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George Malcolm, CB.E. AN INTERVIEW

TO a very large number of concert goers Editor: Do you still play your Shudi the name of George Malcolm is the one Broad-wood? which springs to mind most readily at the George Malcolm: I have not got it. I mention of 'harpsichord'. At 56 he is the got rid of that some time ago, because, doyen of British harpsichordists. He you know, an eighteenth-century agreed at very short notice to be instrument needs a great deal of keeping interviewed in the few days between the in order. You have to be like one of Darlington Summer School and an those young men with a motor-bike, who engagement at Harrogate, and welcomed spends every Saturday afternoon taking it your editor to his lovely home in Cheyne apart and putting it together again; and I Walk, Chelsea. The house was built as haven't that kind of skill or patience or the central one of a group of three, the time. And this Shudi was beginning designed by Ashbee; but one of its to get into a condition of which I was supporters has been destroyed to make rather ashamed. So I decided to dispose way for 'development'. The interview of it. It is now in Holland being very well took place in a lofty studio with a north looked after by somebody else. light—cool on one of the hottest days of Editor: That's nice—I wondered—can summer. you tell me which is your favourite Editor: How did you first come to play harpsichord now? the harpsichord? George Malcolm: Well my favourite for George Malcolm: Well—I left the general purposes is by Robert Goble of R.A.F. in 1946 when I was demobilised, Oxford, particularly if I can have it and I wanted to spend my gratuity on serviced by Malcolm Russell, who is something: and I decided that a probably the finest harpsichord-regulator harpsichord would be an amusing sort of in the world. Occasionally I want some- toy to have. 1 did not know anything thing different—perhaps a reproduction about the harpsichord in those days. My French or Italian instrument—but the training had been that of a purely Goble harpsichord gives me a number of conventional concert pianist, and as a facilities that I feel I can make use of. student I had never even moved among and, of course, they are beautifully made: the kind of people who were interested in you know exactly where you are with a baroque music or old instruments. I Goble. The sound, to my ears, is entirely scarcely knew the difference between a acceptable—it is not an exciting sound— clavichord and a harpsichord; but I it is a wonderful instrument for any kind thought it would be fun to possess an old of continue or accompanying work where keyboard instrument. I had the great good a certain quick dynamic flexibility and fortune to find a very good instrument, a unobtrusiveness are required. You know Shudi-Broad-wood of 1775, at an I'm not an authenticist at all, and I use auction. There was not very much the geared pedals that the Goble competition for them in those days and I harpsichord (and for example the Goff got it very cheap. I had it done up and harpsichords also) have for things like put it in my studio—literally as a toy— fading off an appoggiatura—fading off a something to amuse myself with between feminine cadence—which is one of the bouts of piano practice, with no intention great embarrassments when playing of ever using it professionally. In 1946 it harpsichord continue in all these concerti was not anything like so usual to be in grossi. The strings, on the last cadence possession of a harpsichord as it is now, do the inevitable diminuendo on a down and when people found that I had got this bow, and the harpsichord is left clanking very good one, I started to get asked to away or having to miss out the last chord take it to concerts and play it, and then altogether. I feel that this particular thing the whole thing very quickly escalated about the feminine cadence or the long and before I knew where I was, I was appoggiatura was a standing defect of the getting quite a lot of harpsichord classical harpsichord. Couperin engagements and very few piano ones, practically refers to it in L'Art de and it just went on from there. Nothing Toucher; and I find that a modern could have been less intentional than my instrument on which that can be dealt career as a harpsichordist. If you had with, is a very good thing to use. asked me as a student if I would ever Editor: I rather agree. Now, one of my play the harpsichord I should have ideas is to combine this interview with laughed. I still feel that the harpsichord one with Robert Goble: to pair off the was a bit of an accident, and I'm still not player and the maker. How would you quite resigned to being a harpsichordist. In feel about that? fact in this last couple of years I have done quite a lot more piano playing.

