SOUNDING BOARD The Magazine of the British Society www.harpsichord.org.uk

Issue No.5 WINTER 2011/2012

Also in this issue: Music for four hands ✴ How I became a harpsichord technician ✴ Playing historical instruments ✴ The Baldwin electric harpsichord ✴ The 1st Early Keyboard Music Conference in Edinburgh

Guest Editor: Andrew Wooderson Editor: Karen Chung

Contributions are always welcome, please send to [email protected] Please note that opinions voiced here are those of the individual authors and not necessarily those of the BHS. All material remains the copyright of the authors and may not be reproduced without their express permission

Welcome!

eally, I had no idea what I was getting into when I accepted an invitation to R attend a BHS committee meeting. There hadW been firm promises of excellent fruitcake, and I admit I had half expected fine wine, as well as the usual affable crowd... Well, to cut a long story short, someone had heard I’d been involved in some magazines or other, prior to my current occupation as a music student (no prizes for guessing which instrument), and before you could say ‘tremblement’, I was promptly assigned Editor of Sounding Board.

The BHS exists to further the cause of (as one of us so charmingly put it) ‘harpsichord nerds’. Whatever it is about this gorgeous instrument that calls to you, I trust you’ll agree it’s very pleasant indeed to find such informed and idiosyncratic fellowship. Our monthly events diary always contains a host of musical treats, and Sounding Board, we hope, further fuels this passion.

And now for some housekeeping: My task is to oversee the magazine; every issue, we invite a real expert to take the helm as Guest Editor. This time around, we are very grateful to harpsichord builder, Andrew Wooderson, for the time and commitment he has given to put this issue together.

As ever, we are always happy to have your comments, suggestions, articles and feedback at [email protected]. Enjoy the issue!

Karen Chung Editor

Andrew Wooderson 5 Bourne Road, Bexley, Kent, DA5 1LG

Andrew Wooderson doesn't have a fancy website at the moment, preferring to spend time in the workshop rather than at the computer! But he would welcome enquires about his work: New harpsichords built to commission after historical models; secondhand instruments; repairs, overhauls, restoration and maintenance; hire for concerts, recordings, broadcasts and festivals; lectures and talks.

T 01322 558 326 E [email protected]

✵ Contents ✵

Page

News and Letters 6 The British Harpsichord Society’s 10th birthday; Couperin at the Bloomsbury Festival; more on the automatic harpsichord; 18-30 Club at Bachfest

Features

Edmund Handy on the Baldwin Electric Harpsichord 10

Closing the Theeuws circle, by Malcolm Rose 12

Music for Four Hands, by Masumi Yamamoto 21

The first Early Keyboard Music Conference in Edinburgh 26

The perils of playing historical instruments, by Laura Tivendale 28

Where are all the young builders, asks Simon Neal 31

What’s the future of instrument making, asks David Law 36

Copying historical instruments, by Andrew Wooderson 39

Early Music Pioneers Archive 49

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– ––Harpsichord Tuning and Maintenance Courses. Andrew Wooderson, together with builder, Edmund Handy, offer highly acclaimed courses in Practical Tuning and Basic Harpsichord Maintenance. These courses are carefully conceived to be of maximum benefit to the amateur enthusiast and private harpsichord owner. Basic Harpsichord Maintenance will take place on Saturday 24th March and the Practical Tuning course will be on Saturday 31st March. Each course will take place over a whole day, starting at 9.30pm and running through to around 5.00pm. These courses take place at our workshop in Bexley, very easily accessible by road or public transport. All materials are provided together with refreshments and lunch. The courses usually fill up quite quickly so we suggest early booking if possible. To request a booking form, or for more information, please call Bexley Harpsichord Workshops Ltd on 01322 557147 or e-mail contact@bhwltd

Cover and features page illustration from www.oldbookillustrations.com

3 ✵ A few words from our Guest Editor ✵

hen I left school I was hoping to become a professional model maker, but instead I found myself serving for four years as a professional soldier in W the Royal Engineers, initially as a Combat Engineer and later as a military cartographer. Bridges, explosives and maps are not perhaps the obvious route into harpsichord building, but eight months after leaving the Army, I enrolled on the Harpsichord course at the London College of Furniture. Quite what happened in those intervening months is still a little vague, but it did include work with a technician and the construction of a Storrs triangular spinet on the dining table! And probably most important of all was attending a concert at the RA, at which Trevor Pinnock and the English Concert performed all six Brandenburg Concertos. My musical interest had been developing throughout my teens, and the harpsichord in particular had become a fascination, but if there was ever a single moment that influenced my career, it was this concert.

The four years in the chaotic but rather exciting Harpsichord Workshop at the London College of Furniture, under the influential guidance of Lewis Jones, allowed me to make a vast number of mistakes in a relatively short time and even produce a few reasonable instruments! Armed with enthusiasm, no business experience, few contacts and a modest grant from the Crafts Council, I blithely rented a small workshop in the autumn of 1986 and confidently expected to have to find a ‘real’ job after six months.

But in fact I have continued working as a self-employed harpsichord builder ever since then, a fact that still sometimes surprises me. I principally build instruments, but have always done some repair and hire work too. The latter in particular has been valuable in allowing me to work closely with musicians – hearing my instruments in performance give me valuable insights that are useful in the workshop.

In over 25 years, I have enjoyed countless wonderful performances and more or less bizarre experiences. Some of the many highlights that come to mind include commissions for the Monteverdi Choir Bach Pilgrimage in 2000, and HIH the Sultan of Oman; providing harpsichords for the EMN Young Artists concerts and Competition, and providing and tuning instruments for the Festival van Vlanderen Brugge, as well as supplying harpsichords for countless live BBC radio broadcasts. Or being locked in (or out) of car parks at crucial times, trying to tune on the ground floor of Selfridges during opening hours; watching an instrument of mine surrounded by stage flares, and being sprayed with confetti night after night on a Bjork tour; or wheeling another down (a closed) Bond Street for the opening of the new Louis Vuitton store.

I’m looking forward to 2012…. Andrew Wooderson

✵ News ✵

Save the date! This October the British Harpsichord Society celebrates its 10th birthday! Our members are scattered throughout the UK and for the most part do not get a chance to meet each other. We hope to initiate a series of UK-wide events, to enable us all to celebrate and get to know our fellow enthusiasts. We are seeking your ideas and even more importantly your offers of help! Are you prepared to organise an event? To offer a venue? To be a host? To lead a group? Would you be willing to assist at an event? From courses/workshops; guided visits to local instrument collections; informal listening/discussion groups; visits to harpsichord makers’ workshops; informal concerts to/by members; group visits to local concert; a ‘Bring & Buy’ music sale; talk or demonstration. These are just a few ideas. We are calling on professional players, teachers, collectors and makers as well as all you amateur enthusiasts. Please think how you can use your skills, talents, knowledge, time and energy to make this a memorable birthday celebration. Please let us know what YOU can offer or suggest so that I can, on your behalf, contact other members in the area where you live. Edna Lewis, Secretary [email protected] Couperin at the BACHFEST Foundling A highlight of the latest Bachfest The Bloomsbury Festival in October was its 18-30 Bach Club night, 2011 included a BHS harpsichord with Bach’s Sonatas for Violin and workshop, organised by Jane Clark , Harpsichord played by Rodolfo and featuring the kayboard music of Richter (violin) and James Francois Couperin. It was standing Johnstone (harpsichord). The club room only for performances from is a 21st-century version of the Jane, Derek Adlam and Tom Foster. weekly meetings Bach For details of forthcoming concerts, directed with the Leipzig see the BHS monthly events diary: Collegium Musicum. Margaret www.harpsichord.org.uk/concertdiary.php

Steinitz of the London Bach Fans of Malcolm Messiter’s Society, says: ‘Our aim is to brilliant automatic harpsichord provide the key that opens the can now view a demonstration: door, without compromising the http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ubwf music. The free tickets and wine Ac0AKhk&feature=youtu.be bar help too!’ www.bachlive.co.uk

6 ✵ Letters ✵

______

Hello

Many thanks for the memorial,and tribute to Trevor Beckerleg. I’m his nephew, and I’m wondering where Trevor’s Bruges 69 double is located, and also the Alligator piece? Do any readers have any information? I remember them both as a child.

Tim Beckerleg

✵ ______

Dear Ludmila Tschakalova,

Thank you very much for your reflections on my article in Sounding Board, Issue 3. You raise some very good points that I think are worth continued discussion. I will give my reactions to some of them here.

I quite agree that we cannot be ‘completely sure’ of much of anything, but that was not my goal. It is rather to move towards better agreement with the historical evidence, increased musical resources, and more inspection of our current assumptions. Teachers of early music vocal techniques have a variety of historical documents to guide them in regards to the quality of tone, speech, etc. to be used by singers. Yes, there is variety in the present-day results, but the differences are of rather small, when compared to the amount of agreement in the field, and compared to the differences between current, ‘mainstream’ vocal technique, whether operatic, art song, blues, jazz, rock n roll, or avantgarde. The fact that it was not possible to be ‘completely sure’ what early vocal technique was like, did not stop the pioneering advocates of vocal technique from trying. Nor did it stop builders and players of other historical instruments.

Things change, and that idea seems at the heart of the early music movement, since that appears based on the premise that historical music is better realised using the sounds for which it was composed, rather than modern sounds, taste and criteria. To ensure that we actually are matching the music to the historical sound, we periodically need to reexamine what we have come to accept as ‘historical’ against the evidence, otherwise we risk judging with our more familiar unhistorical values.

I quote: ‘Also, there are, here and there, some extremely well-restored harpsichords which give us a very good idea of how they originally sounded. The single-manual

7 Johannes Dulcken in the Vleeshuis, Antwerp, is one, the instrument having been restored to a lower pitch.’

Your comment demonstrates a common assumption, but there is ample evidence against assuming that because an instrument has been carefully restored, that it gives us a good idea of how it originally sounded, unless we have some reasonable criteria against which to judge the sound. Just because it sounds ‘nice’ or ‘reasonable’ to us now, only tells us that it is in agreement with our current ideas, but there is little reason to believe that we are hearing or listening with the same expectations as historically, since, as you noted, these things are always changing.

The restoration of antique harpsichords earlier in the twentieth century, using steel, hardened brass, and phosphor bronze wires, at inappropriate pitches and usually inappropriate tensions, were also considered then to have been well done, and to reveal what historical harpsichords sounded like. Further investigation and experience eventually revealed that they were not, and approaches were subsequently changed. What has not been confirmed yet, is whether those improvements were really sufficient to get us back to the historical sounds. The many contradictions between historical and modern features and practices that I described would seem to indicate that we probably have not ‘arrived’ yet. No other idea to explain these discrepancies has been proposed so far.

