the facts of her life, a life dedicated to learning, teaching and
performing music. It was a great privilege to interview Elise Cambon and hear
her tell of the forces that shaped her remarkable life. She describes in her
own words her life, her ambition, her passion for learning, teaching,
conducting and playing Bach, her life devoted to church music. Photo #7 shows,
from left to right, Marijim Thoene and Elise Cambon at Dr. Cambon's home on
July 3, 2003.

M.T. Tell me about growing up in New Orleans.

E.C. I was born February 27, 1917,
at home at 2004 Napoleon Avenue. My father's name was Maurice Cornelius Cambon
and my mother was Marie Camilia Murray Cambon, called "Camille." My
two sisters, Marie and Camille, were twins and were born on the feast day of
St. Cecilia on November 22, patron saint of music. They were fun to be around.

M.T. Do you remember about your first piano lessons? Did you have to
practice a lot? Did you want to practice?

E.C. Did I want to practice?! That
was when I got to Europe. I don't remember taking piano lessons until I was in
Europe and came back to the States.

M.T. Did your father get to see you conduct and play?

E.C. Oh, no. Things went bad. We
went to Europe when I was eight years old in 1925 and stayed until about 1930.
While we were in Europe, my father
rented a piano, and we started lessons with Albert Leveque, an
understudy of Cortot of the Paris Conservatory. In the meantime we also had a
French governess and she taught us French. She took care that we practiced the
piano and studied lessons in French. We studied mostly grammar and science,
natural science. We spoke only French. We were not allowed to speak a word of
English.

M.T. Did you have to compete with your sisters for practice time on the
piano?

E.C. No, I was on that piano bench
before any of them. I respected Monsieur Leveque and he liked me too, because I
could memorize anything that he wanted us to learn. My sisters liked the
keyboard, but not as much as I did. I was always on the piano. Everyday we were
assigned certain hours to practice the piano and to study French. The lady who
taught us French knew enough about the piano that she could supervise. My
teacher would play something and I would learn it from memory right away.

M.T. When you got back from Paris did you speak English?

E.C. Yes, but we were encouraged to
converse in French. We brought back a French governess. She stayed with us
until I was 13. Then I was sent to the Sacred Heart Academy, and I studied
Latin.

M.T. Was it really strict at the Academy? You had to work very hard?

E.C. Oh, yes. You see we lost all of
our money by that time. We lost it in 1929 in the Great Depression. In 1930 my
uncles committed suicide. They both owned the Cambon Real Estate Corporation,
and were grief stricken that so many people had lost money and there was no way
to repay it.

M.T. What did you study at Newcomb?

E.C. At Newcomb I majored in French
for the simple reason that it was easy for me. I didn't have to work on it. And
I had three positions: I had an NRA job with the government, I taught children
piano lessons every Saturday and I baby sat for them in the evening when
needed. I was able to pay my school tuition by means of this extra employment.

M.T. Where did you teach?

E.C. I taught the children of
professors in their homes. Sometimes they would bring me home, or I would take
the streetcar if it wasn't too late. It wasn't dangerous in those days like it
is today.

M.T. When did you start playing the organ?

E.C. My sister Marie sang at the
Church of the Immaculate Conception, "the Jesuit," on Baronne St.,
and Claire Coci was then the director. When I heard Claire play I was very
impressed. The next time I saw her
was when she was at Oberlin in Ohio. At that time I had already finished my
master's degree at Michigan where I studied with Palmer Christian. I stayed at
Michigan two and a half years. I studied with Arthur Poister at Oberlin one
summer, and I thought he was very good. Then he moved to Syracuse University
and I studied again with him.

M.T. Did you take lessons from Claire Coci at the Jesuit?

E.C. No, I never took lessons there.

M.T. When did you start taking organ lessons?

E.C. I started with an Englishman
here by the name of Ferdinand Dunkley who was organist at St. Charles Ave.
Presbyterian Church. He had a degree from the Royal School of Church Music and
was very, very smart. I studied a lot with him, and I got to the point that I
could play the Trois Chorals by Franck. So, he was my first organ teacher.

M.T. How old were you when you started organ?

E.C. About 22. I had lessons with
him for a long time. And I liked him very much, he was a genuinely fine man.
Then I went to the Loyola College of Music to study theory and other things at
night--Gregorian chant. Fr. Callans taught me that. He had studied at Solesmes.

M.T. What attracted you to the organ?

