"Historic Pipe Organs of the Keweenaw" booklet published

William Brant Mills, Don G. Campbell, Steven Alan Clark, Rockwell Lewis “Wes” Deaton Jr., Dale Alexander Gilliland, E. Robert Irwin

Nunc Dimittis

William Brant Mills of Florence, South Carolina, died on February 18 at the age of 68. A diaconal minister in the United Methodist Church, Mills had served as director of music and organist at Central United Methodist Church in Florence for over 42 years. 

Mills earned degrees in organ performance—a Bachelor of Music from Florida State University, and a Master of Music from the University of South Carolina. He also did post-graduate study at Indiana University, Southern Methodist University, Stanford University, and Columbia College. Mills was founder and director of the Masterworks Choir in Florence, which toured Austria and Germany, participated in the Piccolo Spoleto festival, and sang services at Washington National Cathedral. The Masterworks Choir also sang choral works of Robert Powell at Christ Episcopal Church in Greenville, South Carolina, when Powell retired. William Brant Mills is survived by his children, Brantley Rees Mills and Susan Mills Rana, and four grandchildren.

Don G. Campbell, age 65, died June 2 in Boulder, Colorado. A native of San Antonio, Texas, Campbell studied at the Fontainebleau Conservatory in France, and earned two degrees at the University of North Texas. He was the author of 23 books, including the bestsellers The Mozart Effect and The Mozart Effect for Children; his most recent book, released in 2011, was Healing at the Speed of Sound, co-authored with Alex Doman. Campbell founded the Institute of Music, Health, and Education in Boulder in 1988, serving as its director until 1997. He also was involved with Aesthetic Audio Systems, which worked with hospitals and health care systems to provide music systems to optimize healing. Campbell was a member of the Denver AGO chapter, for which he served on the executive board.

The American Music Research Center at the University of Colorado is creating the Don Campbell Collection to house his books, videos, DVDs, and documents, including source material for several of Campbell’s most popular works. The collection will also include private letters from Nadia Boulanger, Campbell’s teacher. 

Steven Alan Clark died July 14 in Nashville, Tennessee. He was 60 years old. He began organ study at age eleven, and earned a bachelor’s degree in organ and a master’s in choral conducting at the University of Tennessee. Clark served as organist-choirmaster at six churches in Tennessee and Florida, and served in a number of leadership roles in the AGO. He was also a licensed massage therapist. Steven Alan Clark is survived by his wife, Donna, two daughters, two grandchildren, his father, four siblings, a sister-in-law and two brothers-in-law, and seven nephews. 

Rockwell Lewis “Wes” Deaton Jr. died in Davidson, North Carolina on July 26 at age 59. He was organist at Davidson Methodist Church and earned a bachelor’s degree in music in 1974, studying organ with Wilmer Hayden Welsh. He earned a master’s degree from the Peabody Conservatory in 1976, where his major teachers were Cherry Rhodes and Donald Sutherland. Deaton moved to New York City in 1976 and studied with Calvin Hampton, and played for churches in the New York area, including St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church in Woodhaven, New York, and Church of the Transfiguration. Deaton’s advertising career took him around the world; he served as senior vice president at Publicis New York, among other positions that he held. In 2000, Deaton returned to Davidson, where he established a marketing company and became involved in local organizations. There he served in substitute and interim organist positions. Rockwell Lewis Deaton Jr. is survived by his partner Robert Guttman, two children, two grandchildren, in-laws, and cousins.

Dale Alexander Gilliland, age 79, died June 28 in Bellevue, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He began organ studies at age twelve and started his 63-year career as a church organist at Knoxville Baptist Church in Pittsburgh in 1949. During the Korean War, Gilliland served as a chaplain’s assistant and organist at Fort Belvoir, Virginia; following military service, he served various churches. Gilliland served as treasurer of the Pittsburgh AGO chapter and was on the 1999 AGO Region III convention committee, was past president and treasurer of the Pittsburgh chapter of the Presbyterian Association of Musicians, and a committee member of the Pittsburgh Organ Academy. Dale Alexander Gilliland is survived by Elizabeth Douglas Gilliland, three daughters, and two grandsons. 

E. Robert Irwin died July 28 in Norfolk, Virginia. He was 73 years old. A native of Grand Rapids, Michigan, Irwin studied organ at the Oberlin Conservatory, receiving a bachelor’s degree in 1961. He earned a doctorate in organ and sacred music from the Eastman School of Music, where he studied with David Craighead. Irwin was a professor of music at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina, where he taught organ, music history and theory, and organ literature for 24 years and established a program in church music. He was honored twice by the university as teacher of the year. During retirement, he served as a church musician in Michigan, Virginia, and North Carolina. E. Robert Irwin is survived by his wife, Claudette Smith-Irwin, two sons, a daughter, a brother, and five grandchildren.

Royston John Merritt Jr. died on July 7 at the age of 84 in Matthews, North Carolina. After serving in the U.S. Army, he earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Georgia and worked at DuPont, Reigle Paper, and First Union Bank. He also enjoyed a 53-year career as organist and choirmaster, serving numerous churches, the last of which was Central Steele Creek Presbyterian. Merritt was active in the Charlotte Oratorio Singers and the Charlotte AGO chapter, the North Carolina Train Host Association, and at the Plantation Estates Retirement Community where he resided. Royston John Merritt Jr. is survived by his wife of 61 years, Jean, three children, ten grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.

Thomas H. Schleis died July 19 in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. He was 62. Schleis studied piano, organ, and harpsichord at Lawrence University and received a master’s degree in musicology at the University of Wisconsin. He was also a Fulbright scholar, conducting research in Germany. An adjunct faculty member at the University of Illinois since 1981, Schleis taught music history and performance, and served as head coach of the opera department. He received the Excellence in Teaching and Faculty Service Award from the university continuing education association, and served as organist at the campus’s Newman Center for 33 years. Schleis was dean of the East Central Illinois AGO chapter for 15 years. Thomas H. Schleis is survived by a sister, a stepsister, and two stepbrothers.

Recital programming: Program notes

Seated one day at the harpsichord, I was weary and ill at ease because the mid-July deadline for this column was approaching too rapidly, and my mind, in its summer mode, seemed frail as a lily, too weak for a thought as I searched for a topic. And then, a miracle: the printed program from my harpsichord recital at the 2012 East Texas Pipe Organ Festival fell out of a score. Rereading it brought not only a wave of nostalgia, but also a sense of continued satisfaction at both the balance and variety of the chosen pieces, selected painstakingly to present contrasting musical styles as well as offering a bit of respite to the ears of the festival participants who heard a number of organ recitals each day.

Some vignettes about the unusual logistics required to present this program at Trinity Episcopal Church in Longview on my 74th birthday may be found in The Diapason’s Harpsichord News column published in February 2013 (page 20). If any readers are curious, I refer them to that issue, which also contains Neal Campbell’s thoughtful commentaries on the entire 2012 festival. What follows in this month’s column has not appeared previously in The Diapason. These are my “notes to the program.” I present them now as examples of brief word pictures intended to aid a listener’s understanding of music that, for many, was probably being heard for the first time. As for the selections, I specifically tried to choose at least some works by composers who might be familiar to organists, while offering a variety of musical styles, durations, and tonalities both major and minor. 