The very starting point of historical sound is the wire, and you mention that many European and North American builders use soft strings and historically made wire. This is certainly a common, virtually universal, impression, but unfortunately it is just not true. There has been no historically made iron wire available commercially for over a hundred years. All of the wire made for use in early keyboard instruments in modern times has been made of steel. And steel vibrates and stretches differently than a true historical iron wire, and so therefore has different speech, timbre, sustain, and tuning characteristics than those experienced historically. Most of the brass wires now available are noticeably harder and stronger than historical brasses, and subsequently also sound different.

Probably the most serious impediment to achieving historical sound in keyboard instruments today is the assumption that we already have. What would our historical performance be like now if we had assumed that Wanda Landowska and Ralph Kirkpatrick had figured it all out, and nobody had looked any further?

Happy Exploring, Paul Irwin

✵

[Ed: Paul’s article dealing in full with the musical consequences of historical versus modern wires appears in Harpsichord & magazine]

8

or this issue, I had in mind a fairly carefully themed offering, which would explore various aspects of the study, interpretation and understanding of F historical harpsichords, and the choices builders, such as myself, make when constructing new instruments. What I actually received was a far more varied (and probably more interesting!) range of contributions. Some connect well with my original theme – Laura Tivendale’s experience as a performer, playing original instruments, comes to mind, as does the detailed examination of the provenance of the very important Theeuws harpsichord, by Malcolm Rose. And Edmund Handy’s account of the Baldwin instrument provides a neat example of just how far some have gone in the opposite direction! Simon Neal and David Law have coincidentally both written about a completely different issue, and one I suggest is of great importance: Where are the younger generation of builders and technicians? This is a subject I feel passionately about, not just in our field, but in the skilled crafts in general. I am extremely grateful to all our writers who gave so much time to submit such high-quality contributions.

Andrew Wooderson 9

Shameless Plug

In accepting a commission to restore a garish 1960s electric harpsichord, which belonged to Robbie Williams’ co-writer, Edmund Handy still wonders if he should have known better

n every harpsichord maker’s belonged to the songwriter and career there are some repair or producer Guy Chambers, best known restoration projects that are too for his collaboration with Robbie hopeless, or awful, to Williams, and co-writer of many of Icontemplate, and one becomes Williams’ most successful songs increasingly hard-hearted and adept at including ‘Angels’, ‘Millennium’ and turning them away. But occasionally ‘Let Me Entertain You’. something, like this particular project, is intriguing enough to slip through. The design is bold and undeniably A few years ago I was asked to restore eye-catching, but it couldn’t be a Baldwin Electric Harpsichord, an described as a thing of any great instrument dating from the late 1960s. beauty. There is no casework as such; It was designed in the 1950s by a the instrument is made from a section company called Cannon Guild, and of aluminium channel, formed into a went into production some years later harpsichord shape, with a double by Baldwin, a successful American bentside. The lid is clear Plexiglas, piano maker. This particular example allowing a view of the vivid red- orange Formica ‘soundboard’, which advantages. It compares unfavourably serves no acoustic purpose, as the with its contemporary, the Hohner instrument is amplified via a double Clavinet, which took its inspiration set of pickups. There is one set of from the clavichord but was wisely strings, with plastic jacks. The piano- developed into a style keyboard is heavy and in its own right, adding the funk to presumably designed to appeal to a countless 1970s and 80s disco tracks, pianist rather than a harpsichordist, and forever associated with Stevie and above the keyboard is a control Wonder’s ‘Superstition’. panel for the pickups. The instrument would The original owner’s “ originally have been The owners’ manual is a manual is a triumph supplied with a Baldwin triumph of optimism, with of optimism: “The amplifier, moments of unintentional Baldwin Solid Body allowing tremolo and comedy, such as the Harpsichord brings a other effects, and a swell suggestion that you whack family of new sounds pedal. Its novelty value yourself on your head (being that are musically rich probably led to its and natural in color… appearance on the a suitably resilient soft Where others hit the Beatles’ 1969 ‘Abbey surface) with a tuning fork to string, we pluck it to Road’ album, where it make it sound.” gain a whole new group was played by George of natural percussive Martin and featured prominently on colors. Where others use multiple strings the song ‘Because’. to a note we limit ourselves to one, to retain the purity in chordal playing. The repairs were straightforward, Modern electronics enable us to seek out though the Formica soundboard had previously unavailable rich string tonal been badly split, and the original qualities, amplify them, control them, and amplifier and swell pedal had long mix them into a large number of new since disappeared. As the instrument combinations….” The instructions for was basically unplayable when it tuning have moments of unintentional arrived at the workshops, once it was comedy, such as the suggestion that repaired I was as curious as anyone to you whack yourself on your head discover what it sounds like. On the (being a suitably resilient soft surface) positive side, it can be as loud as you with a tuning fork to make it sound. like; but to be honest, it’s pretty awful. And the description of acoustic beats is It’s a bit like an electric guitar with the given as “OOO-WAH-OOO-WAH- expressive qualities taken away. OOO-WAH-OOO”, which would Unlike a guitar, there is no way of actually have served better as a song adding vibrato, or bending the note, lyric in the 1960s. and the steel strings lack any subtlety or richness of sound. As a musical Having returned the instrument to its instrument, it is definitely less than the owner in full working order, I confess sum of its parts, having all the I was disappointed, although not disadvantages of a traditional altogether surprised, that I never harpsichord, with none of the heard of it again! ✵

Anthony Roper’s arms, from those on the organ case, with reference to the arms on Roper’s memorial, Farningham Parish Church. By Marietta van Dyck Theewes a Company

The Theewes claviorgan (a combined harpsichord and organ) in the Victoria & Albert Museum, is the earliest dated harpsichord we have from Northern Europe in the 16th century. Malcolm Rose reports on his continuing research into its provenance and ownership, among them his discovery that its original owner was the grandson of Henry VIII’s ill-fated Chancellor, Sir Thomas More, a staunch Catholic who counted Tallis and Byrd amongst his friends

12

n an article in Early Music (November 2004), I reported on my research into the history of the claviorgan by Lodewyk Theewes (1579), in the I British Galleries of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Since then I have made some further progress in filling in the gaps in the story, and I am presenting the results here for the first time.

For readers who have not yet had a chance to read about the Theewes, I will start with a summary. The whole claviorgan, which came to the Victoria and Albert in 1890, is in a severely damaged state, but with careful study, it is possible to gather enough information about its original set-up and disposition to leave amazingly little room for doubt. One advantage of an instrument being wrecked, in this case by water damage, is that no-one has tried to make it playable in modern times, or to extend its compass. The claviorgan consists of an elaborate harpsichord which rests on top of the organ; both are played from the harpsichord keyboard. The harpsichord’s compass is of 49 notes, C to c''' chromatic, though it is possible that C# was tuned to AA to suit much of the virginalists’ repertoire. The disposition is 2 x 8', 1 x 4'. The organ has a compass of 48 notes rather than 49, so probably the bottom C# was omitted. The specification of the organ was most likely:

1. 4 foot wood, in oak, open.

2. 2 foot wood, in oak, open.

3. 1 foot wood, in oak, open, breaking back at the top octave; this rank could perhaps have been a quint stop.

4. 8 foot regal.

5. Cymbel, metal, 1 foot, repeating each octave (or perhaps in some other pattern).

6. A toy or nightingale.

Every stop except the cymbel was divided, but without the sliders it is hard to tell whether between b and c', between c' and c#', or even between f' and f#'.

Just one pipe remains, D# from the 4' wood, but that pipe, along with the spacing of the toe holes, is of great importance in showing the relationship between the lengths and widths of the pipes. One reconstruction of the organ has been made, by Goetze and Gwynn, and this instrument, combined with one of my copies of the harpsichord, is in the USA.

13

The instrument is signed and dated on the lid, ‘Lodewyk Theewes me fesit 1579’. Theewes came from a village near Antwerp; he and his father were among the group of instrument makers who joined the Painters Guild in Antwerp, the Guild of St Luke, in 1557, and he was among the hundred thousand Calvinist protestants who fled the Inquisition in the Netherlands in the 1560s and 70s, half of them coming to Britain. He was active in the Dutch Church in Austin Friars, in the City of London.

The original owner

It was possible to trace two stages in the history of the Theewes by delving into the fascinating field of heraldry. The original Catalogue of Musical Instruments in the Victoria & Albert Museum, written by Raymond Russell and published in 1968, includes three photographs of the instrument. Photo 16c shows the claviorgan in the state in which it arrived in the museum, with complex coats of arms in the roundels of the organ case, now known to be those of Hoby and Carey. Photo 16a shows the instrument after 1947; during cleaning, arms of the Roper family were found underneath the later arms. What was not immediately realised was the presence of the crescent moon, which is the difference a second son has to make to the arms he inherits. It is this barely distinguishable crescent which links the claviorgan directly to Anthony Roper.

The Theewes harpsichord is the only dated harpsichord we have from northern Europe of the 16th century, and the organ has complete windchests and the earliest dated English pipe. It is an astonishing extra bonus to be able to identify the instrument’s original owner: Anthony Roper, second son of William Roper and Margaret More, and grandson of Henry VIII’s ill-fated Chancellor Thomas More. Anthony Roper remained a staunch Catholic during Elizabeth’s reign, and therefore was more or less confined to barracks: his house at Farningham in Kent, just below the North Downs. We know from the will of Joan Tallis, Thomas Tallis’s widow, that Roper counted a close-knit circle of Catholics among his friends, particularly Thomas Tallis and William Byrd. Though just speculation, it is easy to imagine Tallis, Byrd and fellow sympathsisers from the Chapel Royal going down to Farningham from Greenwich or Eltham Palaces, perhaps to take part in a catholic mass in the Organ Room, as the room was known, in Farningham Manor.

The next owner, Edward Hoby

Anthony Roper died in 1597, and it is a fair assumption that his son, another Anthony and a bit of a bad lot, sold the instrument to Sir Edward Hoby

14 (pronounced Hobby) fairly soon afterwards. This is likely because Hoby’s wife, Margaret Carey, died only eight years later in 1605. They would presumably both have been alive when their arms were painted on the case.

Sir Edward Hoby at the time was Chief Constable of Sheppey, appointed to watch the Thames estuary and prevent the illegal export of armaments which might have fallen into Spanish hands. I am still unable to show whether he had the claviorgan at his official residence, Queenborough Castle on the Isle of Sheppey, or at his family house, Bisham Abbey, on the Thames near Henley.