E.C. Claire Coci. I thought she was
a stunning performer. She was very dramatic. She made that organ sing. I'm not
saying that I wanted to play that way, but I love Bach very much. You can make
Bach's music sing. But so many people think Bach should be played in a very
strict manner; playing it so strictly causes it to lose all of its spirit. When
I went to Ann Arbor I started doing Bach. I love Bach and earlier composers--de
Grigny, Couperin, etc.

M.T. What do you think is the most valuable information Palmer Christian
taught you? What do you treasure most from his lessons?

E.C. Well, Palmer Christian
impressed me by his dignity. He was a gentleman to the core. He played at the
English Church in Paris before he came back to the United States. He truly was
a highly refined man. He meant business. He wasn't mean, just very dignified.

M.T. And you had a lesson
every week from him?

E.C. Oh, yes.

M.T. Did he have studio classes where the students would play for each
other?

E.C. Yes, once a week. I remember
playing the Bach D Major Prelude and Fugue.

M.T. What did he tell you to do to handle stage fright?

E.C. Stage fright? I was never
afraid.

M.T. You were never nervous?

E.C. I always thought I could be
better. But I never felt nervous. I never played when I thought I didn't know a
piece. I'd better know it, or I wouldn't play it.

M.T. When did you begin directing choirs?

E.C. At the cathedral, I had a boy
choir. They were cute as buttons. I would rehearse them one half hour before
the Mass out in the garden in front of the cathedral.

M.T. How old were you when you started directing the choir at the
cathedral?

E.C. It was before I got through
Newcomb. I think I was 24, maybe it was 1941. I was playing for a Boy Scout
Mass and Archbishop Rummel was there. It was the first time the archbishop had
heard me play. I played the Widor Toccata
and the archbishop said
to the priest, "Who is playing that organ today? I want to meet the
performer." The man who had been organist was ill, and when he was unable
to return I was offered the job. I was there 62 years this past year.

M.T. What were the biggest challenges you faced as organist/choir
director?

E.C. Following the edicts of Vatican
II. The people were encouraged to sing the Ordinary of the Mass. The goal was
to have the people understand what was going on at the altar.

M.T. What was it like to study at Pope Pius X School of Liturgical Music
in NY?

E.C. It was wonderful. I got to know
my teacher, Dom Gajard, a visiting Benedictine monk from Solesmes.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">
When the Gregorian Chant Choir of Spain
sang at the cathedral in January, 2003 to celebrate the Louisiana Purchase, I
discovered that the conductor of the choir had studied with Dom Gajard and had
met me in the 1950s.

When I had finished studying in Germany on a Fulbright grant in 1953, the
Archbishop wrote me, "You've been studying enough in Protestant
churches. I want you to go to
Solesmes." And he paid my way. I stayed there for six weeks. I was really
impressed, people were serious, they really tried to learn. I went to Pius X
each summer for four years. Every time I had a vacation I went there. I studied
with Mother Morgan and there was another nun who taught how to conduct chant.
We sang chant in the Mass everyday.

M.T. What led you to teach at Loyola University?

E.C. I had been in Europe on a
Fullbright and I met Fr. McNasby. He said, wouldn't you like to teach music and
Gregorian chant at Loyola University? Fr. McNasby invited me to teach
liturgical music. He invited me to teach summer school.

M.T. Why did you decide to work on a Ph.D. in musicology?

E.C. I decided if I was going to
teach music history I had to have a fine understanding of the development of
music, from its origin in Gregorian chant to the present. So I took classes all
during the winter time. I took classes in Renaissance, etc., but chant I studied
at Solesmes. In chant stress was determined by the accent of the text. It was
like dancing, and I liked that.

M.T. Why did you decide to write a dissertation on the Italian and Latin
lauda of the 15th century?

E.C. Well, I loved Latin and I
studied Italian for a couple of summers in college. I had had four years of
Latin in high school and college. I didn't like the music particularly. I did
it because I had done so much work with the lauda
when I studied
early music. I had a lot of material on it.

M.T. How did you survive working under five archbishops?

E.C. I got along with them like two
peas in a pod. Archbishop Rummel treated me just like a daughter. The next was
Cody. He stayed only two years and so I have a short remembrance of him and I
think the one who followed him was Archbishop Hannan. He was a very genteel
man. He got along with people, and most people liked him very much. He couldn't
carry a tune in a bucket. And so there was no relationship that way. But he was
always nice to me and he respected my way. I loved also Archbishop Schulte, he
was a great guy. When he was archbishop the cathedral ceased being operated by
an order of missionary priests to a single rector. Fr. Hedrich was the first
rector of the cathedral and became a monsignor later. When Archbishop Schulte
introduced me to the new rector, Fr. Hedrich, the Archbishop told Fr. Hedrich,
"Now you're the liturgist, don't forget that, but Dr. Cambon is the
musician. When it comes to music she is the musician." And he meant it. He
respected my knowledge of first-class religious music. And I like very much
this new bishop, Moran, the one that was just made a bishop.