The program notes

Introduction to the Program: The Italian composer Giovanni Maria Trabaci wrote in the Preface to Book II of his Pieces ‘per ogni (all) strumenti, ma ispecialmente per i Cimbali e gli Organi’ [1615]: “the harpsichord is the lord of all instruments in the world and on it everything may be played with ease.” [“il Cimbalo è Signor di tutti l’istromenti del mondo, et in lui si possono sonare ogni  cosa con facilità.”]  

While I am not totally convinced of the ease of playing offered by some of these contrasting selections from the contemporary and Baroque repertoires, I do suggest that each one of them has musical interest. The pieces by John Challis and Duke Ellington are probably unique to my repertoire since they remain unpublished.

The program

A Triptych for Harpsichord (1982)—Gerald Near (b. 1942). In addition to writing a wonderful Concerto for Harpsichord and Strings for me to premiere at the American Guild of Organists national convention in the Twin Cities in 1980, Gerald responded to my request for a new work to play at a recital for the Dallas Museum of Art’s major El Greco exhibition in 1983. The three brief contrasting movements suggest bells (“Carillon”), an amorous dance (“Siciliano”), and a homage to the harpsichord works of Domenico Scarlatti and Manuel de Falla (“Final”). 

Sonate pour Claveçin (1958)—Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959). During the final year of his life, in response to a commission from the Swiss harpsichordist Antoinette Vischer, Martinů composed this compact, but major, Sonate. Essentially it is a piece in one movement with three sections: the first and last are kaleidoscopic, filled with brief colorful musical ideas; the second is gentle and nostalgic, as the homesick expatriate composer makes short allusions to two beloved iconic Czech works: the Wenceslaus Chorale and Dvorák’s Cello Concerto. While quite “pianistic” in its demands, the Sonate also allows brilliant use of the harpsichord’s two keyboards in realizing both Martinů’s magical sonorities and his occasional use of bitonality.

“Chaconne in D Minor” (Partita for Solo Violin, BWV 1004)—Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750), arranged for harpsichord solo by John Challis (1907–1974). One of Bach’s most-often transcribed works, this particular setting for harpsichord by the pioneering American early instrument maker survives only in a manuscript submitted for copyright (on Bach’s birthday in 1944), now preserved in the Library of Congress, Washington D.C., Challis also was an early advocate of variable tempi in Baroque music, serving as a mentor in that respect to organist E. Power Biggs, who proudly owned one of the builder’s impressive large pedal instruments.¹

A Single Petal of a Rose (1965)—Duke Ellington (1899–1974), edited in 1985 by Igor Kipnis and Dave Brubeck, and by Larry Palmer in 2012. Edward Kennedy Ellington responded to Antoinette Vischer’s request for a piece by sending her a piano transcription of his A Single Petal of a Rose, a work already dedicated to the British monarch Queen Elizabeth II. When American harpsichordist Kipnis asked if I could point him to Ellington’s unique work for harpsichord, I referred him to the facsimile of Ellington’s manuscript published in Ule Troxler’s book Antoinette Vischer, which details the works to be found in the Vischer Collection at the Sacher Foundation in Basel, Switzerland. (See “The A-Team,” The Diapason, February 2017, pp. 12–13.) Years later, Kipnis sent me his one-page transcription for harpsichord, an arrangement made in collaboration with his friend, the jazz great Dave Brubeck. To fit my hands and harpsichord I have made some further adjustments to their arrangement of this lovely, gentle work.²

La D’Héricourt; La Lugeac—Claude-Bénigne Balbastre (1727–1799). These are two of the most idiomatic of French harpsichord works from the eighteenth century, and none is more so than the one honoring M. l’Abbé d’Héricourt, Conseiller de Grand’ Chambre. With the tempo marking “noblement,” this composition stays mostly in the middle range of the harpsichord, a particularly resonant glory of the eighteenth-century French instruments. In contrast, the boisterous, “music-hall” qualities of La Lugeac suggest that it may be named for Charles-Antoine de Guerin, a page to King Louis XV. Known subsequently as the Marquis de Lugeac, the former page became secretary and companion to the Marquis de Valery, the king’s representative to the court of Frederick the Great. The American harpsichordist and conductor Alan Curtis, who edited Balbastre’s keyboard works, noted that “few Italianate jigs—Scarlatti not even excepted—can match the outrageously bumptious and attractive La Lugeac.”

“Lambert’s Fireside,” “De la Mare’s Pavane,” and “Hughes’ Ballet” (from the collection Lambert’s Clavichord, 1926–1928)—Herbert Howells (1892–1983). The composer was the next to youngest person pictured in a 1923 book of Modern British Composers comprising 17 master portraits by the photographer and clavichord maker Herbert Lambert of Bath. As a tangible expression of gratitude for this honor, Howells requested 11 of his fellow sitters each to contribute a short characteristic piece to be presented to the photographer. All acquiesced, but one year later, only Howells had composed anything for the project, so he wrote the additional 11 pieces himself. Issued in 1928 by Oxford University Press, Lambert’s Clavichord was the first new music for clavichord to be published in the twentieth century. Several questions regarding names found in the titles as well as a few printed notes that were suspect led me to schedule a London interview with the composer during a 1974 trip to the UK, a meeting that led ultimately to my commissioning the Dallas Canticles, as well as a respectful, unforgettable friendship with the elderly master.³

Toccata in E Minor, BWV 914—J. S.
Bach. The shortest of the composer’s seven toccatas for harpsichord, the E Minor consists of an introduction (with an organ-pedal-like opening figure insistently repeated six times); a contrapuntal   “poco” Allegro; a dramatic recitative (Adagio); and a driving, perpetual motion three-voice fugue. Musicologist David Schulenberg (in The Keyboard Music of J. S. Bach; Schirmer Books, New York, 1992) noted the close similarity of the fugue’s opening and some subsequent passages to an anonymous work from a Naples manuscript ascribed to Benedetto Marcello. While it was not unusual for Baroque composers to borrow from (and improve upon) existing works, the amount of pre-existing material utilized in this particular fugue is greater than normal; however, as Schulenberg concludes, “[Bach] nevertheless made characteristic alterations.” I would add that in no way do these borrowings detract from the visceral excitement of Bach’s propulsive and dramatic conclusion.

Heads up: Registration for the 2017 ETPOF

According to the East Texas Pipe Organ Festival website there is still an opportunity to register (at discounted prices) for the star-studded programs planned for this year’s festival. But do not delay: the opportunity for savings expires on September 15. Visit: http://easttexaspipeorganfestival.com.

Recent losses 

Elizabeth Chojnacka (born September 10, 1939, in Warsaw) died in Paris on May 28. Celebrated for her virtuosic keyboard technique, Chojnacka was known primarily as an avid and exciting performer of contemporary harpsichord music. Her renderings of all three of the solo harpsichord works by Ligeti are highly lauded, and the composer honored her by dedicating the third, Hungarian Rock, to her.