The most striking of several prominent memorials in the Hoby chapel in Bisham Church is known as the Swan monument, commissioned by Edward Hoby on the death of Margaret Carey in 1605. It becomes clear that the Hoby arms, on the south side of the monument, are those which appear in the left- hand roundel of the organ case, along the long side. Among the less usual quarters is the first, top left, with three fusils, which represent weavers’ spindles. At the bottom left the quarter has three hobbies, which is an old name for the falcon, making a play on Hoby’s name. The sixth quarter has a pomegranate, which entered English heraldry with Catherine of Aragon.

The Hoby arms on the Swan monument in the Hoby Chapel, Bisham Parish Church

15

The combined arms appear again in the window, which is dated 1609. It is perhaps worth mentioning here that there was a resurgence of interest in genealogy and heraldry in the last quarter of the 16th century, perhaps as a result of the prosperity of the country, perhaps as part of a spirit of nationalism while there was the constant threat of invasion by Spain. Elizabeth Hoby, Sir Edward’s mother, was in the forefront of this revival, and almost certainly founded this chapel on the death of her husband Thomas in 1566.

The combined Hoby and Carey arms, on the same monument. The right-hand half, the Carey arms in sixteen quarters, appeared in the right-hand roundel of the organ case until 1947

The third owner, the Selbys at Ightham Mote

For many decades the claviorgan stood in the chapel at Ightham Mote, north east of Sevenoaks in Kent, a moated house begun in the 14th century and now owned by the National Trust. Mrs Luard Selby, owner of Ightham Mote and the last in a long line of Selbys, gave it to the South Kensington Museum, as it then was, in 1890.

16 A photograph at the V&A, which must have been taken in 1890 at the latest, and reproduced in the Journal article, shows the instrument in place in the chapel. In my previous delvings into history I established that the instrument was already there in 1839, because it is accurately described in Colbran’s New Guide to Tunbridge Wells at that date. It has long been thought that this chapel was created out of guest rooms in the early 18th century; all the furnishings, the pews and pulpit and so on, were brought in from elsewhere and adapted.

However, recent research at Ightham Mote shows that Lady Dorothy Selby, when a widow and in failing health, gained a licence to have a private chapel at Ightham Mote in 1633. An entry in Laud’s Register in St John’s College Cambridge, runs: ‘1633 Ightham, Kent. Consecration of a private chapel on October 13 by Dr John Bancroft, Bishop of Oxford, under a commission from the Archbishop of Canterbury. Eucharist celebrated.’

At this time the Church was keen to keep control over private chapels, principally to ensure that no illicit activities were being entered into by those not attending the parish church. Lady Selby was granted the licence because of her extreme old age. Anyway, it seems quite possible that she bought the claviorgan around this date, to accompany services in the new chapel, in which case the ownership could have passed directly from the Hobys to the Selbys. I had thought there was a gap in our knowledge of the instrument’s history from 1617, the death of Edward Hoby, until the guide book of 1839, but in fact it seems likely that we now have the full story.

The 19th Century

It is amazing how much interest there was in the second half of the century in antique music and instruments. This was largely fostered by the Great Exhibition of 1851, which led to the establishment of the South Kensington Museum. The most inspiring leader behind this movement was Carl Engel, who was born near Hanover in 1818, but lived mostly in England from the 1840s. Among other collectors and scholars were Sir John Donaldson, whose collection forms the bulk of the Royal College of Music Collection; A J Hipkins, who worked for Broadwood, and Edward Rimbault.

Engel borrowed the Theewes claviorgan for a special exhibition in 1872, , and returned it afterwards to Ightham Mote. For this exhibition Engel wrote A Descriptive Catalogue of the Musical Instruments in the South Kensington Museum. Here is the entry for the Theewes.

A claviorgan exhibited by Mrs Luard Selby, the Mote, Tunbridge, Kent, affords evidence of a higher antiquity of instruments of this kind than might perhaps be expected. It bears the inscription, ‘Lodowicos Threwes me fecit, 1579’. There is scarcely more remaining of this interesting relic than the outer case; but this is so elaborately finished that, if the mechanism was constructed with equal care and success, it must have been a superior instrument. The maker is unknown in musical history. Perhaps he belonged to the family of Treu (also written Trew), musicians of repute in Anspach about the year 1600.

Such entries from earlier times are interesting in showing how much was known at the time, and how much was still unknown. It is amazing how many people over the years have not managed to read the inscription on the lid correctly.

The Fourth Owner, the South Kensington Museum

In 1889 the last Selby, Mrs Luard Selby, was preparing to sell Ightham Mote, and in the first bill of sale, the claviorgan was actually included with the house. At some point she changed her mind and gave the instrument to the Museum which had borrowed it seventeen years before. The Museum kept ledgers, known as Day Books, in which all new acquisitions were described and numbered; this is the entry for the Theewes:

Organ-Harpsichord or Claviorganum. A combination of an organ and a harpsichord, permitting them to be played either separately or together, the later being effected by means of a stop or pedal and yielding a sustained sound. These instruments are in a most defective condition; the organ, however, seems to have contained five stops (wood & metal), probably Open Diapason, Stopped Diapason, Principal, Twelfth and Fifteenth. Of the oaken pipes only one, tenor C, remains, and of the manual only one black key. The wind, which was supplied by two single-acting bellows, was, in the case of at least one stop, conveyed by paper tubes to a separate sound-board of curious construction. The pallets are like those in use at the present day.

The harpsichord is made of oak, and has been decorated internally with colour and stucco ornament and externally with leather, stamped and gilt. The inside of the lid is painted; among the details is a medallion with the subject of Orpheus charming the beasts. The case of the organ is oak, constructed in panels separated by pilasters, painted & gilt, the decoration consisting of strapwork, and of medallions containing two armorial shields and two crests. The name of the maker is painted on a panel which originally stood behind the key-board, and reads “LODOWICVS THEEWES ME FESIT 1579”, which is probably a Latinised form of the English surname Theio [?] (Theewe?). These instruments originally stood in the Chapel of Ightham Mote, near Sevenoaks, Kent.

Probably English.

By ‘these instruments’ the writer refers both to the Theewes and to the Hitchcock harpsichord, which also came from Ightham Mote.

The guess at the specification, we now know, is wide of the mark. What is particularly interesting is the information that only one pipe remained, whereas later reports mention three. We cannot know why the pipe is called tenor C; it is not complete enough to have worked if blown, and it is in fact labelled D with a little curved stroke, which is a Germanic form of D#, or “D with a tittle”. John Koster of the National Music Museum, Vermillion SD, USA, pointed out in his article in the Galpin Society Journal in 1980 that this pipe was not stopped and therefore sounded at 4' pitch; the only 8' register was therefore the regal. Both he and the organ builder Dominic Gwynn have made reproductions of this pipe, and both conclude that it establishes a pitch of A 408 – 410.

The Day Book also contains the following entry:

Note communicated by Mr Everard Green [the Somerset Herald at the College of Arms, London]:-

I see you have the instrument which belonged to Sir Edward Hobby of Bisham Abbey in Berkshire, whom Camden calls “that famous and worthy knight”. Sir Edward married Margaret daughter of Henry Carey, 1st Lord Hunsdon K.G., Lord Chamberlain to Queen Elizabeth, and sister to Robert Carey, Earl of Monmouth. The Hoby shield is quarterly of six (see instrument). The Carey shield is quarterly of sixteen (see instrument).

The writer goes on the identify some, but not all, of the sixteen quarters of the Carey shield.

This concludes my work so far on the history of the Theewes claviorgan. I have still to look in detail at the wills of Lodewyk Theewes, and of his wife Hellyn Bays, both of which were registered in The Testamentary Records of the Consistory Court of the Venerable the Dean and Chapter of the Collegiate Church of St Peter, Westminster, now known of course as Westminster Abbey. I hope to be able to report on these wills on another occasion. ✵

19 Further reading and listening on the Theewes Claviorgan

Some pictures and a short description can be found at http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O60635/claviorgan-the-theewes- claviorgan/

For a list of recordings made on copies of the Theewes harpsichord, please see http://www.malcolm-rose.com/cd-recordings.htm. The short CD, Elizabethan Keyboard Music, played by James Johnstone, is available free from The Workshop to readers of Sounding Board.

A description of the technical aspects of the harpsichord can be found in the article in the Galpin Society Journal LV, published in 2002.

Further reading

John Koster, The Importance of the Early English Harpsichord, Galpin Society Journal XXXIII (March 1980).

Malcolm Rose, Further on the Lodewijk Theewes Harpsichord, Galpin Society Journal LV (2002).

Malcolm Rose, The History and Significance of the Lodewijk Theewes Claviorgan, Early Music, Vol. XXXII /4, Nov. 2004.

Raymond Russell, Victoria and Albert Museum: Catalogue of Musical Instruments, Vol. 1: Keyboard Instruments. HMSO 1968. This Vol. was revised by Howard Schott and republished in 1985.

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20 ✬ LOOK! ✬ FOUR HANDS!

Music for four hands may be the earliest example of fully-notated chamber music for keyboard players, discovers Masumi Yamamoto, who finds the repertoire beats continuo playing, erm, hands-down any day

hen a child learns to play one, and although interesting and a keyboard instrument, satisfying in its own way, the W today most commonly harpsichord of the continuo team is the piano, the earliest ensemble not an equal partner in a chamber- experience is likely to be the teacher music setting. It was probably not providing accompaniment to a little until the 1720s, when Bach wrote tune he or she plays. Later, the his violin sonatas, with obbligato teacher might play the left-hand harpsichord accompaniment, that part while the student plays the the instrument was even assigned right, and vice versa, in preparation similar status. for putting hands together. I have always found this exercise exciting. The music for four hands may be For me, it developed from my the earliest example of fully notated teacher’s accompaniment, to chamber music for a keyboard playing duets with my sister and player. There is something exciting friends, and now with colleagues about playing with another on the harpsichord. I find much musician who has exactly the same pleasure in the excitement of resources and means of expression. playing music for four hands. The notes are pre-determined, and

It was not until the 1720s, in Bach’s violin sonatas, with obbligato harpsichord accompaniment, that it was even assigned equal status

For a harpsichordist, ensemble the performers’ job is to deliver playing usually involves playing these notes in a convincing way. continuo, sharing the bass line with another instrument, and ‘realising’ After a cursory survey, it was found from figured bass to provide that there has been a keen interest harmonic support to the rest of the in this repertoire for many years in ensemble. The role is a supportive Britain. Concerts involving two harpsichords that match, or at least treble lines and a bass line with complement each other, are difficult figures. He also provides an to organise, for obvious reasons. example of a fully written-out Yet the mere sight of two beautiful version for two harpsichords, instruments together on a concert stating that any of his suites can be platform enhances the experience of arranged for two harpsichords, and this wonderful repertoire! musicians should model their ‘arrangements’ on his examples. The Repertoire Similarly, François Couperin (1668- The earliest piece known to have 1733), in his preface to been written specifically for two ‘D’Apothéose de Lully’ in 1725, keyboards is found in the says that this work, as well as Fitzwilliam Virginal Book and is ‘L’Apothéose de Corelli’ and his called ‘For Two ’, by Giles other trios can also be played on Farnaby (c.1563-1640). This eight- two harpsichords in a similar way. bar piece is written with the first The performers share the same bass part playing a simple melody. The line and take each of the treble second part is an embellished lines. William Christie and version of the original, but played Christophe Rousset have recorded simultaneously, and there is no these, and they work rather well. dialogue between the two parts. This idea provides harpsichord duos with limitless possibilities and The first fully-developed English a chance to experience the trio music for four hands was written sonata repertoire without having to by Nicolas Carleton (c.1570/5-1630) gather busy string players!