M.T. What would be your advice to any young person thinking about going
into church music?

E.C. I would say to them go to the
church and perform for a church that really believes in God. Do it for God
because you love the music. God deserves the best. However people are very
important and you shouldn't be a cantankerous individual and if you can't get
along, get out. And then I would say if you respect the people you work for,
never talk about them, never call them down to other people. As long as I have
been at the cathedral I have never had a priest under an archbishop that I
couldn't find something very rewarding about them. But you do run into
characters, and that you can't help, because everybody is different and maybe
they don't agree with the music you like. Try to be in a place where you can do
the music you like without any arguments.

M.T. Do you have any regrets?

E.C. None.

M.T. How did you build up the choir at St. Louis Cathedral?

E.C. I started out as the organist
in 1940 and then I had a boy choir. The man who trained the boy choir became
ill; his name was Roland Boisvert. After he left the cathedral he became organist
at St. Joseph's Abbey, a Benedictine monastery in St. Benedict, Louisiana, a
short distance from New Orleans. They saw how loyal I was at St. Louis
Cathedral. I was always there for the evening services. I was playing weddings,
and working my tail off, trying to keep up. I had to train the boys to sing the
Mass on Holy Days. And I would say to them. "All right kids I want to see
you Sunday morning at 7 o'clock and we will go over the Mass so that you will
be good." And they came very religiously and on Friday morning we had Mass
and do you know some of those kids became priests of the order of Mary
Immaculate. They were the order that was at the cathedral. They are missionary
priests.

M.T. Did you rehearse them everyday?

E.C. I would rehearse them at lunch
time. They would come in from playing ball to rehearse the music. They would
prepare the music for the Mass they were planning to sing on the first Friday
of the month and on some Holy Days. After the rehearsal I would throw up as
many pennies as I had on me to give them a reward for coming, and do you know
one of them is now a priest, Rev. Msgr. Ignatius M. Roppolo at St. Rita's in
New Orleans. The oblates of Mary Immaculate had a school and the boys in the
choir came from that school.

M.T. When did you begin directing the adult choir?

E.C. It grew out of the school
choirs I was directing and the girl choir that Fr. Lorengan directed. When Fr.
Lorengan retired I was given both choirs to direct. I had just begun teaching
at Ursuline Academy and some of the kids from there wanted to come over and
sing. And eventually we got some men. They came from Loyola University. Some of
the girls brought some boys they knew from Jesuit High School.

M.T. So the adult choir at the cathedral came from other choirs you had
trained. Did you pay them?

E.C. No, no indeed.

M.T. When the choir grew, did you pay the singers?

E.C. Not for a long time because
they loved the music. In those days people were more religious, more people
went to church. I had a lot of people from Ursuline who were interested, and
they are still singing in my choir at the cathedral.

M.T. When did you start paying singers?

E.C. When we started giving a lot of
concerts.

M.T. What year was that?

E.C. I think that was in 1982. One
of them was Marilyn Bernard. I paid her because she was so good. She was an
excellent soprano. She came for the love of music.

M.T. And your sister Marie helped you raise funds for choir trips?

E.C. Yes. She knew the people. She
came down to the cathedral when I played the 12 o'clock Mass on Sunday. When I
finally got the choir moving they sang the High Mass, and I played all the
Masses, all the Benedictions that they had on weekdays.

M.T. When did you start playing so many Masses?

E.C. I started in 1940.

M.T. How many Masses did you play on Sunday?

E.C. The 9, 10, 11 and 12.

M.T. What about weekday Masses?

E.C. The children sang once a week.
I went down there to direct them. They really didn't need me. I used to go down
there at night and play the evening Mass too on Sunday night at 6 pm.

M.T. As choir director did you do any 20th-century repertoire?

E.C. No. They didn't like it. My
choir now does not like esoteric music that they do not understand. They like
Benjamin Britten, Randall Thompson. Their preference is for Gregorian chant and
music of later periods that shows organization and beauty. They will not sing
modern music. They are used to doing 16th-century polyphonic music.

M.T. What about the Brahms Requiem normal'>?

E.C. We have sung it and enjoyed
doing it.

M.T. Do you have a favorite 20th-century composer?

E.C. I love Randall Thompson, his
"Alleluia," and Benjamin Britten.

M.T. When you were playing organ recitals what repertoire did you play?