Luigi Ferdinando Tagliavini (born October 7, 1929, in Bologna) died in that Italian city on July 11. Organist, harpsichordist, scholar, and instrument collector, Luigi was well known to us in Dallas, having been a guest at Southern Methodist University on several occasions. Most memorably, he was part of the so-designated “Haarlem Trio” organized by Robert Anderson as a week-long postscript to the 1972 American Guild of Organists convention in Dallas. The three major European visiting artists for that event—Marie-Claire Alain, Anton Heiller, and Tagliavini—each gave daily masterclasses for the large number of participants who remained in Dallas for a second week of study with these annual leaders of the Haarlem Summer Academies in the Netherlands, resulting in what may be the only time in Southern Methodist University history that the organ department achieved a financial surplus rather than a deficit!

Two vignettes from that stellar week have become an unforgettable part of   Dallas’s musical history: Luigi’s chosen workshop topic was the organ music of Girolamo Frescobaldi, and he had assigned to the prize-winning finalists from the AGO Young Organists’ Competition all of the pieces contained in that composer’s liturgical settings for organ, known as Fiori Musicali. One of the finalists who had not won an AGO prize left Dallas in high dudgeon. Unfortunately, this participant had been assigned the very first piece in this set of “Musical Flowers.” Professor Tagliavini began his afternoon class with a brief overview of the work’s history and importance, and then peered over his glasses as he announced, “And now we will hear the first piece, Frescobaldi’s ‘Toccata avanti della Messa’.”

The total lack of response became embarrassing; there was no respondent. So our guest teacher moved on to the next piece. And thus it was that each afternoon session began with the same question from Luigi: “And who will play the ‘Toccata avanti della Messa’?”—always followed by total silence. A stickler for completeness, on the fifth and final day of the course Luigi made his same query, again to no avail. So with his usual smile and slight lisp he intoned, “Then I shall play the ‘Toccata avanti della Messa’!” And so he did with total mastery and grace. And all was well within the Italian Baroque solar system,  for Frescobaldi’s magnum opus was, at last, complete in Dallas!

The second vignette, equally Luigi-esque, occurred when Dr. Anderson, always volatile and energetic, and I were awaiting Tagliavini’s arrival to play an evening organ recital for the workshop audience. It was scheduled to begin at 8 p.m. and by five minutes before that hour Dr. Anderson was pacing the corridor near the door to the Caruth Auditorium stage. With less than two minutes to spare, Luigi ambled down the hallway. Bob called out, “Luigi, hurry!” To which the unflappable Italian stopped walking, carefully placed his leather briefcase on the floor, and, with his characteristically kindly smile, said, “Why, Bob? Has the recital already begun?” ν

Notes

1. For further information see my essay, “John Challis and Bach’s Chaconne in D Minor,” in Music and Its Questions: Essays in Honor of Peter Williams, edited by Thomas Donahue (Organ Historical Society Press, 2007); and my CD recording of the Bach transcription on Hommages for Harpsichord (SoundBoard 2008).

2. Concerning Lambert’s Clavichord, see my chapter on Herbert Howells in Twentieth Century Organ Music, edited by Christopher Anderson (Routledge, 2012).

A harpsichordist in Aeolian-Skinner land:

2012 East Texas Pipe Organ Festival 

One recurring category in my performing career has been as a harpsichord soloist for conventions of organists: filling in when the planners wish to utilize an historic space in which the organ is not as interesting as the building (St. George’s Methodist Church, Philadelphia, for the International Congress of Organists, 1977); to showcase a lovely church in which the organ is not playable (New Orleans, Organ Historical Society, 1989); or to feature an orchestra hall bereft of any pipe organ whatsoever (Minneapolis, Twin Cities American Guild of Organists national convention, 1980).

Thus, an invitation to play harpsichord during the 2012 East Texas Pipe Organ Festival (November 12–15) was not a total novelty. The justly famous mid-20th-century Aeolian-Skinner organs in Kilgore and Longview were the primary focus for this second annual gathering of organ enthusiasts, but Kilgore’s First Presbyterian Church organist Lorenz Maycher, the originator and organizational wizard who put it all together and made it run smoothly for the 75 registered participants as well as large numbers of local concert attendees, decided that a quieter musical offering at mid-day on November 13 (my 74th birthday) might serve as a respite for “ears tired of too many mixtures.” While my program in Longview was ultimately scheduled for Trinity Episcopal, a church without an Aeolian-Skinner instrument, the parish’s three-manual organ by Fort Worth organbuilder Ross King was featured beforehand in a stellar morning recital by Jeremy Bruns, who demonstrated the organ and showed it to be a  thoroughly satisfying and versatile musical instrument in a warm acoustical space.

Often the greatest obstacle to a successful harpsichord recital turns out to be the instrument on which it is played, so the decision was made to transport my own 1994 Richard Kingston Franco-Flemish harpsichord for the program. When asked if a concert would be expensive, I responded, “No, but moving my harpsichord will be!” Longview is 110 miles east of Dallas, an easy but time-consuming trek for my local instrument mover, himself a busy professional percussionist. Lorenz solved the transport problem by enlisting the aid of the Rader Funeral Home’s J Mitchell, who agreed to provide harpsichord moving. The Rader firm already had a history of supporting the local organ scene by moving large pipes during installation and recording projects. I was expecting that my nine-foot-long “Big Blue” would be transported in a hearse (reminiscent of at least two harpsichord deliveries from Willard Martin, who customarily bought used hearses, citing the ease of double parking them without penalty for deliveries “even in New York City”)! However, Mr. Mitchell substituted an unmarked white van and also provided its careful driver, Logan Montana, a student at Kilgore College.

Another necessity for a successful recital is the thoughtful choice of an appropriate program. How often have I attended a concert played for a general audience only to be underwhelmed by an overly esoteric choice of repertoire! For this particular outing, I figured that the audience would be appreciative and knowledgeable about organ music, but perhaps somewhat less familiar with the harpsichord offerings. Therefore I attempted to choose some works that might have at least a tenuous connection to the organ. After many draft programs were drawn up and discarded, I settled on one that included works by several composers likely to be known to the festival registrants. From J. S. Bach, two compositions to end each half of the recital: first, a transcription of his profound Chaconne in D Minor (from the Solo Violin Partita, BWV 1004) in an unpublished 1944 arrangement by the American harpsichord maker John Challis (who was also an organist), and, to conclude the concert, Bach’s shortest harpsichord Toccata (in E Minor, BWV 914), which opens with an ostinato figure suggestive of an organ pedal motive, includes a highly dramatic recitative, and ends with a brilliant chromatic fugue.

Additional composers probably familiar to organists included Herbert Howells (represented by three short dance movements from Lambert’s Clavichord) and Gerald Near, whose Triptych for Harpsichord I commissioned in 1982. This work, beginning with an atmospheric Carillon, proved site-appropriate, since the church’s hour chimes struck at two, providing thereby an unforeseen, but appropriate, introduction to the recital.  To these works I added pieces that have been favorites in many of my concerts: Bohuslav Martinu’s Sonate pour Claveçin (1958), and two idiomatic baroque works: La D’Héricourt and La Lugeac by Claude-Bénigne Balbastre. Finally, a rarity newly added to my repertoire this season, Duke Ellington’s unique harpsichord work A Single Petal of a Rose (1965) in my own revision of an unpublished arrangement by Igor Kipnis and Dave Brubeck. It must have worked, for applause solicited an encore, Cantilena (from Trifles) by Texas-born, Denver-resident composer Glenn Spring.