Couperin also wrote a piece for two harpsichords in the opening movement of the 9th Ordre, ‘Allemande à deux Clavecin’. The four hands all have independent lines, which are delicately interwoven

and Thomas Tomkins (1572-1656) Couperin also wrote one fully who were known to have been written-out piece for two friends. Both A Verse by Carleton harpsichords as the opening and Fancy for Two to Play by movement of the 9th Ordre, Tomkins are playable on one Allemande à deux Clavecin. The four keyboard, and all four hands have hands of the Allemande all have fully-notated parts with interplay independent lines which are between the parts. delicately interwoven to create a sonorous texture. Other examples In France, Gaspard le Roux are found scattered in his Troisième (d.1707?) published Pieces de livre de Pieces de clavecin (1722): La Clavecin in 1705, which contained Julliet from the 14th Ordre, Muséte de pieces for solo harpsichord. Le Choisy and Muséte de Taverny from Roux also supplied a trio-sonata the 15th Ordre and La Létiville from version for each piece with two the 16th Ordre. They are all notated on three lines and are played just BWV1080 also contains a work for like the trios mentioned earlier. two harpsichords, however, whether Bach himself wanted it to Also from the Couperin family, be played on two harpsichords Armand-Louis Couperin, a cousin cannot be ascertained since the of François, wrote Quatuors à deux edition appeared after his death in clavecins and Simphonie de clavecins 1750. Bach’s sons, Wilhelm in the 1770s. The Simphonie is of Friedemann (1710-1784), Carl historical importance since it is Philipp Emanuel (1714-1788), known as the only piece that Johann Christian (1735-1782) also requires genouillères (knee-levers) contributed to the repertoire for that enabled gradual changes of two harpsichords. With so many dynamics. The piece is a lively keyboard players in the family, affair, full of optimistic energy. perhaps it was only natural! Many of the composers mentioned in this In Germany, the Bach family left us article indeed come from a family a substantial amount of works for of musicians (eg. Tomkins, two harpsichords. Perhaps the most Couperin, Bach, Krebs) and I popular work of this repertoire, the cannot help thinking this is not Concerto for two harpsichords in C merely a coincidence. W.F. Bach’s F major (BWV1061) by J.S. Bach major sonata is probably the best (1685-1750), is frequently known and most frequently programmed in concerts and final performed among his sons’ works.

Many of the composers who wrote keyboard music for two hands (Tomkins, Couperin, Bach, Krebs) come from a family of musicians, and I cannot help thinking this is not merely a coincidence! recitals, and cherished by C.P.E. Bach’s work was professionals and students alike. It reconstructed from his sonata for originated as a work for two flute and obbligato harpsichord at harpsichords alone and the the composer’s instruction to orchestra was added later, only arrange it for two harpsichords, highlighting textures and adding much in the same manner as the colour to the work. Of the three works by French composers’ earlier concertos for two harpsichords that in the century. Bach wrote, the C major work is the Other works from Germany worth only one specifically written for two mentioning include the Sonata and harpsichords. The other two, the Suite in G minor by Johann BWV1060 and 1062 which are both Mattheson (1681-1764) and the in C minor, as well as his concertos Concerto in A minor by Johann for three harpsichords in D minor Ludwig Krebs (1713-1780). My BWV1063 and C major BWV1064, personal favourite of this repertoire and the concerto for four is the second movement of the harpsichords in a minor BWV1065 Krebs’ concerto, written with are all arrangements. The 1751 exquisite lyricism and dialogue edition of the Art of Fugue, between the two parts. This piece, again without orchestral skilful arrangers. Steven Devine, accompaniment, was written for the who plays as a duo with Colin Dresden court where he performed Booth, has made several successful in 1753 which was a thriving arrangements, while Helena Brown, musical court at the time. Krebs who has played with Penelope was known to have been a gifted Cave over the last 30 years, has also pupil of J.S. Bach: C.F. Cramer made arrangements which they reported in the Magazin der Musik in have performed together. Of the 1784 that Krebs was a single younger generation, Chani and crayfish (Krebs) caught in this great Nadja Lesaulnier of Le Petit stream (Bach). Concert included their own arrangements in their concert Elswhere in Europe, from Italy we at this year’s Early Music have ‘14 Sonatas for two Competition in York, in July. Harpsichords’ (1704) by Bernardo Pasquini (1637-1710), for which he As one of the most flamboyant only wrote the bass line with arrangements I have come across, figures, leaving much freedom for Andreas Staier's arrangement of the the performers. In Spain, Antonio Fandango by Luigi Bocherini (1743- Soler (1729-1783) wrote six 1805) is worth a mention. It concertos for two obbligato organs incorporates the castanets, making (1776) which are also playable on the interplay between the two two harpsichords. They were harpsichords all the more colourful. written for Prince Gabriel, son of Christie and Rousset’s Boccherini Carlos III and Soler’s pupil from CD contains another version of the 1766 until his death in 1783. Fandango for two harpsichords There are unlimited possibilities for making arrangements for two harpsichords: The abundance of trio sonatas, operatic overtures and concerto grossi of the Baroque era provides very good source material

So there are unlimited possibilities along with 18th-century for making arrangements for two arrangements of his six string harpsichords. The abundance of trio quartets found in a manuscript in sonatas of the Baroque era provides Dresden. Although the core a very good source for material and repertoire of original works written any number of orchestral pieces, for two harpsichords is relatively such as the overtures to operas and small, there is great potential for concerto grossi, can also be expansion and many appropriate arranged effectively. As Maurice works are waiting to be arranged. ✵ Hinson once said, ‘Almost all music can be performed by twenty Masumi thanks all who responded to fingers. In fact, the natural her enquiries in preparation for this tendencies of multi-piano playing article, in particular Colin Booth and make it a symphonic medium.’ Penelope Cave. Also special thanks to Of the performers in the UK today, her duo partner, Takako Minami, for there are some enthusiastic and sharing this exciting repertoire!

The 1st International Conference on Historical Keyboard Music (ICHKM 2011)

University of Edinburgh 1st -3rd July 2011

A report by Andrew Woolley

The ‘1st International Conference on Historical Keyboard Music: Sources, Contexts and Performance’ took place at the University of Edinburgh at the beginning of July. This conference, an international meeting of scholars and performers working in the field of keyboard studies, brought together a diverse range of expertise (working on music from the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries), in both the academic and performance fields. It also attracted a broad base of interested listeners. Undoubtedly one of the prime attractions was the presence of the Raymond Russell and the Rodger Mirrey Collections of Early Keyboard Instruments at St Cecilia’s Hall. Indeed, it was recognised from the outset that the University of Edinburgh is an exceptional location for a conference of this kind.

By intention its scope was not bound by a particular historical time-frame, to encourage contact between researchers working on different periods, who share an interest in the keyboard as a musical ‘medium’. Performance was also a vital component; a guiding ‘philosophy’ for this conference was a belief in its importance for shaping musical scholarship, and a desire to create an event that would encourage contact between specialists in research and those who are primarily active as performers. For this reason events that incorporated performances – some involving the collection of historical instruments – were at its heart, and we were pleased to host contributions from a number of leading exponents of historical keyboard instruments.

There were two recitals, in addition to numerous lecture-recitals over the course of the two main days of the conference (2nd-3rd July), many of which were open to the public. The opening recital was given by John Kitchen (University of Edinburgh) on the Reid Concert Hall’s Ahrend organ. On the 2nd July, Robert Hill (University of Freiburg) performed on the 1805 Kuhlbörs fortepiano. The fortepiano recital included a complete cycle of W. F. Bach’s polonaises, which were exciting to listen to on the instrument chosen. On 3rd July, Terence Charlston (Royal College of Music, London) presented two recital-demonstrations. The first involved a demonstration of two ; an anonymous triple-fretted Flemish instrument of c.1620, and the Hubert double-fretted instrument of 1784. A video of the presentation can be viewed online at http://vimeo.com (http://vimeo.com/user8147694). It featured performances of English repertory, and interestingly, a performance of Beethoven’s Rondo in C major, Op. 51 no. 1. As one can easily imagine, the clavichord presents unique challenges for performing the latter work. However, as Terence pointed out, these ‘challenges’ are instructive; a convincing performance is generated not only by the player’s musical intuitions, but by the special qualities and limitations of the instrument. In the afternoon of the same day, he also gave the John Barnes Lecture on ‘A Choice Collection? Performance and musical taste in late seventeenth-century English keyboard sources’. Included was a wide-ranging programme of music, performed on the 1668 Stephen Keene virginals, and the 1709 Thomas Barton harpsichord. It showed the high quality of much of this music, in particular the harpsichord music of John Baptist Draghi (d. 1708).

Throughout the conference there were a number of 40-minute lecture-recitals, which complemented the ‘keynote’ events that focussed on performance practice. Those on harpsichord included some excellent presentations from Mário Trilha (on João Cordeiro da Silva), Jane Clark (on François Couperin), Thérèse de Goede (on solo keyboard repertory as a source for continuo realisation, with special reference to Frescobaldi), Mario Aschauer (on Lully transcriptions) and Joyce Lindorff (on Pasquali).

Three ‘keynote’ lectures that did not incorporate live performance were open to the public. Christine Jeanneret (University of Geneva), a leading Frescobaldi scholar, gave a ‘whistle stop tour’ of her work on Italian keyboard manuscripts, covering aspects ranging from the technologies of manuscript and print in the seventeenth-century to composers’ working methods. Preceding Robert Hill’s recital, Susan Wollenberg (University of Oxford) revisited C. P. E. Bach, in a lively talk on his keyboard writing in solo works and accompanied sonatas.