http://www.harpsichord.org.uk www.harpsichord.org.uk even people like Couperin acknowledged the expressive deficiencies of the classical harpsichord— they still won't. . . . But some of the modern harpsichords are just machines—there's no question about that—they are just gigantic things made for moving about in concert halls, with frames so thick that nothing will vibrate, and they have no sound in them at all. I find some of the German factory-made instruments are just absolutely useless— vast armed machines; but you can't hear them in the next room. I like to strike a balance between 'mod. cons.' and a good sound. Editor: I agree that the Goble is a very good compromise between the two. George Malcolm: A very interesting Goble instrument that I played at the Flanders Festival at Bruges last year was his Taskin reproduction, and of course that has no mod. cons, at all. Editor: It is interesting to notice how many makers are going over to making reproductions of the old ones. George Malcolm: Well—I think this is actually a dangerous thing. Yes. most of the best harpsichord makers are now Photo: LOTTE ME1TNER-GRAF, engaged exclusively in making exact London reproductions of old instruments, and they are learning a lot by doing so. But it can't go on indefinitely. I don't believe George Malcolm: 1 should be very that at any period of history this was ever happy to be associated with Robert the way the great craftsmen worked. Goble. He has been very kind to me Editor: They would always be looking over the years, particularly when, at my for improvements? last-minute request, he sent his best and George Malcolm: Exactly—now the newest harpsichord, uninsured to interesting thing is that when Moscow for my benefit. Thank God we harpsichords first started to be built again got it back in one piece! He's been very in modern times, the pioneer craftsmen. kind to me. like Arnold Dolmetsch. took as their Editor: I noticed one of Goble's working models the late eighteenth- harpsichords in Warsaw, in, T think, the century harpsichords, as representing the Philharmonic Hall there. highest development that harpsichord George Malcolm: I didn't know they making had reached, and were proposing had one in Warsaw. to go on from there. It was clearly in their Editor: I was there about three or four minds that the harpsichord should years ago and went to a concert when continue to be developed. As you know, they played Vivaldi's Seasons, and on the Arnold Dolmetsch even managed to get a platform was a Goble harpsichord, in use sustaining pedal mechanism into his for the continuo and for some solos. harpsichord! Now this is of course George Malcolm: Well I suppose it considered absolutely wrong, this is a was about two years ago when I was last mortal sin, you are not even allowed to in Warsaw, and I did not know that there have a pedal on your harpsichord as Bach might be a Goble there, otherwise 1 did not have one! should have tried to get hold of it! Editor: Do you teach? Of course, T know it is a very vexed George Malcolm: T don't teach—I question what kind of harpsichord one have one pupil at the moment (Roger plays. Most of my colleagues won't have Pugh)—I'm never in one place long anything to do with what they consider to enough. T started to teach at the be a modernized version of the Academy, but I had to be away for so harpsichord. They don't like the sound: much of the lime that I gave it up after a they need something more resonant, and year. What I do is to go down to the they don't like the gadgets. They refuse Summer School at Darlington —I came to use the gadgets in fact because Bach back yesterday, in fact. But that is a did not have gadgets. And although master class—I don't teach privately. I think lessons should be regular. Editor: Which do you prefer, the classics of the harpsichord or the modern concert repertory?

George Malcolm: I very much prefer the classics http://www.harpsichord.org.uk www.harpsichord.org.uk —I play them almost exclusively. George Malcolm: Well almost. There Editor: How about the Frank Martin was a period when Granville Jones took Concerto for harp, harpsichord and piano, charge of the orchestra after Bob Dart with double string orchestra? left it, and then I had it for two or three George Malcolm: That is a very good years. Then there was a time when I was piece and so is the Frank Martin Associate Conductor of the B.B.C. Harpsichord Concerto—I am doing that Scottish Symphony Orchestra. Now I do on tour in Germany next January with sporadic bits of conducting: I conduct a the Northern Sinfonia, and we shall have number of the continental chamber to rehearse it like mad, as we are going to orchestras as a visiting conductor on tour. do it unconducted—in other words I am Editor: And do you like conducting 'conducting it from the keyboard' which, from the harpsichord—in the way that in that piece, you can scarcely do Bob did? because you are too busy. That is a fine George Malcolm: Not as much as piece, and so is Roberto Gerhard's some people do. I find that playing the Concerto, but I don't find much modern harpsichord and conducting are both solo harpsichord music that I really like. full-time jobs. And I don't do more of I find most of it miscalculated for the this conducting from the harpsichord than instrument. I have to. I would obviously do it in a Editor: So many composers seem to harpsichord concerto; but I'm not so regard it as a rather pretty sound. keen on playing continue while I'm George Malcolm: Yes—or as a heavy conducting: I'd rather get someone else percussive sound—which it isn't; and to do that. you can't hear it as it is frequently mis- Editor: Bob Dart had rather a flair for scored. The de Falla so-called that. Harpsichord Concerto is terribly difficult George Malcolm: Oh, yes indeed—as to bring off in performance unless you he had for so many things. Have you have the harpsichord amplified, because seen my marvelous picture of Bob Dart? even with those few instruments the Editor: No? (shown a photo of R. T. harpsichord can be totally obscured. Dart playing a serpent). I've got a very good little modern George Malcolm: Actually he looks as harpsichord Concertino by David Lord, if he was drinking out of it! which is beautifully scored—just for Editor: Was that taken in his rooms at strings and harpsichord. You can hear the Cambridge? harpsichord all the time—a marvellous George Malcolm: Yes, I think