The four-day festival sported a roster of players that easily might be the envy of most convention planners: evening recitalists included Ken Cowan (Rice University), Richard Elliott (Mormon Tabernacle, Salt Lake City), Thomas Murray (Yale University), and Bradley Welch (Highland Park Methodist Church, Dallas). In morning and afternoon programs the attendees heard organists Walt Strony, Jeremy Bruns, Ann Frohbieter, Charles Callahan, Christopher Houlihan, Scott Davis, and Christopher Jennings. A late evening showing of the silent film Phantom of the Opera featured organ accompaniment by Brett Valliant. Michael Barone, host of the nationally syndicated organ program Pipedreams, recorded all the concerts, and was a familiar and supportive presence throughout the festival. 

A larger-than-expected number of registrants had indicated an arrival well before the official opening recital on Monday evening, so the resourceful Lorenz added a shopping tour of Kilgore antique and specialty stores, lunch, and an afternoon program at St. Luke’s United Methodist Church, during which Charles Callahan gave an effective brief improvisation in the form of a stop-by-stop demonstration of  the church’s two-manual Aeolian-Skinner organ (1952) as a musical prelude to an informal conversation between the two of us on our assigned topic “Composers We Have Known.” Charles and I had not met previously, but we formed an instant camaraderie as we reminisced for more than an hour about associations with Leo Sowerby (and heard a recording of his anthem for SAB choir and organ, Jesu Bright and Morning Star), Gerald Near (with brief examples from his three-movement Concerto for Harpsichord and Strings), Daniel Pinkham, Thomas Matthews, Paul Creston, Alexander
Schreiner, Olivier Messiaen, Jean Langlais, George Thalben-Ball, Francis Jackson, Alec Wyton, Calvin Hampton, Herbert Howells, Vincent Persichetti, Ross Lee Finney . . . quite a diverse compilation of memorable luminaries!

Housing in the Comfort Suites at Kilgore was truly comfortable, with a full hot breakfast available each morning at no extra charge, a complimentary late afternoon happy hour (if one happened not to be at a recital), and an “even happier hour” that extended late into the night, where all could mingle to talk of the day’s events, enjoy a libation and snack, or purchase recordings, books, and music presented for sale by the festival artists. What better place could there be to acquire Callahan’s Kilgore Suite or reissues of historic Aeolian-Skinner organ recordings on compact discs produced by Lorenz Maycher’s Vermont Organ Academy?

The festival honored the life and work of Roy Perry (1906–1978), Aeolian-Skinner tonal finisher and Texas sales representative, a much-beloved musician and unforgettable character who served as organist of Kilgore’s First Presbyterian Church from 1932 until 1972. Perry is buried in the private Thompson Family Cemetery, a quiet and peaceful gravesite visited by the bus-travelling attendees on their way to a celebratory lakeside dinner in honor of the Crim family, donors of Aeolian-Skinner’s 1949 opus 1173 at First Presbyterian. Celebrated as well were the musical achievements of the Longview-born organist Alexander Boggs Ryan (1928–1978), who was remembered with a recital at First Baptist Church, Longview, featuring several works he had played there in 1959 on Aeolian-Skinner’s 1951 instrument (opus 1174), an exhibition at the Gregg County Historical Museum, and a gala reception. 

It is this sense of connection, of place, and of gratitude to those whose gifts caused such treasured instruments to be built in these Texas churches that assures the festival’s success not only with those who come from afar, but also for the local residents who attend in generous numbers. All the musical programs are open to the general public at no charge, and it was especially gratifying to see many young people at these recitals, including students from the local college and a group of organ students from Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, who had made the long trip to Texas in a van with their teacher Joby Bell.  

It was an honor to be a part of this event, and I felt a great sense of anticipation when informed that my picture (in color) had been published in the Longview News-Journal for Wednesday, November 14. When the festival bus arrived back at the hotel late that evening, I set out on foot to find a copy of the paper, and, after two false attempts, actually found one! And there, at the bottom of page 6A was the photo with the caption, “Larry Palmer performs Tuesday on an autochord at Trinity Episcopal Church.” For years I have collected misspellings of the word harpsichord (and there are many of them that have appeared in print), but here was a totally unique attribution, only one of many pleasant experiences afforded by the East Texas Pipe Organ Festival, 2012.

For a more detailed account of this festival, see Neal Campbell’s report on pages 22–25 of this issue. For more information about past and future festivals, see www.EastTexasPipeOrganFestival.com. ν

Photo credit: Bill Leazer

This article was delivered as a lecture for the Midwinter Pipe Organ Conclave on January 19, 2015, in La Grange, Illinois. The research for this project provides a history of a number of pipe organs in the village, but not all. For instance, organs in residences and theaters are not surveyed. This article will be continued in future issues of The Diapason.

According to the 2010 census, the village of La Grange numbered 15,550 people. The area was first settled in the 1830s. Located thirteen miles from the Chicago Loop, it was a quiet area to come and escape the growing city on Lake Michigan.

Founded by Franklin Dwight Cossitt, who was a successful wholesale grocer in Chicago, La Grange was incorporated on June 11, 1879. Cossitt had purchased farmland along the Chicago-Dixon Road, now Ogden Avenue (US 34). The Chicago-Burlington-Quincy Railroad had a milk stop here, which was then called Hazel Glen.

Cossitt laid out his ideal suburban village, platting streets, planting trees, and donating land for churches, schools, and parks. He became a homebuilder, selling the finished product to new residents, along with liquor restrictions to make sure the town retained an idyllic atmosphere. After the Great Chicago Fire of October 8–10, 1871, residents began to move to La Grange rather quickly. As the village grew, new congregations were formed, representing a number of denominations.

Emmanuel Episcopal Church

Initial services for Episcopalians in the village were conducted in the residence of David Lyman. A parish brochure relates, “later he and village co-founder Franklin Cossitt had a surveyor plot the exact center of the fledgling community for this church, and donated the land.” The Cossitt family, for whom a prominent avenue and a school in La Grange are named, would provide other memorials to the church over the years. The parish was formally organized on December 15, 1874, and is the oldest congregation in the community. The cornerstone of the first church was laid on June 17, 1875, and the finished building, seating 400, was consecrated on October 5, 1878. The Gothic edifice, 90 feet long and 32 feet wide, was built from stone quarried a few blocks distant.

A larger Victorian gothic structure, seating 650, replaced the first church in 1894. The cornerstone was laid July 16, 1893. The building, of Naperville stone, featured a Tiffany altar and reredos, which were exhibited by the maker at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago between 1893 and 1894. This artwork was purchased thereafter by David Lyman and his wife. The original church became the parish house. The consecration occurred on December 17, 1894. On December 1, 1924, the parish plant was completely destroyed by fire.

By autumn 1925, a temporary building was erected for services. Plans for a new church began immediately and resulted in the present building, in eleventh-century French Gothic style. John Tilton, architect and son of the architect of the 1894 church, drew the plans for the $375,000 building. 