On the morning of the following day (3rd), Robert Hill delivered his presentation on ‘Reverse-Engineering Late-Romantic Performance Practice: Agnes Nicholls’ and Hamilton Harty’s Performance of “At the Mid-Hour of Night”’ (1908). The field of nineteenth-century performance practice is fairly undeveloped from the point of view of keyboard players; the literature has tended to concentrate on string performance. Robert’s talk considered some methodologies that might be used in the analysis of early recordings of pianists, focussing on their approach to rubato. He presented several revealing examples that illustrated the rubato technique employed in Agnes Nicholls’ and Hamilton Harty’s recording of the F. H. Cowan song ‘At the Mid-Hour of Night’. These involved playing the recording with a synchronised metronome to highlight the tempo modifications used by the performers, which pointed to some preliminary observations (for instance, in the regularity of the tempo fluctuation). The examples showed the sophistication of the rubato technique used by the performers, one deserving of analysis, and provided much food for thought on methodologies for exploring historical recordings as evidence of performance practice.

As an organiser of this conference, I was not best placed to attend many of the presentations. However, a generous quantity of feedback was offered by the attendees after the event, and by my colleagues. The overall quality of the presentations was reported as generally high. There were sessions covering an array of subjects, although within the framework of three parallel sessions there were inevitable clashes between related subjects. A file containing the complete abstracts can be downloaded from the conference website (http://www.music.ed.ac.uk/ichkm-2011/). It may be that a future ICHKM event should reduce the number of sessions running parallel to allow for fewer clashes (although the creation of a less ‘intensive’ timetable in this way has other drawbacks). The venue for the next conference is yet to be determined, but it is hoped that an event could run biannually; the University of Edinburgh in 2013 remains a possibility. A collection of essays arising from the conference, representative of its broad scope, is currently being considered by a publisher; it will be jointly edited by myself and John Kitchen. I also recommend visiting the Vimeo page for updates, since it is hoped that further videos of the conference can be posted there in due course. ✵

Andrew Woolley (University of Edinburgh) See esp. Clive Brown, Classical & Romantic Performing Practice 1750–1900 (Oxford, 1999).

Taming the Beasts En route to perform at St Celicia’s Hall in Edinburgh, Laura Tivendale recollects her experiences with historical harpsichords of one sort or another. Happily, she has discovered that the considerable efforts entailed usually pay dividends

always have a slight sense of back in return. As a student, my trepidation when I am off to teacher’s advice was that one I perform on an historical needed a secure technique to cope harpsichord. My engagement at St. with them. More than that, you Cecelia’s Hall is no exception; a have to be flexible, both technically rehearsal on the day of the concert and musically. You need to be to adjust to an unfamiliar and accommodating in your possibly demanding instrument, in expectations and performance a new environment. I have had a ideals, but this in itself often brings rather love-hate relationship with new light to the music, perhaps the historical instruments I have regarding the choice of tempo or performed on, and I have often phrasing. These instruments been known to refer to them as ‘The require respect, understanding, Beasts’. You have to get to know awareness, technical ability and and befriend them; if you make the musical prowess. With this effort effort, they will usually give a lot ‘The Beasts’ can in fact become close friends and produce the most and demanding, but the result of stunning musical results. such hard and precise work was a full, rich and powerful sound. This, On the long train journey from combined with the quirky London to Edinburgh, I start to registrations heightened the drama think about the programme, and of the piece. Playing Peter Thresh’s the harpsichords I have played this newly restored 1763 Miglia at the repertoire on during the last couple Little Missenden Festival brought of years. I can recall seventeen such power and colour to the instruments; eleven modern copies Scarlatti Sonatas K.318 and K.319. and six historical ones. A number It produced an amazing of the latter particularly stand out differentiation between the voices for giving me, and I hope my with a greater clarity than I have audiences, memorable experiences. heard before. It was incredibly Playing the Bach Prelude in G hard work, with a wide octave span major, BWV 902 on the 1787 Shudi and heavy touch, but also and Broadwood at Hatchlands immensely rewarding. The same needed a quick change in could be said of the my registration plan. I find historical 1785 Portuguese The single eight foot instruments require harpsichord by sounded quite thin and respect, awareness Antunes at Finchcocks, fragile to start with, so I which added the understanding and changed the order of excitement of pedals to registration to musical prowess, but allow for rapid accommodate this and will usually give a lot changes of balance the sound. It back in return. My registration. I have yet gave quite a lyrical and teacher’s advice was to have the sensitive performance; that one needed a opportunity to play on however creating subtle an original French secure technique to articulation was instrument and I am particularly hard work. cope with them delighted that I will be Performing Handel’s giving my Edinburgh Chaconne in G major (HWV 435) on recital on the 1755 double-manual the 1761 Shudi at Fenton House, harpsichord by Luigi Baillon, on gave me my first experience of a which, in addition to the above machine stop with pedals. After works, I shall also be playing pieces some hasty notes in my score and a by Rameau and Couperin, making little experimenting, the pedals the most of the eighteenth-century allowed for greater freedom to French sound. enjoy all the various colours the harpsichord had to offer, creating a As I walk into St. Cecelia’s Hall I rich and sumptuous sound. C.P.E. am struck by the beauty of the Bach’s La Folia presented another harpsichord which I am to befriend opportunity to have some fun with that day; it really is a stunning a machine stop, this time on the instrument, beautifully decorated elaborate 1770 Shudi and with chinoiserie scenes. I am greeted Broadwood at Fenton House. The by John Raymond, who lovingly touch of this instrument was heavy cares for these instruments, and I am immediately warned that it is phrase. I work through my rather soft voiced. It is a relief to programme making similar face an instrument that is set up in adjustments to tempo, phrasing, such a familiar way (my own ornaments and seeing how far I can harpsichord is a French double- push this instrument (and myself) manual after Goujon by Andrew to achieve the results I am seeking. Garlick) – no tricky pedals and After a couple of hours I realise machine stops to decipher this time! how tiring this is and how hard I As soon as I start to play it though, I have been making my fingers work realise how different the two to compensate for an uneven and instruments actually are. I find that unfamiliar touch. A little stroll I am more aware of the keyboard soaking up the colourful than the strings and therefore feel atmosphere of the Festival and less engagement with the sound. It mulling over my rehearsal is called is slightly unnerving having to trust for! my fingers more than my ears! Opening the lid fully The concert goes (something I usually I make adjustments to extremely well. I am avoid due to personal tempo, phrasing and greeted by an excited preference) helps ornaments, seeing how and interested clarify the sound far I can push this audience, and I slightly for me, and I instrument to achieve the wonder if they have am told that it is any idea the lengths projecting well into results I am seeking. we as harpsichordists the hall. I play the After a couple of hours, I go to, in order to Bach Prelude and realise how tiring this is, accommodate the realise that a very and how hard I have been different instruments subtle level of making my fingers work we are presented articulation is also to compensate for the with? The harpsichord possible here. holds its own, and I Moving to the instrument’s uneven and constantly give myself Fughetta, I have to unfamiliar touch pointers to ensure I work harder than handle it with as much normal to create shape and interest, sensitivity and finesse as I can but the lighter chords and upbeats muster. The result is a rewarding feel surprisingly easy and spritely. performance of repertoire I know When I rehearse the Rameau, I and love, but have never before discover how deliberate the attack played in quite the same way. I must be, to ensure the bass notes look forward to giving a speak clearly. I also need to slow performance of the same the ornaments slightly to make sure programme again next month. That that notes are fully cleared before concert will be performed on a repeating. This results in a slightly modern copy of a French slower approach to tempo, which harpsichord – quite different, and has the positive effect of allowing which I am sure will bring its very me greater time to truly shape each own trials and tribulations! ✵

Tune in, drop out? Simon Neal reflects on some career highs and lows as a harpsichord tuner (ah, the good old days when you could check an instrument into an aircraft hold!) but also highlights a worrying trend: when will the next generation of harpsichord tuners materialise?

hen I rather recklessly promised an article for this edition, it prompted me to air something that had recently been on my mind. I W realise that probably few readers will know who I am, so a brief insight to my work as a harpsichord tuner, and how I got into it, might serve as a useful background. I decided at school that I wanted to become an organist. OK, already I may have lost some readers, but please don’t turn off yet! I read music and studied the organ at the University of East Anglia, and also ended up doing a lot of piano accompaniment. My tutor introduced me to a great friend of his, Michael Thomas, who had a large collection of antique keyboard instruments in his rambling Norfolk mansion. This started what turned out to be a lifelong fascination with the harpsichord. I often visited Michael and his collection in my time at UEA, and he even lent me a harpsichord to house at the university, on which I could accompany those students who ventured into the baroque repertoire. Trying to work out how to tune the thing (and replace broken strings!) was my first experience into the mysteries of the technology of the instrument. Little did I know where it would lead…

31 After UEA came the Royal College of Music, where I did a year’s postgraduate course in piano accompaniment, with harpsichord as second study. There was no early music department there in those days, and most of my harpsichord time, apart from lessons with Ruth Dyson, was shared between the baroque orchestra, run by Cat Mackintosh, and accompanying her violin pupils, as well as the recorder pupils of Ross Winters. The resident harpsichord in those days was a Goble Concert model, and although its solid structure kept it amazingly in tune, its upkeep was certainly not a priority for the overworked piano technician. My realisation that the mechanical issues of the instrument might be as pertinent as the artistic ones, led to my enrolment on the tuning and maintenance classes at the then Early Music Centre (EMC): In a warehouse in the City, one evening a week, you could go along to study a myriad of early- music related subjects, from building a lute or harp, to singing, dancing or perhaps learning the shawn, crumhorn or hurdy-gurdy. As you can imagine, it wasn’t a particularly quiet place, but somehow Don Mackinnon and Mimi Waitzman managed to find a secluded room, with thick walls, in which to run their weekly harpsichord maintenance class. So it was that I spent my Thursday evenings with a group of enthusiastic (and often baffled) students; Don and his amazing electronic devices and Mimi with her charts and diagrams of various temperaments. It was a shame this only lasted one term, but it succeeded in getting me under the bonnet of the harpsichord.

My time at the RCM soon ended, and I was out on the street wondering how on earth to find a job. After some horrendous months of attempting to force less than enthusiastic school children to play scales on the piano, I got a call out of the blue from Mimi inviting me round to their workshop ‘for a chat’. This chat turned into an invitation to have some more tuning lessons, with an eye to helping them out a bit with their hiring work. I gladly accepted, thinking this might help a little in my (by now) urgent quest to earn a living. Luckily I had a harpsichord at home, a cheap kit, rather badly put together, so now I spent many hours practising my tempered intervals of various shapes and sizes. After some intensive weeks of tuning, I was out on the road with Mimi. It was straight in at the deep end, because my first jobs included the English Bach Festival’s Rameau productions, and Christopher Hogwood’s recordings of the Mozart Symphonies.

