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Harpsichord Playing in America “After” Landowska Larry Palmer

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Harpsichord Playing in America “After” Landowska Larry Palmer Harpsichord Playing in America “after” Landowska Larry Palmer The Power of the Press: “A Living Legend” Nicholas Slonimsky (1894–1995), writ- ing about harpsichordist Wanda Land- owska for the French journal Disques in 1932, introduced his subject with a three-stanza poem. It begins: Her fingers on the cembalo Type out the polyphonic lore Of Bach’s Inventions—and restore The true original edition Unobfuscated by tradition.1 Twelve years later, on the opposite side of the Atlantic, habitually cranky New York music critic Virgil Thomson (1896–1989), reviewed the Polish harp- sichordist’s Town Hall concert of 20 No- vember 1944 under the adulatory head- line “Definitive Renderings”: Wanda Landowska’s harpsichord recital Landowska on tour in Palm Beach, Florida, 1927 (collection of Larry Palmer, Momo Aldrich of last evening . was as stimulating as a bequest) needle shower. She played everything better than anybody else ever does. One might almost say, were not such a com- doctoral program in early music at Stan- parison foolish, that she plays the harpsi- ford University. Sylvia Marlowe in South America (photo chord better than anybody else ever plays In concert halls, Madame’s final bril- credit: Conciertos Iriberri, Buenos Aires; collec- anything . liant students, Rafael Puyana (born tion of Larry Palmer) . [Her] playing of the harpsichord . re- 1931), a South American of blazing virtu- minded one all over again that there is noth- osity, and Texas-born Paul Wolfe (born when I experienced Kirkpatrick’s deeply- ing else in the world like it. There does not 1929), both built solo careers in the de- moving playing of Bach’s Goldberg Vari- exist in the world today, nor has there existed in my lifetime, another soloist of this or any cade following their teacher’s death. ations at the Rothko Chapel in Houston other instrument whose work is so depend- In 1961 Puyana played a concert at (Texas), I reported in The Diapason able, so authoritative, and so thoroughly satis- the Eastman School of Music in Roch- that “Kirkpatrick played magnificently factory. From all the points of view—histori- ester, New York, during my first year with a prodigious technical command of cal knowledge, style, taste, understanding, there as a doctoral student. Rafael, the the work as well as with spacious feeling and spontaneous musicality—her renderings scion of a wealthy family, toured the for the overall architecture . .”7 of harpsichord repertory are, for our epoch, country with a Pleyel harpsichord (the At the very end of a more than five- definitive. Criticism is unavailing against 2 instrument of choice for Landowska’s decade career, and now totally blind, them, has been so, indeed, for thirty years. students) and a personal driver. His the aged master could allow his innate It seems that the divine Wanda had Eastman recital was a dashing and color- musical sensitivity to triumph. Despite accomplished her objective, half a cen- ful evocation of a Landowska program, his end-of-career tongue-in-cheek com- tury in the making, of restoring the including kaleidoscopic changes of reg- ments about preferring the piano, the harpsichord to a recognized place in the istration; a repertoire firmly grounded Yale professor was the most highly re- cultural consciousness of music lovers, in the major Bach works; but with at garded and recorded native harpsichord- both in Europe and in the western hemi- least one non-Landowska addition: his ist in the United States during the period sphere. Her personal style, based on an own harpsichord transcription of a Can- Ralph Kirkpatrick at his Dolmetsch- of Landowska’s American residency. innate rhythmic certainty, a turn-of-the- ción for piano by the Catalan composer Chickering harpsichord, 1939 (Ralph Kirk- Other noted American players of century impressionistic use of tonal color, Frederico Mompou. patrick Archives, Music Library, Yale University) Kirkpatrick’s generation included Yella and, not incidentally, her careful perusal Paul Wolfe, not from a moneyed fam- Pessl (1906–1991) and Sylvia Mar- of historical source materials had made ily, set out to make his name through A Different Aesthetic: lowe (1908–1981). Marlowe’s first in- her name virtually synonymous with the recordings. I came to know him when Ralph Kirkpatrick strument was a true Landowska Pleyel, word harpsichord, at least in the collec- Nick Fritsch of Lyrichord Records de- Ralph Kirkpatrick (1911–1984), fund- by this time painted white, the better to tive consciousness of the public. cided to reissue a number of their 1950s ed by a post-graduate John Knowles be seen on the revolving stage of New vinyl issues on compact discs and asked Paine Traveling Fellowship from Harvard York City’s Rainbow Room, where Syl- True Believers: me to write an introductory article ex- University, set off for Europe in the fall via played jazz arrangements of classical Expatriated European and Native plaining harpsichord pedals. Wolfe’s of 1931 to hone his harpsichord