The first services were conducted in the present church on Easter Day, April 4, 1926. Dedication occurred on May 11. Near the principal entrance of the nave, one can see the cornerstones of each of the three church buildings this congregation has constructed. The baptismal font includes four stones brought from the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea. 

Emmanuel Church has had a rich musical history, which has included four notable organs. In 1884, the congregation purchased Johnson & Son Opus 627, a two-manual, 13-rank, mechanical-action organ. (See stoplist 1.)

The Johnson & Son organ served the parish in the first and second churches until it was replaced by a new organ from the M.P. Möller firm of Hagerstown, Maryland, in 1908. The 1884 organ was taken in trade and resold by Möller as their Opus 950, without alteration, to the Second Presbyterian Church, Oak Park, Illinois. (The specification of the Johnson & Son organ comes to us from the contract for Möller Opus 950.) The contract for Opus 950 was dated January 15, 1909, in the amount of $400, delivered “in good playing condition.” Möller was to provide “one man to erect and tune said organ at $7.00 per day and expenses (board), also experienced helper at $4.00 per day, if desired by” the church. The organ was already crated when the contract was signed and was shipped by train from La Grange to Oak Park three days later on January 18.

Meanwhile, back in La Grange, the contract for M.P. Möller Opus 891 was signed on May 2, 1908, for completion on or before October 19 of that year. The organ was to cost $8,250, from which $750 was credited for the Johnson organ (which was sold to the Oak Park church for $350 less). Upon completion of the organ, $1,500 was due, with $3,000 due one year after completion and the balance of $3,000 due two years after completion, both notes at six percent interest per annum. The three-manual, 31-rank organ was housed in a quartered oak case. The instrument was shipped from Hagerstown on November 7, 1908.

The Choir division was located over the choir room and was placed on a duplex chest, eighty feet from the console. Thus, the entire Choir division was duplexed to the Great manual as the Echo division. At its dedication on December 20, the organ was noted to be “one of the largest church pipe organs in Cook County outside of Chicago.” (See stoplist 2.)

There were some problems with the instrument, for the church signed an agreement with Möller (undated, though approximately 1914) to “correct the Adjustable Combinations, change location of wind motors operating same, go over the entire organ and put it in good condition, including tuning throughout,” and to maintain the organ for three years (with tuning four times each year), for $350.00. The church had the option to have Möller continue maintenance on the organ in 1917 and 1918 at a cost of $75.00 per year. The organ burned with the church in 1924. Mason Slade was organist-choirmaster at the time. The Diapason of January 1, 1925, noted that Slade lost his organ library in the fire.

The present church was first served by a three-manual, 22-rank, electro-pneumatic action organ built by W. W. Kimball of Chicago. William H. Barnes of Evanston served as architect/consultant, drawing the specification for the three-manual organ. (See stoplist 3.) Barnes played the dedication recital on September 26, 1926, to a capacity audience. The program: Caprice Heroique, Bonnet; Reverie, Bonnet; Allegretto, Volkmann; The Legend of the Mountain, Karg-Elert; Scherzo, Rogers; Andante (Sixth Symphony), Tschaikowsky; Nocturne, Ferrata; Ronde Francaise, Boëllmann; Allegro con brio (D Minor Sonata), Mailly; Beside the Sea, Schubert; Scherzo (from Fifth Sonata), Guilmant.

The builder trumpeted the organ in a full-page photographic advertisement in the May 1, 1926, issue of The Diapason. The specification and dedication program were printed in the November issue. 

Mr. Barnes featured the organ in his regular column in The American Organist magazine for December 1926. He noted the specification 

to be nearly ideal for a moderate sized three-manual designed to meet both the limitations of money and space. I would be glad to have any of the dyed-in-the-wool-at-all-costs Straight Organ enthusiasts make us a scheme with ten additional registers that would have the usefulness of this organ, or an even better ensemble. It must be understood I am speaking of intelligent unifying and borrowing, used with discretion and done by artist voicers.

At some point, the Kimball organ was significantly altered. Eventually, a three-year fund-raising drive for a new organ began. The present organ in the church was built by Casavant Frères, Limitée, of Saint-Hyacinthe, Québec, Canada, in 1970, as their Opus 3062, a 3-manual, 46-stop, 63-rank, electro-pneumatic action organ. The specification is dated October 14, 1968. Agreements dated January 6 and March 13, 1970, provided for preparation for Chimes on the Great and an Antiphonal division with appropriate couplers to various other divisions. The specification was drawn by Lawrence Phelps, tonal director for Casavant, John F. Shawhan, Casavant representative, and William H. Murray, organist-choirmaster for Emmanuel Church. (See stoplist 4.)

The present organ is installed in what had been chambers for the previous Kimball instrument, opened for better tonal egress, to the right of the chancel. The drawknob console is located opposite. This instrument is one of Chicago’s best examples of a large pipe organ from the late oeuvre of Lawrence Phelps’s tenure as tonal director for Casavant.

President-Publisher of Alliance Publications, Inc.

Marijim Thoene, DMA, is an active recitalist and director of music and organist at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Ypsilanti, Michigan. She has written numerous articles for The Diapason, most recently “A Brief Glimpse of Organs and Churches in Warsaw, Białystok, Białowieza, and Kraków” (June 2013). Her CDs, Mystics and Spirits and Wind Song, are available through Raven. 

The lower level of the motherhouse of the Dominican Sisters of Sinsinawa Mound, Wisconsin, is an immense circular structure that contains literally a small city—an auditorium that seats 500, a labyrinth, private studios for harp, piano, and voice, a choir room that seats 100, business offices, and several rooms devoted to Alliance Publications, Inc. Sister Anita Smisek has devoted more than fifty years to teaching ministries in her community, with the last twenty-five focused specifically on the publication of music of all genres: solo instrumental, choral, orchestral, band, and ensemble music for voice and instruments. Her publication of contemporary solo pieces as well as ensemble music for organ, harpsichord, and piano has made cutting-edge works by some of today’s greatest composers accessible. 

I learned about Alliance Publications when I first played in Sinsinawa Mound’s organ recital series in 2010. After the recital, Sister Anita gave me a box of organ music and told me she thought I might enjoy sight-reading through some new scores from “the” press. I was intrigued by the new revised edition of Jiří Ropek’s Variations on Victimae Paschali Laudes, his Partita on Adoro Te Devote, and beautiful scores of other Czech composers. I was further drawn to Alliance Publications when I heard Karel Paukert’s brilliant premiere performance of Jiří Teml’s riveting work Three Pieces for Organ at Hill Auditorium at the University of Michigan’s Organ Conference in 2013. Karel had conveniently brought some Czech music published by Alliance, and I was able to purchase Teml’s score then and have been playing it to captivated audiences at every opportunity. When I played in the Sinsinawa Organ Series in 2015, I bought more scores by Teml: Fantasy for Organ (Homage to Buxtehude), Toccata, Chorale and Postlude (Homage à J. S. Bach) and Rhapsody for Organ (all dedicated to Karel Paukert), and I had to see where and how these scores and those by many other composers are morphed from manuscript to printed pages by Sister Anita. 