Soon after this I met Richard Clayson and Andrew Garrett, who had heard that there was a new kid on the block who might be able to help with their hire work. Richard was especially keen on this for two reasons – he and Andrew had just purchased a new Goetze & Gwynn chamber organ that was quickly becoming popular, and he had also just helped deliver a brand-new, six octave fortepiano by Derek Adlam, to Melvyn Tan, which was going to need a lot of moving and tuning. Thus I was hurled into the world of organ and fortepiano care, which required a good set of muscles as much as a good pair of ears!

This all happened in the mid-1980s, and for me there then followed 15 years

32 riding on the crest of the early-music wave, when players (and tuners) never seemed short of work. There were many memorable projects, both artistic and logistic! Two I remember in particular. The Monteverdi Choir and the European Union Baroque Orchestra. EUBO is a training scheme that helps players bridge the gap between conservatoire and professional life. Ever since one of their first tours, when a Greek concert promoter tried to convince director Ton Koopman that a pair of Steinways were really harpsichords, the orchestra has equipped itself with a pair of small Italian harpsichords, complete with flight cases, which they have travelled with across the world. Flying with these instruments as normal hold luggage is now virtually impossible, but then it was quite normal to check them in, with the weight absorbed by the group baggage allowance. Of course this was not without its risks, and I have had to make some hasty repairs after baggage handlers have seen the words ‘fragile, this way up’ as a challenge rather than helpful advice. Somewhere I have a picture of a harpsichord wedged firmly in the opening of the airport luggage belt in Valencia, where staff were convinced it was small enough to be delivered along with the suitcases. EUBO has certainly provided me with the most exotic concert locations, ranging from South America to the Gaza Strip, Soweto and China, to name but a few.

Gardiner and his Monteverdi Choir also provided some unusual logistical challenges. During the Monteverdi 250th anniversary the organ builder Robin Jennings and I took seven instruments on a European tour alternating performances of the Vespers and Poppea. Having to criss-cross the Alps in January we equipped ourselves with shovels, sand and snow chains, but ironically the only place we had to dig ourselves out of the snow was the English rehearsal room! The tight schedule often required us each to tune a group of instruments at the same time on opposite sides of the stage simultaneously, and being locked into a freezing cold Cremona Cathedral in the middle of the night to tune everything for an early rehearsal the next day stands out from the many memories of that trip (which prompted me to write a separate article for Harpsichord & Fortepiano Magazine). Another 90s project of a fully staged, annual Mozart opera, saw me driving a fortepiano to Paris, Lisbon and Italy on a regular basis. As we were resident in each place for two or three weeks at a time, I found myself asked to transport all sorts of extras, from some of the smaller props to Gardiner children’s pogo sticks and bikes, in addition to four dozen of his farm’s best eggs – which all arrived intact I’m relieved to say.

The Bach Cantata tour of 2001 was the most amazing project of all these for me. Tuning the specially built chamber organ and a Mietke-copy harpsichord (by Robin Jennings and Andrew Wooderson respectively) in most of the European venues associated with Bach (and some not, such as New York), was something impossible to beat.

Just after this project a ‘mid-life crisis’ struck and I decided to retire from my

33 tuning work. I felt I’d got as far as I could progress with the work artistically, and the physical and anti-social demands of the job, such as lifting heavy organs and , driving miles, working stupid hours and always when others were having their breaks, were all getting on top of me (literally, in the case of the instruments!). I was keen to have more regular hours, be employed, and see another side of the music business, or so I thought!

Very luckily The Sixteen soon had a position for me and I started a five year stint in their Oxford office, which meant moving house from London. That said, I never really gave up tuning completely and found myself doing bits and pieces in my free time. When The Sixteen decided to move to London, my nagging feelings of missing the old life, coincided with an offer from Trevor Pinnock to become his PA and tuner, so this persuaded me back into my old work, despite the reasons cited earlier for giving up!!

Of course I couldn’t walk back into all my precious jobs, so I was forced to carve out a slightly different pattern of work, but thanks to Trevor and a variety of friends happy to use my instruments and services again, I managed to beat a slightly more user-friendly and social path in the way I operated.

Perhaps I have spent too long describing my past, but it is to make a point – I want to give a flavour of my way of life as a sort of advertisement. The reason is that those of us in the business of instrument hire, instrument making and related jobs, have realised that as we all near retirement, that there is hardly anyone to succeed us. With my work with EUBO, teaching and coaching on their annual audition courses, I am continually surprised by the difference in technical education that harpsichordists receive. Usually this knowledge, or often a worrying lack of it, depends in which country their education took place. The UK was often lagging behind, but there is now some specialised teaching of tuning in some of the UK conservatoires, which is a great improvement since my day. I wonder if any suggestion is made of alternative career possibilities, if work as a performer never materialises? I often ask myself why aren’t there more people who have come down the same path as I did. Why is there so little interest in being involved in this small but vital part of the music industry? Perhaps we are heading back to the days when players supply their own instruments and tune them. How then do we cater for visiting players from overseas? Who is going to build new instruments?

So I end this article with these questions left open and welcome any comments that readers might have. Since talking to people a bit more about my concerns I have come across a couple of younger people that may help to keep these skills alive, but not many. I have also recently had some interesting informal conversations with establishments in the postgraduate educational scene, so I wait with interest to see whether the ideas discussed go any further, but it remains a concern seeing what might happen to these professions in the not too distant future. ✵

34

Thank the Maker!

David Law picks up where the previous article left off to offer some further thoughts and ask the question: What is the future of keyboard instrument making?

Back in the late sixties and through the seventies, there was a great feeling of excitement surrounding the whole early music scene; Everyone was in the process of finding out, and where the instruments were concerned that meant lots of young people trying things out. Often things didn’t work (remember all this ‘improved’ jacks and metal or resin registers?). Not to mention the kits, few of which survive now. The big challenge in those days was to make something with a good sound. We learnt excellence in execution later. But most people spent some time with other, usually older, makers, or worked together, bouncing The dearth of new ideas off each other. Workshops were often makers was brought rather rudimentary, machines small and home to me a couple of decidedly crude. years ago. Somebody

Then as time went on, new workshops were rang to ask if I did established, makers took on assistants or such-and-such, and apprentices, and the quality of work increased. when I said yes, the We even had official courses in polytechnics! reply was: ‘Oh good, it The future seemed assured. There was much seems most of you are research done, old instruments were dying off’. It seems we painstakingly restored, and recorded, so we could hear what these fine instruments sounded are missing not one like. This had, of course, been going on in the generation, but two violin industry forever but these academic and practical principles were now applied to all early instruments. Many of us have intimate knowledge of numbers of antique instruments now in various collections both private and public.

I think we’d like to be sure that this body of knowledge remains for the future. But where are the younger makers, repairers and restorers? I can think of just three working with early keyboard instruments; there may be more but certainly not many. This was brought home to me a couple of years ago when I received a telephone call, somebody asked if I still did such and such, and I said yes, to which the reply was ‘Oh good, it seems most of you are dying off". We seem to be missing not one generation but two. Why?

35 It may be that in this increasingly material world, few young people wish to work for small rewards, after all we don't as a rule make a fortune; pop stars, footballers and just occasionally artists do that. We who take pride in our work rarely respond positively to ‘how much longer…’. (The answer is usually: ‘When it’s ready!’) Business plan? What’s that? But I don't believe every one is so mercenary.

There has to be a reason why this problem has slipped past us. The usual explanation is that if you work for yourself, alone, then the mere thought of finding the time to train someone else fills us with dread; we all take complete responsibility for our work, and shy away from doing the same for somebody else. But, I have come to believe there are other reasons. In crafts as in industry, there are no more apprentices. The idea of this has gone, the only education worth anything is academic, the only work to be lauded is clean, the sort of work that most of us think of as non-creative. In schools, sharp tools are avoided. In work, anywhere, the idea of any sort of personal responsibility either for your own safety or for the result of your actions is actively legislated against. Employers are terrified of employees tripping over and suing. It’s not daft of course to make life safe, but at the expense of making anything at all? That’s insane.

Yet here we are; our industry has all but gone, mostly to China it seems, and we are left with the Health and Safety at Work problem. Twice a year somebody from there telephones to ask to come and check my premises and machinery; depending on my mood they get a more or less polite refusal. I know that I’m very safety conscious, rarely do I injure myself, or damage the materials I work with. This is OK, so long as I don't have anyone else working in my workshops. If I were to employ, or have an assistant (free In crafts, as in industry, there are or self employed) I estimate that no more apprentices. Now, the only half my old and revered machines would have to be replaced, the education worth anything is other tools and machines would academic. In schools, sharp tools need twice as much space around are avoided. At work, the idea of them as I have, and I would be personal responsibility is actively expected to fit finger trapping legislated against… Employees are guards to pillar drills. I’d need to terrified of employees tripping up add doors and a host of other things. The result is that I work and suing. It’s insane entirely alone; the result of that is that I’m not passing on any knowledge. This applies to so many people in so many related fields. I have a reasonable amount of archival material, with no time to sort it and make it useful. My paperwork alone eats into my time, thank goodness I’m not working in Italy, or I’d have to add VAT paperwork to everything else (everyone must be VAT registered there, Italian accountants

36 are difficult to convince that one simply doesn’t have a VAT number…) And accountants have a hard time believing in the sort of stuff you need to actually make things, having usually not created anything using wood, metal, paint etc in their short lives. I remember one registering disbelief over the cost of colour- corrected fluorescent tubes, essential for colour-matching finishes when restoring. There is more than one generation that know nothing of real practical issues. I remember my younger son starting at the local senior school, in a tech class (they call it ‘resistive materials’ now!), and being required to cut things. ‘Can't I just use the bandsaw, Sir?’ he asked, and then, when the answer was no: ‘Well, I do at home, Sir, bigger bandsaw than that too!’ was his reply. Most of the class had probably never been allowed anything sharp enough to cut anything, ever - not even a carrot!

Maybe there’s no-one out there wanting to make things anymore, but I doubt it. We should all be doing what we can to make sure all the work that has gone into learning how early instruments work is available to all those budding harpsichordists out there, and they are not left to mend the instruments all by themselves

So, can we heal this gaping wound in our industry? I like the remedy Sir Paul

Drayson thought up to address the problem of the lack of engineers in the UK.