playing favorites under the catchy rubric Lav- American Disciples instruments—a 1907 Pleyel of wooden skills. As described in his memoirs,5 the ender and New Lace. Deeply influenced Landowska’s acolytes dominated those construct and a large concert instru- pre-eminent American harpsichordist of by Landowska’s playing, encountered American venues where harpsichords ment completed in 1958 by the young his generation had a difficult relationship while the New Yorker was studying with were played: Alice Ehlers (1887–1981), northeastern builders Frank Rutkowski with the priestess of St-Leu, eventually Nadia Boulanger in Paris, Marlowe’s Professor Landowska’s first student in and Richard Robinette—as well as pro- running off to Berlin for coaching and 1959 solo Bach recording for Decca 1913 Berlin, immigrated to the United grams that featured 17th-century works consolation with another Landowska stu- demonstrates how much Madame’s long States and taught for 26 years at the by Frescobaldi and the English virginal- dent, the more congenial Eta Harich- musical shadow dominated the Ameri- University of Southern California in Los ists, Spanish music, and all eight of the Schneider (1897–1986). Kirkpatrick’s can harpsichord scene. Angeles. Among Ehlers’s fascinating oral 1720 Handel Suites—presented both public playing, beginning with concerts Eventually Ms. Marlowe chose to play history recorded vignettes she noted facile young fingers and an expanding and recordings during the 1930s, sound- harpsichords built by the American mak- that Landowska did not talk much in repertory of early keyboard music to the ed distinctly unlike Landowska’s in its er John Challis, moving subsequently those early lessons, but she relied heav- American harpsichord scene. conscious avoidance of excessive regis- to those of Challis’s apprentice William ily on playing for her students. Later, in tration changes and its near-metronomic Dowd (with lid-paintings by her own Ehlers’s own teaching, at least one an- A Contrarian’s View of Landowska regularity. Teri Noel Towe’s description husband, the artist Leonid [Berman]). ecdote retold by her student Malcolm During the autumnal years of Land- of Kirkpatrick’s style, printed as a “dis- Non-night-club recital repertoire includ- Hamilton (1932–2003) showed that owska’s career, critics of her playing style claimer” in the compact disc reissue of ed 18th-century classics, soon augment- Ehlers was less than impressed at his de- were not legion. But one composer-crit- these early solo recordings for Musicraft ed extensively by commissions to promi- rivative details copied from Landowska’s ic who did not idolize the High Priestess Records, puts it this way: nent living composers. Thus, important style. When Hamilton added an unwrit- of the Harpsichord was neo-classicist works by Ned Rorem and Elliott Carter, ten trill to the subject of a Bach fugue composer Robert Evett (1922–1975). Some listeners confuse Ralph Kirkpat- to cite only two, came into being through Ehlers stopped him to ask why. “I heard In a 1952 piece for The New Republic, rick’s tenacious and unswerving commit- Marlowe’s sponsorship. Together with ment to the composer’s intentions with a recording by Wanda Landowska,” he Evett wrote: dullness and mistake his exquisite attention the impressive catalog of similar com- began. Madame Ehlers interrupted to detail and technical accuracy for dryness. missions from the Swiss harpsichord- brusquely, “Wanda Landowska was a Mme. Landowska has seduced the These detractors would do well to listen ist Antoinette Vischer (1909–1973), genius. You and I, Malcolm, we are not brighter part of the American public into again. There is a special beauty and unique Marlowe’s initiatives helped to provide 3 believing that she offers it an authentic geniuses—‘spaacially you!” reading of Bach and his predecessors. warmth to Kirkpatrick’s sometimes austere the harpsichord with an extensive, new Two more Landowska students hold- What this lady actually uses is a modern but always direct, ‘no nonsense’ perfor- twentieth-century musical voice. ing American academic posts were Ma- mances; his interpretations are always su- Influenced by Kirkpatrick during stu- Pleyel harpsichord, an instrument that she perbly conceived, often transcendent, and rie Zorn (b. 1907?), who promoted the employs as a sort of dispose-all. 6 dent days at Yale, Fernando Valenti Landowskian style in her harpsichord After fifteen years of incredulous listen- occasionally hypnotic. (1926–1990) switched from piano to teaching at Indiana University from 1958 ing, I am finally convinced that this woman For a balanced evaluation of Kirk- harpsichord, and also played important until 1976, and Putnam Aldrich (1904– kicks all the pedals in sight when she senses patrick the harpsichordist, one needs new works by Vincent Persichetti (that 1975), who married Wanda’s own person- danger ahead. When she sits down to play to sample some later examples from his composer’s First Harpsichord Sonata a Bach fugue, I go through all the torments al secretary Madeleine Momot in 1931 that a passenger experiences when he is extensive discography.
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