Paul Cienniwa harpsichord concert

Cited by the Huffington Post for his “inner sense of creative flow, fueled by an abundance of musical imagination and desire,” harpsichordist Paul Cienniwa has an active career as a soloist, ensemble player, recording artist, and teacher. He strives to bring the harpsichord to new audiences by creating a spiritual communion through focused interpretations intensified by memorized repertoire. His first solo recording, Harpsichord Music for a Thin Place (Whaling City Sound), exemplifies his artistic goals as a “transport to the threshold between the ordinary and the spiritual...to the point where the ordinary becomes spiritual and the spiritual becomes ordinary.”

His playing of Francis Poulenc’s Concert champêtre was heralded by the New Bedford Standard-Times as “exquisite—no drama, no posturing—just consummate artistry and a superb performance of a marvelous concerto,” and The Boston Musical Intelligencer called his performance of Bach’s Harpsichord Concerto in A Major “a joyous romp.” EDGE Boston found his playing “expert,” while The Listening Room said that his performance was “charming, polished, musically profound, and technically brilliant.”

For his CD of the Bach Viola da Gamba Sonatas with cellist Audrey Sabattier-Cienniwa (Whaling City Sound), KBAQ radio (Phoenix, AZ) called his ability to accompany “spot-on...perfect.” His recording with Grammy Award-winning uilleann piper Jerry O'Sullivan was called “drop-dead gorgeous” and named one of the top ten Irish traditional albums of 2010 by The Irish Echo. An advocate of new music, he is featured on a two-CD set of music by composer Larry Thomas Bell titled In a Garden of Dreamers (Albany Records).

A frequent chamber music collaborator, he has performed the complete Bach Violin Sonatas with renowned violinist Rachel Barton Pine on Chicago’s WFMT radio and during the 2013 Boston Early Music Festival. As an orchestral continuo player, he played regularly with the New Bedford Symphony Orchestra and Rhode Island Philharmonic. In recent years, he has appeared at Emmanuel Music with violinist Nicholas Kitchen, the Kingston Chamber Music Festival, the White Mountain Bach Festival, VentiCordi, and, with uilleann piper Jerry O’Sullivan, the Catskills Irish Arts Week.

Originally from Niles, Illinois, Paul Cienniwa began his keyboard studies at age six. In his teen years, he played thrash guitar with the Evanston, Illinois punk band Malicious Intent, followed by seven years as keyboardist with the innovative Chicago-based Irish group Baal Tinne. From 2003–2010, he led Newport Baroque in works from Arne to Zelenka, including performances of Bach cantatas and Purcell’s Dido & Aeneas, and in 2009, he was music director for Boston Opera Collaborative’s acclaimed production of Handel’s Alcina.

He been awarded Belgian American Educational Foundation and Fulbright grants, and his musicological articles and reviews have appeared in American and European journals, including Early Music, Ad Parnassum and Early Music America. As an educator, he has taught at the Yale University School of Music, Salve Regina University, Stonehill College, Framingham State University, UMass-Dartmouth, Mount Ida College, and the Music School of the Rhode Island Philharmonic. 

In 2020, he was appointed Executive Director of the Binghamton Philharmonic in Binghamton, New York. He also serves as Director of Music Ministries at Christ Episcopal Church in Binghamton. Previous positions include Director of Music Ministries at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Delray Beach, Florida; Music Director at First Church in Boston; and Chorus Master of the New Bedford Symphony Orchestra. 

Paul Cienniwa started his undergraduate studies as a pianist in the studio of Michael Ruiz at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago. After completing his bachelor’s degree at DePaul University with harpsichordist Roger Goodman and organist Jerome Butera, he received the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in harpsichord from Yale University, where he was a student of Richard Rephann. He has also studied harpsichord with Peter Watchorn, John Whitelaw, and David Schrader.

For more information, visit www.paulcienniwa.com.

Larry Palmer is harpsichord editor of THE DIAPASON.

Guilty Pleasures: Reading, Listening, and Viewing

Recreational reading and several reissued recordings from the middle of the 20th century are recommended for pleasure, guilty or innocent:

The Soprano Wore Falsettos by Mark Schweizer (Hopkinsville, KY: St. James Music Press, 2006; ISBN 0-9721211-6-1)
.
The fourth in Schweizer’s madcap series of liturgical mysteries regales readers with another adroit mingling of a Raymond Chandleresque typewritten tale presented within the story of churchly shenanigans at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in St. Germaine, North Carolina.
The current volume includes shoe polishing for Maundy Thursday (a contemporary worship successor to traditional foot washing); a Pirate Eucharist in which “Arrgh! Alleluia’s” abound; a restaurant called Buxtehooters; references to compositions by Scarlatti, Rachmaninov, Mozart, Fauré, Froberger, Beethoven, and Casals, with German beer, Fräuleins, AND a three-manual Flentrop organ [page 112!] for “local” color. Not to be overlooked is a fortuitously named character, the substitute organist Mrs. Agnes Day. Highly recommended for readers struggling with the demands of the Lenten season. And others.