One could not help but be aware that she is of Czech origin. She is surrounded by photos of her Czech great-grandfather holding his tuba alongside other band members in the village of New Prague, Minnesota (see photo above), of herself and her mother, Rose Smisek, wearing Czech folk dress while singing a Czech vocal concert in 1979 (see photo on next page), a print of Antonin Dvořák, the statue of the Infant of Prague (see photo), and Czech pottery Wise Men (see photo) that watch over her as she works.

Her knowledge of the Czech language has enabled her to be in contact with some of the most innovative and inspired Czech composers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries: Petr Eben, Jiří Ropek, Jiří Teml, Zdeněk Lukáš, Jiří Strejc, Zdeněk Šesták, and Jiří Laburda.

Marijim Thoene: Let’s start at the beginning. What role did your family and home life play in shaping your life that directed you on the path to music and publishing?

Anita Smisek: Music is the food I grew up on, it is in my DNA. I experienced a Bohemian-Czech community that sang and danced and made their own entertainment for generations in church, school, and at social events in Veseli, Lonsdale, Faribault, and New Prague, Minnesota. My mother was the singer and pianist who taught us children to sing together in harmony. From fourth grade on, we sang in the church choir at Immaculate Conception in Lonsdale, Minnesota. My piano skills helped me when I began to learn to play the organ. During my years at Bethlehem Academy in Faribault, Minnesota, and college years at Rosary College, I enjoyed learning to play the pipe organ for church services. I loved it and took organ lessons from Rosilla Gross, Miriam Murphy, and Robert Luther. This allowed me to play with greater proficiency in my ministry as church music director. 

I grew up the eldest daughter of four children on an all-purpose farm in Rice County, Lonsdale, Minnesota, learning to do housework and gardening, and to assist my dad with the animals and drive a tractor when he needed me. For eight years, 4-H clubwork was an important educational component of my life. We learned to keep records, manage projects, design and set up booths and posters, select, design, and sew clothing. We learned to interact with public officials and do business, etc. All these skills merged beautifully within me as API evolved into the large music-publishing house that it has become, with more than 350 composers from many countries under contract, yielding over 3,000 titles in a diversified catalog.

You are such a gifted singer and organist. What influenced you to go into publishing?

I wanted to publish my master’s degree research project, which I completed at the University of Minnesota under Dr. Johannes Riedel, 1976—a collection of 19 Czech Christmas carols that my ancestors brought to the United States and which are still in current usage. In 1972 the best I could do was to make handwritten scores with type-and-paste lyrics and then go to a new copyworks store. Ten years later, I wanted to publish a hymnal of new English hymns from Czech tunes and worked on it over 15 years, going through all the stages of hand notation and applying texts in Czech and English, and then came the computer! I decided to invest in one and learn to use the Finale program to notate my own scores. This way I was able to make masters and then take them to a printer and have it professionally done. 

I met a fellow American Czech musician, Joel Blahnik from Fish Creek, Wisconsin, who was able to assist me in improving my arrangements and with whom I began to give musical programs. Being an idea man, he suggested we start a publishing company ourselves. What an adventure! What a daring idea! Well, it was the era of encouraging entrepreneur endeavors and so we were off. I did the legal legwork, got the computer program, and started. That was in 1987. 

Would you please describe the process of how a written score becomes a printed one and how it is marketed? 

Once a submitted score has been accepted for publication, a contract is issued. It is catalogued, filed for future engraving, and when that has been done, it is formatted, proofed, sent to the composer for proofing (once or twice), a biography of the composer and background notes for the piece are written, a cover is designed, a barcode assigned, and then printed up for re-proofing. When it passes this last test, it will go to print. Word will go out about its availability via displays at conventions, catalog lists, Facebook announcements, etc.

How long is the process from manuscript score to publication? 

This totally depends upon the length of the piece, the genre, and difficulty of the music, e.g., children’s unison song or a band work. So, some works can be done in a week or some in several years. 

Who are your assistants? 

My business partner is available for proofing and articulating instrumental music, the bookkeeper and financial advisors assist me in keeping good records, and several retired Sisters assist me with small projects, mailing, display, and stockroom needs.

How did you establish contact with contemporary composers of organ music? 

My visits to the Czech Republic after 1989 particularly enabled me to meet and visit them in their homes as well as hear them in concert or on CD performances. Others came through the suggestion of other satisfied composers. 

Of the large corpus of sacred choral music you’ve published, are there any anthems or Mass settings that you think are particularly suited for a small volunteer choir—say, a choir that reads well and has between twenty to twenty-five singers? 

Within our large choral catalog of secular and religious music titles, API has titles for many uses and types of choirs. For small church choirs, I suggest any of the works by Cecil Steffen, Magdalena Ezoe, JoAnn Timmerman, Marcia Holthaus, Warren Gooch, Vera Kistler, Tim Knight, Vivian Dettbarn, or James Marchionda. For more challenge, titles by Bob Ashton, Christopher Frye, Amy Dunker, Paul Paviour, Bryan Beaumont Hays, Sten Halfvarson, James Machan, Jiří Laburda, Henry Alviani, David Westfall, Kevin Duggan, Robert Dvorak, R. Paul Drummond, Peter Putz, Charles L. Byrne, Gregory Dennis, and John Harmon would be richly rewarding to use. Individual titles are difficult to cite as it depends upon type of music needed, difficulty level, voicing, use, and style of music used within a church community. I can verify the quality of the above composers’ music, but the individual director needs to look them up online to check for appropriateness and usability. 

What new organ scores are you about to publish? 

Five Movements for Organ by Antonín Tučapský; Esultazio by Zdeněk Pololáník; and two works by Jiří Strejc, Invocation on C-H-E-B, and Novela for organ, timpani, bells, and 3 trumpets. Invocation on C-H-E-B took first prize in the new organ composition competition called by the city of Cheb in 2008 in the Czech Republic. Judges were Luboš Sluka, Jiří Teml, Irena Chřibková, and Jan Hora. Nineteen compositions were received in the competition, each of which used the theme of C_H_E_B!

This will make 80 organ titles that we publish. Two Invocations, a remarkable concert work, is the title that we commissioned from Petr Eben for trombone and organ, which is published by United Music Publishers.

You publish scores of many genres—instrumental solos, band pieces, Masses, vocal solos, Requiems, etc. How many composers have you published and what are their nationalities?

We have published works by 350 composers. They are from the United States, Canada, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Russia, Georgia, Germany, England, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland, Romania, Hungary, and Italy. We have some composers who are Americans by birth but have been raised in Polish, Czech, Slovak, or other ethnic communities, such as the Filipino and Argentinian communities, and are inspired by their musical traditions. A number of composers have written vocal solos, choral and instrumental music based on Native American tunes (such as titles by Henry Alviani and Jim Scheuer) or are inspired by Native American culture, for example, many titles by John Harmon.

You have published many organ scores by Czech composers, and composers from other countries as well. What nationalities are represented? 

We have sixteen Czech composers, one English, and eight others are Americans from Japan, Argentina, and Sweden.

Who are the Czech composers for the organ? 