E.C. Bach, the Passacaglia
and Fugue, Prelude and Fugue in D Major, the Prelude and Fugue in A minor
,
the C Major.

M.T. Did you play pre-Bach repertoire? Nicolaus Bruhns? Buxtehude,
Sweelinck?

E.C. Oh yes.

M.T. Did you play any 20th-century repertoire?

E.C. Yes, I played Marcel
Dupré's Preludes and Fugues
, and Jehan Alain. I played
Messiaen's Celestial Banquet.

M.T. Did you study with Dupré?

E.C. No, I just heard him play.

M.T. What about Franck? Did you play his music?

E.C. Oh, I like Franck. I did the Trois
style="mso-spacerun: yes">
Chorals
, the Pastorale
style='font-style:normal'>, and
Pièce Héroïque
style='font-style:normal'>.

M.T. And what about Hindemith?

E.C. I played his sonatas.

M.T. What about Tournemire?

E.C. A great man. I played some of
his music. I didn't play a lot of Tournemire because I didn't think the people
would enjoy hearing it. I think you must play music that people understand, not
just what you like to play.

M.T. What did you play at the cathedral? Did you play Brahms?

E.C. Yes, I love his chorales.
Beautiful. I played Couperin, de Grigny, Clérambault, Sweelinck, and we
sang Sweelinck too.

M.T. Did you play Mendelssohn?

E.C. Yes, but I think he is boring.
His music doesn't do anything. It's too old fashioned. I like music that says
something to people, and that has a wonderful sound. I was lucky to have the
cathedral organ.

M.T. Tell me about the restoration of the organ. I know you are
responsible for its restoration.

E.C. I paid for the whole thing.
It's being restored and added to by Holtkamp Organ Company of Cleveland, Ohio.

M.T. When did you find time to practice the organ?

E.C. At night, often I practiced
until midnight. And I took a cab home. It wasn't dangerous then.

M.T. You were alone?

E.C. Yes, usually, I couldn't expect
someone to stay down there with me.

M.T. Were you able to play organ preludes every Sunday?

E.C. Yes.

M.T. Did you play the organ during Advent and Lent?

E.C. No. In those days it was
forbidden. I was always under the supervision of Fr. Stahl. He was the director
of the seminary choir and could play the organ and wrote compositions for the
Notre Dame Seminary. I got my instructions from him. I followed the rules of
the Catholic Church, and there was to be no organ music during Advent and Lent.

M.T. And when you did play a prelude, was it always soft and meditative?

E.C. Not at all.

M.T. Really?

E.C. No. That's a lot of
foolishness. I would play big works, like the Passacaglia. And at the end of
the service, pieces like Toccata and Fugue in d minor
.

M.T. When you played the Toccata and Fugue in d minor
style='font-style:normal'> for the prelude, nobody complained that you were
interrupting their prayers?

E.C. No, they came just to hear it.

M.T. Do you have any organ students who are pursuing church music as a
career?

E.C. Many. I have one boy who is
blind and is in Florida. One just gave a recital at St. Dominic's Church,
Marcus St Julien. I taught Fr. Carl Davidson, a former seminarian at Notre Dame
Seminary, Fr. Tom O'Connell and Dreux Montegut who is the music director, director
of the Cathedral Choir and Cathedral Boy Choir at St. Louis Cathedral.

M.T. Do you have any advice to an organist who is starting out?

E.C. Learn the music the way I was taught by Walcha: to play various voices
and the pedal and sing the other voice, to learn it from memory and know
everything that is going on in the piece. Make it the most important thing in
your life, to study and perform music like the composer meant it to be played.
And the first one in my book is Bach, and then of course polyphonic music of
the 16th-century, music of Palestrina, Victoria, Lassus, Orlando Gibbons, Byrd,
and Sweelinck, and composers today such as Vaughan Williams, Randall Thompson,
Benjamin Britten. The music must have form, direction and emotional strength. You
are saying something when you are writing a piece of music.

M.T. Do you have any advice for a choir director? How to deal with
people?

E.C. You have to love people with
your whole heart and soul. And that's why you are strict. You want them to be
the very best they can be. And you treat them as though they are part of you,
and not just an operation to show off.

M.T. What about someone who talks during rehearsal?

E.C. Well, I can't put up with that,
but you remember people are human. They need to have a break and talk. Give
them time to do that, and when it's time to rehearse, it's time to rehearse.
You can't talk and rehearse at the same time. You should make the rehearsal so
exciting and intelligently planned that they feel they are really accomplishing
something and there isn't time to talk.

M.T. What is the best way to conduct a choir rehearsal? Do you have them
sight read through the score?