Every time there’s a really big project, such as Concorde or the space race in

the sixties, the number of engineers at universities increases. So he took Richard Noble aside, and asked him if he wouldn't mind having a go at the world land speed record again, please, and this time, why not try to reach 1000 mph? So Bloodhound (go on, Google it) was born; the car will run in 2012 having put engineering firmly in the minds of large numbers of school children of all ages, through a comprehensive education programme, and against all financial odds. So what can we do? Perhaps plead with our government that the Health and Safety Executive be disbanded, or at least have its teeth pulled, with regard to very small businesses. Reverse the stupid idea that you should be protected legally from the remote possibility of a cut finger; personal responsibility for your own safety and for the quality of your work should be actively encouraged, rather than the opposite. Maybe there’s no-one out there wanting to make things anymore, but I doubt it. We should all be doing what we can to make sure all the work that has gone into learning how early instruments work is available to all those budding harpsichordists out there, and they are not left to mend the instruments all by themselves. ✵

37 On Copying Historical Instruments

There’s no such thing as a standard harpsichord, and what exactly do we mean by the terms ‘Italian’; ‘French’ and ‘Flemish’, anyway? In a bid to understand the meanings (and at the risk of being blinded by terminology), Andrew Wooderson, harpsichord builder and this issue’s guest editor, asks, when is a copy a compromise?

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uring the 25 or so years I are applied – with varying degrees have been a professional of accuracy! D harpsichord builder, I have often found myself wondering How is the choice of instrument about some of the terms so freely made and what informs the choice? used in our field: Instruments are Of course, in a concert situation described as ‘copy of’ or ‘after’ a with mixed repertoire, it is usually certain historical maker. Sometimes necessary to select a single even ‘school of….’ Terms such as instrument with a compass and ‘Flemish’, ‘Italian’ or even specification suitable for the entire ‘continuo’ are used to describe programme, and this necessarily harpsichords, often with a sense suggests a relatively large, late that the term refers to almost instrument. And very often there is standardised designs and sounds. a simple matter of availability.

Of course, the use of such terms in But it seems to me that makers and this context serves as useful players are often trying to head in shorthand, but it can also be very slightly different directions. Players misleading. This article aims to seem commonly to look for gently meander through some of instruments that are ‘safe’ and the considerations and choices that comfortable, with tone and quality may be made when ‘copying’ an of construction being secondary old instrument, and the way in considerations, while the which some of these common terms relation of the modern ‘copy’ to its historical predecessor comes a poor appeal to a wide range of players. third! Many instrument builders, on Such historical ‘inconveniences’ the other hand, appear keen to range from ranks of strings that strive for greater fidelity to a given remain undamped when not historical instrument. And in recent engaged; solo 4’ registers on the times, although access to some upper manual with no means of original instruments is a little more coupling; early Flemish restricted than the slightly more harpsichords with unfavourable relaxed attitude pertaining 30 or key leverage (i.e. the balance points more years ago, they have access to a long way forward); dog-leg large volumes of excellent couplers, or lower manuals that information, technical drawings slide to couple, short bass octaves and research. and countless other features. There appears to be a fairly general trend But this situation produces an to change rather than explore. interesting paradox: Players often seek safe and comfortable Should the builder be lead by instruments before historically players (who after all are the accurate, but often rather customers!) tastes to build challenging and even superficially harpsichords with a wide appeal? ‘limiting’ instruments. The player, Or should they strive to make the seeking usually to give something very best, historically informed and broadly along the lines of carefully researched instruments ‘historically informed performance’ with the aim of providing the very tends to seek trusted ‘safe’ best tools for players? Of course the instruments on which to perform, reality is that the demands of the rather than be drawn towards the customers have to be paramount, as very best, least compromised the customers provide the means of historic copies. These instruments earning a living. by their very nature may influence the way a player can perform. And for the player this is a real issue. Should you allow a well researched, carefully built instrument to change the way you play? For example, should a particularly wide octave span and shallow touch (as may be found on many original Italian instruments) be seen as guidance or hindrance to performance?

And the builder, usually out of To illustrate this issue I should sheer commercial necessity, tends mention the post-graduate student to be nudged towards making who perhaps rents a rather rough ‘comfortable’, ‘safe’ instruments, kit built ‘Flemish’ harpsichord for often knowingly disregarding clear practice at home. And at college and unambiguous historic evidence usually has lessons and gives in order to build harpsichords that recitals on one of several quite nice but rather worn copies of 18th- being wide gaps between them. The century French harpsichords. These keydip is very shallow and there is instruments were perhaps built in relatively little cloth on the the early 1980s, and have been very insubstantial jackrail. Finally there heavily used. Eventually the time is no original music desk. comes when this student and aspiring professional player decides This is where what I think of a to buy their first new instrument. ‘driving school syndrome’ appears. This is a big step and a major When one learns to drive it is very financial commitment. After much common (and not surprising) that thought and discussion with one or when the young driver starts to more makers, usually centred on cost, size, compass and portability, the young player orders a small The time comes when ‘Italian’ harpsichord of one kind or the young, aspiring another. The thinking is that this professional decides would be useful for continuo to buy their first new playing and relatively easy to instrument. This is a big transport. But the player asks for a step, and where what I wide, chromatic compass and think of a ‘driving school syndrome’ transposition. appears… Like the car

in which one learns to So what does the builder do? Build drive, they want their a ‘real’ small Italian harpsichord? new instrument to feel This might one can imagine be just like the nice, based on a particularly fine familiar one on which example from the 17th century, well they learnt to play known to the builder, with good plans already available and easy access for further research. But the look for a first car to own, their same instrument probably has a view is very strongly shaped by the C/E-c compass with the short bass car on which they received lessons. octave, it certainly dosen’t They want their new car to feel just transpose and was probably like the nice, familiar car in which intended for a different pitch than they learnt to drive. that now required. Then it probably originally has no lid, being So if the harpsichord builder builds intended to be housed within an a beautiful copy of his favourite outer case. There are no stoplevers little 17th-century Italian and one of the 8’ registers is set harpsichord, the young customer permanently in the ‘on’ position. may well be a little disappointed. The octave span of the original Of course the builder will make instrument is about 2mm greater adjustments for pitch etc, but what than a modern piano span and of the other issues? therefore much wider than a typical 18th century French harpsichord. The new copy is a delightful The sharps are very wide and low instrument but the player finds the and the spacing unfamiliar – there keyboard unfamiliar and uncomfortable. It seems to dictate a simple need to sell instruments to particular approach and playing make a living. style and limits certain techniques. The tone doesn’t work at all well for And then of course there is a some of the repertoire, the second area in which compromise registration is very limited and the by builders almost always occurs; second 8’ rank, operated by a that of practicality and commercial lovingly copied, small wooded ‘tag’ viability. The first casualty is under the jackrail is awkward to usually in decoration. Carving, engage. And all this is assuming gilding and decorative paintwork that the maker hasn’t even are all very costly. In fact I strongly attempted to build the instrument suspect that the relative cost in with a correct short bass octave. these modern times might well be And then there is the fragile, light higher than in the historical period, case (or the extra expense and when carvers, gilders, and painters considerable extra weight of the were likely to be found in most outer case) and the inconvenience major towns. caused by the lack of a music desk. But the sheer cost of building harpsichords – workshops and What the student really had in overheads, materials, labour etc. mind was a small version of the old, produces pressure to cut costs familiar college instrument – where possible. Depending on a something that was ‘comfortable’ particular builder’s outlook this and familiar, but just a little may mean compromises in the smaller, cheaper and more quality of material, the degree of practical. elaboration in decoration – not just How much should builders compromise, and where does it lead? Often the compromises are dictated by practicality and commercial viability… and the first casualty is usually in decoration!

Harpsichord builders generally painted decoration but in the understand these points but how simplification of mouldings, much should they compromise and omission of features such as where does the compromise lead? decorative roses, embossed or And often the compromises will be carved keyfronts etc. And none of for the purposes of coming closer to this comes from sloth of laziness. the expectations of players. These From all I hear from colleagues, players own views and tastes were most of us work long hours for only formed by years playing on older modest rewards. instruments in colleges, built by makers who in turn were So typically, thinking again of the influenced by the need to appeal to example of the Italian harpsichord the prevailing taste of the time. And for the student player, the builder is these compromises by builders are quite likely to do most of the encouraged most commonly by the following: Firstly omit the short bass octave and build the of using either 8’ stop on its own. harpsichord with a chromatic This assumes of course that this is compass. A few extra notes might an instrument that actually had two well be added to increase the stops at 8’ pitch to start with. possible repertoire (for example a C/E-c3 compass might well become Then very commonly the builder BB-d3). This might reduce the size might suggest building the of the endblocks or even widen the harpsichord with a ‘false case. The reduced width endblocks ‘inner/outer’ case rather than a will be likely to cause the extreme separate outer case, thus allowing treble and bass strings to be much the fitting of a proper lid – a process closer to the case sides, very likely that was increasingly used by spoiling, or at the very least historical builders during the 17th changing the quality of tone at century so in many ways one of the these points. Then further more valid changes. And for compression or case widening will various reasons of cost, supply or be necessary to allow space for even just ease of working, various transposition by at least one materials may be substituted. For semitone, though these days example Cedar of Lebanon may be transpositions by two semitones is used instead of the more commonly usually desirable. Then the occurring Italian Cypress in some keyboard octave span and layout is applications. The timber for the case likely to be revised – reducing the may be changed and the stand octave span will slightly reduce the simplified and made easier to compression caused by trying to transport. None of these changes suggest the result will be an inferior instrument, simply one that The compromises do stretches terms like ‘copy’ and seem to be somewhat ‘after’. at odds with the approach commonly What I have illustrated at some taken to musical length is a very typical scenario and sources… I couldn’t comes from personal experience. imagine musicians All the changes and compromises changing notes and in themselves seem reasonable and altering ornaments in practical. original manuscripts,

simply because they didn’t ‘fit’, or they But all this does seem to be at odds were ‘difficult’! with the approach commonly taken to musical sources. I can’t imagine squeeze in extra notes. It will also musicians in our enlightened times have the useful (in the context of changing notes and altering our example) effect of making the ornaments in reliable original keyboard feel slightly more manuscripts just because they familiar. The builder will almost didn’t ‘fit’ or were ‘difficult’! None certainly fit conventional of these comments are meant in a stoplevers, allowing the useful (but judgemental way and in my own completely unhistorical) possibility work I find myself very much in the midst of such considerations. But at two 8’ registers, and a compass of at best I hope my observations may be least four or more octaves very gently provocative… chromatic.