We began with Václav Nelhýbel who befriended us and from whom we commissioned a work for trombone and organ based on the Svatý Václave Chorál, Prelude and Chorale on Svatý Václave. It became a very useable work, and so we made it available for many different instrumental solos. At my request, he wrote organ preludes based on twelve Czech hymn tunes, which were from my new hymnal, Give Glory: New English Hymns from Czech Tunes. Then we commissioned Petr Eben to write a piece on that same theme, hence Two Invocations for Trombone and Organ was composed;  it is published in England by United Music Publishers. Thirdly, an organist in Prague, Karel Hron, wrote his expression of this theme giving us Chorale for Trumpet or Trombone and Organ. 

Former organist at St. James Basilica in Prague, Jiří Ropek, met us and cooperated in preparing most of his repertoire for organ with API, becoming a special friend. This gave him an opportunity to revise older works to his satisfaction. He encouraged his friend, Bedřich Janáček, who had immigrated to Sweden, to contact API, and consequently we experienced another working relationship getting all of his remaining unpublished organ works done to his satisfaction. (Karel Paukert performed some of his works and knew him as well.) He taught me a lot, as he was most particular in proofing my engravings. His wife persisted in working with me after his death, and so we now have them all published.

Enjoying opportunities to attend organ concerts in my travels to Prague over thirty years ago, I heard Jiří Strejc perform a recital at St. Voršila Church, which led me to meet him and learn about his own compositions for organ, choir, and piano, and to learn about his music ministry through those difficult years before 1989. His is a fresh innovative voice for organ, and I love to hear his works performed. Befriending the family enabled me to get to know and hear his organist son, Martin Strejc, perform several of them in more recent years.

Other Czech composers writing for organ offered me their works for publication and became special friends through the process as well: Jiří Laburda, Ctírad Kohoutek, Zdeněk Lukáš, Zdeněk Pololáník, Zdeněk Šesták, Jitka Snížková, Jiří Teml (a good friend of Karel Paukert’s for whom he wrote several titles), and Antonín Tučapský.

Who are the non-Czech composers for organ that you’ve published?

We have one English composer, and others who are Americans—Lee Burswold, G. Winston Cassler, Magdalena Ezoe, OP, Michael Elsbernd, Christopher Frye, Martin Hotton, Ejnar Krantz, Sebastián Modarelli, Cecil Steffen, OP, and William Dean Tinker.

What keeps you going?

My commitment to these artist-composers energizes me because of the trust they gave me with creative work. I want to match their dedication, artistic craft, and genius with my own work of publishing a high-quality product that will give wings to their music and make it available for generations to come. 

My great wish is that each organist reading this article would venture to order a title for their use, whether it be for services, teaching, or for concert use. Our catalog contains a vast array of organ music for all levels. Most of the composers are organists themselves, serving in both capacities—playing for services and performing concerts. Works can be viewed and ordered online at www.apimusic.org. Thank you for your interest and support.

Thank you, Sister Anita, for describing your life and work and for making the world of church music and organ music the richer. Thank you for capturing those little black dots that make it possible to fill churches, concert halls, and schools with new and glorious music.

Buried Treasures: 

The Harpsichord Pages 

in Retrospect (2006–15)

Once upon a time (well, twice actually, in The Diapason issues of January 1974 and February 1979), we offered cumulative indices of harpsichord-related matters in the journal, from Philip Treggor’s first harpsichord column (October 1967), through December 1978. Treggor continued his responsibility for harpsichord news until December 1968. Following his resignation, harpsichord submissions were managed by the magazine’s Chicago staff until September 1969, at which point I took over at the invitation of Editor Frank Cunkle.

As it has been 36 years since we have offered a third cumulative listing of harpsichord-centered writings, it may be time to offer this “backward” look, covering the past ten years. I cannot begin to count the number of instances in which the previous retrospectives have been of use to me: so much so that I keep these indices filed next to my bound copies of the magazine. If this present list proves useful to you, please let me know. I could then plan to complete indexing the years 1979 through 2005. Our January issue includes the journal’s composite index of the previous year; this would be a logical target date for continuing such offerings.

In the following citations, the title or subject appears first, followed by the month and year of publication, page number(s) in parentheses, and author. My contributions are indicated by the letters LP; other, less-frequent contributors, by their full names. I have added a few articles not specifically published under the Harpsichord News rubric. Categories sometimes overlap, particularly those of Personalities
and Obituaries.

Instruments and Builders

William Dowd: An Appreciation, Jan 09 (22), LP; The Earliest Surviving English Spinet by Charles Haward [c.1668], July 09 (12, 14), Charles West Wilson; Harpsichord News: ARTEK Goes German, July 15 (13), LP; Autobiography of a Clavichord (Dolmetsch-Chickering 2006), Dec 15 (12–13), LP.

Repertoire and 

Performance Practice

Mozart and the Harpsichord: An Alternate Ending for Fantasia in D minor, K. 397, Nov 06 (20), LP; “Entartete” Music: Hugo Distler and the Harpsichord, Aug 08 (22–23), LP; Harpsichord News: Chris DeBlasio Dances, Soler, Scarlatti, Lully, the Borrel Manuscript, May 09 (14), LP; Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s English Suite at 100, Dec 09 (36–37), LP; The Chopin Bicentennial at the Harpsichord, Feb 10 (23), LP; Addenda to Chopin, Aug 10 (11), LP; A Harpsichord Piece by Henri Mulet, Aug 10 (11), LP; Mulet Petit Lied—a complete facsimile, Jan 11 (12), LP; Harpsichord Works of Asiko Hirabayashi, Nov 10 (12–13), LP; J. S. Bach’s English and French Suites with emphasis on the Courante, May 11 (24–25), Renate McLaughlin; Gathering Peascods for the Old Gray Mare: Some Unusual Harpsichord Music Before Aliénor, Dec 12 (27–29), LP; Soler’s Fandango: new edition from Ut Orpheus and recording by Diego Ares, Dec 13 (12), LP; Multi-Media Mozart—Words, Notes, and Sounds [Harpsichord News], Feb 14 (12–13), LP; Christmas Music for Harpsichord, Oct 14 (12), LP; Going [J. William] Greene—Music for Harpsichord, June 15 (11), LP; Pedaling the French: A Tour de France of Revival Harpsichordists 1888–1939, Aug 15 (10–11), LP; Harpsichord Plus: The Accompanied Harpsichord Music of Jacques Duphly, Nov 15 (10), LP. 

Personalities in the Harpsichord World

Helmut Walcha, Oct 07 (28–29), Nov 07 (21–23), Dec 07 (21–23), Paul Jacobs; Oscar Peterson, Feb 08 (12), LP; Gustav Leonhardt (anecdote, footnote 3 in AGO National Convention Review), Nov 08 (27), LP; Pavana Lachrimae: A California Tribute to Gustav Leonhardt, Aug 12 (18), Lee Lovallo; Crazy about Organs: Leonhardt interview from 2000, Nov 12 (20–22), Jan-Piet Knijff; Gustav Leonhardt—a Letter to the Editor from Hellmuth Wolff, Jan 13 (3); Mamusia: Paul Wolfe Remembers Wanda Landowska, Oct 12 (23–25), Craig Smith; Janos Sebestyen, May 12 (12–13), Robert Tifft; Harpsichord in the News: Mahan Esfahani, Jory Vinikour, Frances Bedford, and a 1615 quotation from Trabaci about the status of the instrument, July 12 (10, 12), LP; Remembering Irma Rogell (and a review of Martin Elste’s book Die Dame mit dem Cembalo), April 13 (11–12), LP; A Triptych for Rafael [Puyana], May 13 (11–12), Betina M. Santos, Jane Clark, and LP; Virginia Pleasants Turns 100, Feb 12 (11); Harpsichord Playing in America after Landowska, June 11 (19–21), LP; Ralph Kirkpatrick Centennial, June 11 (13–14), Gavin Black; Remembering Wm. Neil Roberts, Sept 11 (12–14), LP; Joseph Stephens—In Memoriam, Sept 14 (15), LP; Remembering Hilda Jonas, Dec 14 (11), Glendon Frank and LP; Remembering George Lucktenberg, Feb 15 (11), LP; Remembering Richard Rephann, Mar 15 (25), Allison Alcorn.