E.C. I always say if people are
absolutely unable to read they should divide among voices, the women together
if there are two voices, the men together if there are two voices, if there are
six voices in groups of threes, so that nobody has to wait while one person has
to learn his part. People don't mind waiting a little while someone else learns
his part. But if they can't read at all take them by themselves. And if they
can't get in tune with each other it's much better to practice without a
keyboard. The keyboard is just there to teach them the scale and intervals.
Teach them to sing the intervals. Pick a simple piece and have them sing each
interval. If they cannot do this, and they are monotones, well, fare-thee well.
It's not a joke to sing. Do you think people teach this?

M.T. No.

E.C. You cannot learn to sight sing
if you can't sing intervals. You may not have to sing intervals in another
choir, but you're going to do it in this one. I love my choir. I hug them. You
tell the choir, "Either you learn to do it, or try to adapt yours

Harpsichord News

by Larry Palmer
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Mark Stevenson

British harpsichord maker Mark Stevenson died of cancer on July 4, 2000, aged 56. Born in Cambridge in 1943, Stevenson studied art history at St. John's College. By age 30 he was working full-time as a builder of harpsichords. More than 200 of his finely-crafted, historically-inspired instruments are in use in many countries throughout the world.

Bruges 2001

The 38th Early Music Festival in Bruges, Belgium, will include the 13th playing of its well-known harpsichord competition, 1–8 August 2001, as well as a separate competition for fortepianists, 5–8 August. Both events are open to players born after 31 December 1968.  Members of the international jury include Borbala Dobozy, Jesper Christensen, Gustav Leonhardt, Davitt Moroney, Ludger Rèmy, Christophe Rousset, and chairman Johan Huys.

Harpsichord competition repertoire for the first round consists of François Couperin: Prelude 5 from L'Art de toucher le clavecin; J. S. Bach: Sinfonia 12 in A, BWV 798; and Domenico Scarlatti: Sonata in C, K 421 (L 252). Those advancing to the semi-final round will play G. Salvatore: Toccata Prima; Byrd: Fantasia number 46 in D minor; Chambonnières: Pavane L'Entretien des Dieux; J.S. Bach: Prelude and Fugue in B minor, WTC II (BWV 893); and Scarlatti: Sonata in B-flat, K 57 (L 38). Pieces by Rameau (Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, and Les Trois Mains from Nouvelles Suites, 1728) and the Bach Concerto in A, BWV 1055 are on the docket for the final event of the competition.

For application forms or further information, contact the Festival Office, Collaert Mansionstraat 30, B-8000 Brugge; telephone 0032 50/33 22 83; <http://www.musica-antiqua.com&gt;;  email:<[email protected]>.

Bärenreiter Urtexts of Bach Harpsichord Concerti now available

In light of the competition requirements above, it is well to note that the Neue Bach Ausgabe edition of Bach's complete Keyboard Concerti (NBA VII/4) is now available as separate, individual concerti from Bärenreiter-Verlag of Kassel. These scores reflect the scholarship and care expected from the new Bach edition, and the reductions of the string parts for a second keyboard avoid unwanted doublings and inappropriate slurs or other markings. Clean and easy on the eyes, these will doubtless become the editions of choice for most players who learn these concerti. (The Concerto in A, BWV 1055, is BA 5227, priced at DM 24, with string parts also available at DM 6.50 each.)

Recent Issues of Early Music

Early Music for May 2000 contains Andreas Beurmann's rebuttal letter concerning insinuations that his early Iberian harpsichords are not authentic. In the issue for August, Edward Corp's brilliant reconstruction of Couperin's probable early biography is to be found in "François Couperin and the Stuart Court at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, 1691–1712: A New Interpretation."

Bach's Last Cantata

French author Philippe Delelis has written a suspense-filled novel (completely fictitious) concerning the missing cantatas of Johann Sebastian Bach. Set in modern-day Paris, the book is replete with references to musical craft and number symbolism, especially that found in The Musical Offering, as well as a goodly number of murders. There are clever connections, as well, to the lives and music of Mozart, Mahler, and Webern. I emphasize (as does the author) that the work is pure fiction, but it is a fascinating read, and an absorbing postscript for this Bach-celebratory year. The recent English translation (by Sue Rose) of Delelis's La Dernière Cantate is available from The Toby Press, London (tobypress.com). ISBN 1 902881 31 1 (Paperback).

 

News items and features for these columns are welcome. Address them to Dr. Larry Palmer, Division of Music, Meadows School of the Arts, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX 75275. Email: <[email protected]>.

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