And those general terms The same is true of the term mentioned in the first paragraph… ‘Flemish’. The Flemish harpsichord What is actually meant by an of 1557, the year Hans the ‘Italian’ harpsichord? I think it was Elder petitioned to join the Guild of Raymond Russell in ‘The St Luke in Antwerp, is a very Harpsichord and Clavichord’ that different instrument indeed to the first really grouped surviving late 18th-century instrument of Bull harpsichords together in national or Dulcken. But generally players ‘school’ of building. This remains a tend to think of a Flemish useful shorthand, but implies a harpsichord as medium-sized degree of uniformity that can be instrument of one or two manuals, highly misleading. Consider the suitable for ‘most of the repertoire’. ‘Italian’ title for a moment: The use of these generalised national groupings becomes even Firstly the term encompasses more misleading when referring to instruments built over a period of German or Iberian instruments. more than three centuries – that is a longer time than the span from the These views are of course perfectly first Christofori fortepianos, to the reasonable, but maybe it is time to present-day concert grand. How encourage players to explore their have changed in that time! instruments in slightly greater Then it covers a wide geographical depth and sometimes to seek more area of separate states, with appropriate choices for differing local materials. All these performance? Of course this states would have had varying already happens, to some extent, amounts of trade with other and a number of players care very nations, making available a variety greatly about the subject. But the of other materials. And tastes general level of knowledge or changed enormously over three concern displayed by many players centuries. What might be termed regarding the instruments they use the ‘social status’, or possibly the appears to lag a long way behind relative cost of a harpsichord is their comparable understanding another pertinent factor. In Italy and knowledge of music and there seems to have been a fairly performance. steady change from the elaborate, beautifully decorated, generally To change this is maybe asking a quite small instruments of the early lot. It is rarely possible for most 16th century to larger, simpler and players to afford to own more than more utilitarian instruments of the one harpsichord. And to follow the later 18th century. ‘historically appropriate’ route more thoroughly would suggest a But of course what people generally number of contrasting instruments mean by ‘Italian harpsichord’ is just are required in order to do justice to a single manual instrument with a reasonably wide repertoire. Nevertheless I believe there is some suggesting this – a brand new scope for change. Colleges perhaps design, starting from a clean sheet have a role to play by placing of paper may well produce a very increasing emphasis on acquiring a fine and wonderful instrument. But varied range of high-quality and this needs to be fully understood in relatively uncompromised copies of the context of ‘historically informed specific types of harpsichord. And performance’ (or whatever the by providing more opportunities to current favoured term may be). study the history, development and There seems to me to be a danger construction of instruments, as an that players and builders may lead integral part of the study of music each other further and further away and performance. Well-informed from the way we understand (and and articulate instrument makers to a growing extent know) things should surely be involved with the were. teaching in music colleges and universities? This already happens And I suggest players might be to some extent but should surely encouraged more strongly to be become standard practice. ready to use, explore and experiment with these more And perhaps we builders should rigorously copied instruments. And become a little braver and more of course the practical experience of rigorous in our approach to the old player actually using these instruments we purport to ‘copy’? instruments serves in turn to inform Of course producing a clumsy and builders. Rather than assume that awkward instrument can never be certain accurately reproduced justified by claiming to simply have historical features represent limitations or difficulties, perhaps

A brand-new design may well produce a very fine instrument. But this must be fully understood in the context of ‘historically informed performance’ – or whatever the current favoured term may be

these same features should be ‘copied the original’ – it is not just a looked as offering guidance to useful excuse to cover mediocre historical performance? workmanship. But perhaps ‘Copy’ can come to mean ‘close copy based So, having held forth at some on a thorough study of the length, I feel some obligation to original’; ‘After’ might come to describe my own approach. The mean ‘very clearly and recognisably example cited above of the student related to the work of a particular and the Italian harpsichord, is historical builder’; and ‘School of..’ completely true and representative might mean ‘an instrument clearly of a number of similar situations I built in the style and with all the have experienced in recent years. I principle features of a specific build harpsichords for a living and historical maker’s work’. I don’t I need to sell them in order to mean to sound too dogmatic when continue. So I readily admit that my building is to an extent influenced seeking. So I subjected the design to by what people tell me they want. a hypothetical ‘petit ravelment’, drawing guidance from the many I’ve chosen to illustrate this article Ruckers and Couchet family with pictures of two of my own instruments thus treated. It might instruments; the first is an Italian be stretching it to call the result a harpsichord, which I tend to true ‘copy’; it is rather (I hope) describe as ‘after Grimaldi’; it is a convincing ‘might-have-been’ based on the Nurnberg instrument instrument. This approach allowed by this maker. In building it, I have me to keep the case shape and made almost all of the practical proportions intact and most of the compromises I described in the other details have quite close example above, save that I have historical inspiration. used historically appropriate materials, of the highest quality I My guiding principle, such as it is, was able to source. can probably be summarised by ‘the old builders probably knew The other instrument is based on a best’. In building harpsichords for surviving original by Ioannes the modern world, some changes Couchet. In its present, largely and compromises are almost unaltered state, the harpsichord inevitable, but I find it helpful to does not have the musical imagine what the old folk would specification the customer was have thought of my choices. ✵

46 … A Final Note (q) Raider of the lost Archives The Early Music Pioneers Archive is a filmed research project, about the revival of interest in the authentic performance of early music, writes founder, researcher and blogger Paul Thwaites. Can you help enrich the archive?

his project is an extension of my research into the life of one my teachers, Mary Potts (1905–1982), the Cambridge-based harpsichordist, T who was a student of , the foremost pioneer of the , in the late 1920s. Mary bought an eighteenth-century harpsichord made by Burkat Shudi from Arnold (as she couldn’t afford one of Arnold’s own ‘better’ instruments) and used it throughout her life for teaching, concert performances and radio broadcasts.

Although Mary is cited in a newspaper article as being someone who, in the 1950s and 60s, was ‘keeping the harpsichord alive’, she was apparently ‘not famous enough’ to be commemorated, despite having taught Christopher Hogwood, Colin Tilney, and the organ and Bach expert Professor Peter Williams, to name but a few. And as my research continued and I contacted pre-eminent performers, conductors and scholars whom Mary had known personally, had performed with, or had taught during a

Many people involved in early music have not been acknowledged… even the likes of Thurston Dart are now largely forgotten outside the world of historically-informed-performance and academic musicology

professional life which spanned more than 50 years, two things became clear: 1.) Mary knew practically everyone involved in the harpsichord and authentic performance until the 1980s; 2.) She was only one of the many people involved in early music whose contribution has not been acknowledged.

Even people such as Arnold Goldsbrough (founder of the English Chamber Orchestra), Sir Anthony Lewis, E. H. Fellowes and Thurston Dart, all well known in their lifetimes, are now largely forgotten outside the world of historically informed performance and academic musicology. They can hardly even be found in reference works or online, except, perhaps, for a listing of CD transfers and a brief and often inaccurate obituary. Goldsbrough, for example, only gets a single mention in Haskell’s The Early Music Revival – for influencing Dart, who was his student – but there’s nothing about his 1938 Bach Cantatas, with recorders, or his ground-breaking work for the brand-new Third Programme, which included a very light- footed, small-forces version of Acis & Galatea, and dozens of historical programmes and live broadcasts. Fellowes, who was

quite the celebrity (having been invited to lecture in the US by President Coolidge’s wife in 1927), has but half-a-dozen lines devoted to him in the Oxford History of Music. We know almost nothing about people like Desmond Dupré, who worked with Alfred Deller, taught himself the lute and gamba, and regularly popped up in all sorts of ensembles. And although the wiki about Anthony Bernard lists his 1929 recording of the Brandenburgs

A major element of TEMPAR will be interviews, in which musicians, instrument makers, academics and others who were involved in the revival will share their personal experiences with the Dolmetsches, it focuses more on his Elgar and Delius, and neglects even to mention his work with unknown Baroque repertoire and his very authentic-sounding broadcast performance of Rameau’s Dardanus; made at a time when the Kuijken brothers were still in short trousers!

Apart from acknowledging the pioneers, and collating the scant published information with personal reminiscences, my aim is to discover how this ‘movement’ gathered impetus and overcame resistance from the musical establishment, at a time when all music was played in exactly the same way. The cherished Messiah ‘tradition’ didn’t make things any easier, and many innovations were simply not well received. In the early years, poor Arnold Dolmetsch was regularly slammed by the critics: in one particularly savage review in The Times, the performance of a piece for two was described as sounding like ‘toothache calling unto toothache’.

Whereas there are many oral histories relating to communities, industries and crafts, my preliminary research suggests that practically no such work has been done on music and musicians, and that the material I plan to explore is a huge untapped resource. I have already discovered previously unknown documentation, photos, recordings and other ephemera which provide additional historically important raw material.

A major element of TEMPAR will consist of interviews, in which amateur and professional musicians, instrument makers, academics and others who were actually involved in the revival will share their personal experience and anecdotes, on camera, along with those who witnessed the developments close at hand. Apart from describing their own professional lives, they will share their memories of those unacknowledged early-music pioneers, as well as giving new insights into literary and musical figures more familiar to us today, such as Kathleen Ferrier, Toscanini, David Munrow, Pablo Casals, W. H. Auden and Professor Edward Dent – memories and insights which would otherwise be hidden from history. They will fill in gaps in our knowledge of the revival’s back-story, create ‘living’ biographies of musicians who deserve to be remembered, give us a more vivid picture of our common past and help to clarify trends, influences and previously unseen connections.

As the first generation of pioneers, responsible for the rediscovery of old instruments and playing styles, is gone, I’ll be focusing on musicians active just after the war, when some very significant breakthroughs began to take place. But time is short: if the recollections of this second generation are not recorded urgently, this fascinating part of our social history and cultural heritage will disappear. Several important pioneers, whose lives have largely gone unrecorded, have recently died, and their memories are now sadly lost to us forever. As most of those concerned are now over 70, it is vital that field work continues apace.

The initial output will consist of digital storytelling in the form of a blog – www.semibrevity.com – in which the narrative is interspersed with photos and documentation, extracts of video interviews, embedded video from other sources, plus digitealised sound files from private recordings, LPs and 78 rpm discs. I hope that there will also be some crowd sourcing; and that readers will supplement my research with their personal experiences (of concerts and meetings with the people concerned) and contribute memorabilia and recordings of ‘lost’ performances.

I’ve already started to promote the blog on social networks: see http://twitter.com/ (@semibrevity) and http://www.facebook.com/ (Bert Shudi). If you think it’s a good idea, please ‘follow’ me (and thereby stay up to date with new posts) and ‘share’, ‘vote’ or ‘like’ the blog, on sites like the ones shown on the Enjoy & Share bar on each blog page. Perhaps you could also forward information to like-minded friends and colleagues who might be interested in the back-story of the early music revival.

This project could very easily become a very full-time job – in fact, it’s already become difficult to continue as a hobby, so I’m trying to find funding for it. I am also looking for help both with technical matters and with the whole business of promoting the blog – otherwise it will be seen by about as many people as a billboard in the desert! In the meantime, offers of help in any of these areas would be very welcome indeed. ✵

Contact Paul Thwaites at [email protected]

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British Harpsichord Society

Contributions are always welcome: [email protected]

www.harpsichord.org.uk