Pedagogy and Technique

Dear Harpsichordists: Why Don’t We Play from Memory?, Sept 11 (24–25), Paul Cienniwa; Continuo (On Teaching), Nov 11 (15–17), Dec 11 (11–13), Jan 12 (16–17); Gavin Black; Recital Programing, Aug 12 (13–14), Gavin Black.

Reports on Harpsichord Events

Southeastern Historical Keyboard Society 2006 Meeting in Rome, Georgia, June 06 (12), LP; Westfield Center 2006 Conference, Victoria, British Columbia (includes mentions of Colin Tilney and Edoardo Bellotti), Dec 06 (29), Herbert Huestis; Boston Early Music Festival 2007, Sept 07 (22–23), LP; East Texas Pipe Organ Festival 2012: A Harpsichordist in Aeolian-Skinner Land, Feb 13 (20), LP; Continuo: the Art of Creative Collaboration—Westfield Center 2013 Conference at Pacific Lutheran University, 2013, July 13 (20–21), Andrew Willis; Historic Keyboard Society of North America 2013 meeting in Williamsburg, VA, April 14 (10–11), LP; HKSNA International Conference in Montréal and Aliénor Competition, Aug 15 (10–11), LP; Broadening a Harpsichordist’s Horizons: Remembering 2014 ETPOF, Sept 15 (11), LP. 

Reviews of Books, 

Music, and Recordings

A Guide to Musical Temperament (Thomas Donahue), reviewed by G. N. Bullat, June 06 (16); Guilty Pleasures: Mark Schweizer’s The Soprano Wore Falsettos, Choices (a novel) by Paul Wolfe, CD of Landowska reissues, DVD: Landowska—Uncommon Visionary [Harpsichord News] Mar 07 (10), LP; Peter Watchorn Plays Bach’s WTC I [Harpsichord News] Aug 07 (12–13), LP; Fernando Valenti’s Scarlatti recordings, Feb 08 (12, 14), LP; Peter Watchorn’s Isolde Ahlgrimm, Vienna, and the Early Music Revival and a published score for Richard Strauss’ Capriccio Suite, June 08 (12), LP; The Best Medicine—a review of Schweizer’s The Diva Wore Diamonds, Aug 09 (10), LP; New Harpsichord Music, Oct 09 (18–19), John Collins; a new compact disc set of Bach’s Six Partitas, and the publication of A Medici Harpsichord Book from Ut Orpheus, April 12 (12), LP; Joys of Re-Reading: Blue Harpsichord, Early Music mystery series by James Gollin, and more, Aug 14 (11), LP; Harpsichord News: Words and Music—Ralph Kirkpatrick Letters and Frank Ferko Triptych, April 15 (12), LP. 

Obituaries

Daniel Pinkham (d. 2006), Feb 07 (8); A Pinkham Memoir, Mar 07 (20), James McCray; Albert Fuller (d. 2007), Dec 07 (10); Remembering Albert Fuller—Trombones in Dido and Aeneas?, Feb 08 (14), LP; Fenner Douglass (d. 2008), June 08 (8); Thomas Dunn (d. 2008), Mar 09 (10); Virginia Pleasants (d. 2011), Feb 12 (11); Gustav Leonhardt (d. 2012), March 12 (10); Christopher Hogwood (d. 2014), Nov 14 (10); Bruce Prince-Joseph (d. 2015), July 15 (10); Paul Jordan (d. 2015), May 15 (18–19); Roger Goodman (d. 2015), Sept 15 (10); Alan Curtis (d. 2015), Oct 15 (10).

Esoteric Ephemera

Nineteenth-century harpsichord citings: Bizet and a Chopin student [Harpsichord News], Feb 08 (12), information from John Carroll Collins reported by LP; Historic 20th-Century Harpsichordists in Hungary, Italy, and the Czech Republic [Harpsichord News], Feb 08 (12), Robert Tifft; Bytes from the Electronic Mailbag: Fandango, Misspellings of the Word Harpsichord, April 14 (10–11), LP; November Musings: Blessed Cecilia (In Honor of Isolde Ahlgrimm’s 100th Birthday), Nov 14 (12), LP; A mystery, a cautionary tale: Mark Schweizer’s The Maestro Wore Mohair and Simon Menges’ misadventure [Harpsichord News], Oct 15 (12), LP.

And Something New: Mysteries
with Musical References

The American expatriate author Donna Leon (born in New Jersey in 1942) has published 24 books in her series starring Commissario Guido Brunetti of the Venetian constabulary. Number one, Death at La Fenice (1992) introduces the soprano Flavia Petrelli who is singing Violetta in Verdi’s La Traviata at the venerable opera house. German maestro Helmut Wellauer dies before the final act of the opera, and Brunetti finds that he has a complicated bit of detecting to do before solving this clever crime.

For Acqua Alta, book five in the series, Leon brings back this soprano, a “favorite character because of her voice.” By the novel’s end Flavia is off to sing her first Handel opera, a plot twist chosen so that, should Petrelli return in future books, Leon would be able to write about her best-loved music. In real life the author became closely associated with American conductor Alan Curtis; together they created an opera company, Il Complesso Barocco, to perform rare works by Handel and other baroque composers. References to harpsichord are found on pages 201–2 of Acqua Alta, and again on page 229 when Flavia’s companion Brett chooses Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony for listening rather than harpsichord music, the “plunky sound of which would snap her nerves.”

Volume 24 of the Brunetti stories arrived in 2015: Falling in Love is set in La Fenice again, this time with Petrelli starring as Puccini’s Tosca. Music figures prominently, the plot is gripping, and I particularly enjoyed a comment on page 154, where Brunetti is reminded of a CD shop owner who opined that “the weirdest customers were people who liked organ music. ‘Most of them shop at night,’ his friend said. ‘I think it’s the only time some of them ever leave their houses.’”

Further “baroquery” is to be found in Leon’s standalone novel The Jewels of Paradise (2012) which features a musicologist and a plot driven by the legacy of Italian composer Agostino Steffani (1654–1728). Highly recommended for all fans of mystery novels and baroque music. Finally, dear readers, should you come across references to the harpsichord, please send me the citations! ν

Comments are always welcome. Please submit them to [email protected] or by post to Dr. Larry Palmer, 10125 Cromwell Drive, Dallas, Texas 75229.