Choices: A Novel by Paul Wolfe (Santa Fe: Sunstone Press, 2006; ISBN 0-86534-485-X) (telephone: 800/243-5644 for orders).
During several conversations with the author of Choices, he described his forthcoming book as “Jane Austen with sex,” and this entertainingly wicked publication delivers on this promise. Wolfe’s story is set in Italy, primarily at the international music festival of “Lospello,” where devoted manager Ricardo Ricci keeps things on an even keel. Keeping a relationship with his longtime companion and love Katherine presents the other major challenge of Ricardo’s life. Adding George, a young and comely narcissist, to the festival’s management staff stirs the erotic mix to boiling, and beyond. Sly commentaries on the music festival scene vie with various steamy couplings to keep readers turning the pages. A harpsichordist, the fresh toy for the festival’s maestro Gianfranco Connery, makes a timely appearance [page 368]. Recommended for mature readers only.
Paul Wolfe, Texas born, studied harpsichord with Wanda Landowska together with compadre Rafael Puyana from 1955 until Madame’s death in 1959. During these years he recorded a number of solo harpsichord discs for the Experiences Anonymes label. A few years later, upon the closing of the recording company, these tapes were purchased by Lyrichord Records. Wolfe’s discs, offering splendid playing on an early, pre-Landowska-model Pleyel harpsichord and on his Rutkowski and Robinette nine-foot instrument with sub-unison stop, have been reissued by Lyrichord in two compact disc albums entitled When They Had Pedals, comprising works by Frescobaldi along with English keyboard music from the Tudor Age to the Restoration [LEMS-8033] and six Handel Suites (numbers 3, 8, 11, 13, 14, and 15) [LEMS-8034].

By the legendary Landowska herself, two recordings from her American years have been combined in one compact disc for the Testament label (SBT 1380): Wanda Landowska: Dances of Poland and A Treasury of Harpsichord Music. Originally entitledLandowska Plays for Paderewski (the noted pianist was, late in life, prime minister of Poland), Landowska’s program includes a wide-ranging variety of unusual pieces: short works by Michal Kleofas Oginski, Jacob le Polonais, Diomedes Cato, Landowska herself, and the iconic national composer Fryderyk Chopin (Mazurka in C, opus 56, number 2). If there were ever any doubt about the harpsichordist’s Polish roots, her magisterial rhythmic control in these essential ethnic offerings would squelch any possible argument to the contrary.
Not the least part of the enjoyment provided by this compilation comes from new and original comments in an essay by British harpsichordist Jane Clark. She presents a fresh perspective on two selections by Rameau (Air grave pour les deux Polonois) and François Couperin (Air dans le goût Polonois), noting that the 18th-century French did not think highly of their neighbor nation’s chivalric etiquette, thus suggesting that these short pieces might be satirical rather than adulatory.
The second program on this disc was issued originally in 1957 as a collection of short works recorded at various venues during the year 1946. Highlights include Couperin’s Les Barricades Mistérieuses and L’Arlequine, Handel’s “Harmonious Blacksmith” Variations from the Great Suite in E Major, two welcome Mozart miniatures, plus the longer Rondo in D, K. 485 (splendid reminders of Landowska’s lovely way with the Salzburg master, more often played by her on the piano than the harpsichord), and ending with a signature performance of Bach’s Vivaldi arrangement (Concerto in D, BWV 972), at the end of which, loathe to depart, she iterates again and again, in descending registers, the third movement’s signature motive—an idiosyncratic and unforgettable addition to Bach’s transcription.

Viewing Landowska: Uncommon Visionary, a 57-minute documentary by Barbara Attie, Janet Goldwater, and Diane Pontius first issued on video tape in 1997, should be required of all who prize the harpsichord revival. Now available in DVD format (VAI DVD 4246), the new issue has more than 50 minutes of additional material, including all the extant footage of Landowska playing the harpsichord, and an audio-only reissue of her November 1933 first recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations (made in Paris). The reminiscences from several now-departed major figures who knew Landowska intimately—especially her longtime companion Denise Restout; friend, Polish singer Doda Conrad; and recording engineer John Pfeiffer—are irreplaceable and especially illuminating as the great 20th-century harpsichordist’s life recedes ever further into history. It is delightful, as well, to see some younger images of other commentators in the documentary—Alice Cash, Skip Sempé, Willard Martin, and, yes, this writer—as we appeared and sounded in the waning years of the past millennium. But the major impact of this video disc stems from Landowska’s inimitable playing, reminding us again and again why she became (and, for many, remains) the preferred exponent of that strange and wonderful instrument she toiled so assiduously to revive, THE HARPSICHORD.

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

Dandrieu’s harpsichord music

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

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

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

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

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

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

A clever program

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Further delights

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

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

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

Larry Palmer is harpsichord editor of THE DIAPASON.

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]>.