so—as little piece. It's really light music, but it's a matter of fact I found it among some beautifully written. But most people, when papers at the office of the Philomusica. they are writing for harpsichord—just— Editor: Would you like to say well—take the Poulenc something more about repertoire and —you simply can't hear the harpsichord perhaps about your recordings? a lot of the time unless you have some George Malcolm: As you probably huge amplifier for it. know, I have become more and more There is a lot of modern harpsichord interested in eighteenth-century French music which I haven't explored, and I music over the last three or four years, may well have missed some good things. and I think that I'm finding out how it But in general, I'm disappointed with goes. When I recorded the complete new harpsichord music. I'm dying for works of Rameau (on a very fine Ben Britten to write a harpsichord suite harpsichord by Thomas Goff), I was just or something. I'm always amazed that beginning to get the feel of it. Strawinsky did not write anything for But I don't like most of my recordings. it—I would have thought it would have I ought to do the Goldberg Variations been right up his street. But, apart from again, but if I record anything for a the harpsichord part in the 'Rake's second time, it always seems to go worse Progress', I don't think he wrote than it did the first time. I'm not happy in anything. I find that the first and last a recording studio at all. It's an artificial movements of Strawinsky's piano Sonata atmosphere, and I need people to play to. are marvelous on the harpsichord: you Playing is a form of communication, and can't do the slow movement, because it I like an audience to be there. I don't so needs a sustaining pedal and you can't do much mind a live broadcast as I know without it. But I wish there was more and there's an audience there even though I can't see them. But playing in a better solo music for harpsichord. gramophone studio with the electric ear Editor: You did some conducting—the of a microphone standing there waiting Philo-musica of London—did you not? for me to make a mistake, just makes me George Malcolm: I do some conducting more nervous than anything else. I'm terribly nervous in the studio—far more still! than on the concert platform. Editor: Did you take over from Playing in ensemble is quite another matter— there is the communication Thurston Dart? between the artists. I

have recorded the Bach and Handel violin sonatas with Yehudi who is absolutely at http://www.harpsichord.org.uk www.harpsichord.org.uk ease in the gramophone studio, and that some grotesque registrations, and I communicates and makes for a lovely would have been quite in agreement with calm atmosphere. In fact, with the Handel her losing some marks, because she sonatas we had great fun because in the should know better in a competition like slow movements we were both that. But when the marks of the jury were improvising. Yehudi was making finally added up and announced it turned decorations to the melody and I was out that that girl was not even going to doing all sorts of naughty things in the get into the second round, let alone into continue realization. And then there the finals. She had been a naughty girl: would come an incident when the she had been unauthentic: she was out. producer would say that we would have And the fact that she was about the only to do the second half of that movement one that the ordinary person would cross again, and 'will you please both try and the street to listen to had nothing to do play the same as what you played last with it at all! From then onwards I have time'—of course neither of us could not been on these juries. That was bigotry remember what we played! carried to an extreme and I have no time But in solo recording I often get very for it. low-spirited, and feel that I am not in Editor: You tour a lot and I wonder good form. I get tired and nervous and which are your most responsive things go from bad to worse. Long audiences. recording sessions can be very taxing George Malcolm: My favourite indeed. audiences are some of those behind the I have just finished doing some of the Iron Curtain. I don't know what it is about Handel Organ Concertos with Neville them, but you get a marvellous performer- Mariner and the Academy of St. Martin's. audience relationship. I think Budapest is I don't know why they asked me to do it my favourite place, and East Berlin is as I have not played the organ now since much better than West Berlin. In 1959 when I left Westminster Cathedral, Moscow and Leningrad the audiences are but I think the results will be acceptable. simply marvellous. If they like it they Editor: Are you playing on a chamber really let you know about it, and it's most organ? amusing. In Western Europe, if you give George Malcolm: Well more or less a a successful recital you may get a lot of chamber organ. We did Op. 3 last year encores; but in fact they are only for a using the organ at Merton College, minority of the audience: the rest are on Oxford. And we did Op. 7 at St. John's, their way out, and only a hard core of Islington, which has quite a big organ, enthusiasts come down to the front. But in but which includes a very nice little Moscow, if the audience has enjoyed it positive, situated behind the player, and they all stay put with no intention of which makes some very suitable baroque going home, and you have to play five or noises even though it is a modern organ. six more pieces! Most of my foreign We still have a few more to do in engagements are in West Germany— December, but have not quite decided there is a tremendous market for where to do them—we are using different harpsichord music there. It's no accident organs. that I'm never asked to play in Holland. Editor: What did you think about the They are very 'authentic'-minded there, concours at Bruges? You were on the and they don't approve of me at all! jury, weren't you? Actually I'm sticking my neck out by George Malcolm: It was very going to Amsterdam with the Academy of interesting. No, I was not on the jury. I'm St. Martin's this month. now refusing all calls to act on What some people forget is not just that harpsichord juries. I was on a jury, I shall instruments may have developed over the not say where, at one of the big years, but the European musical listening international festivals a couple of years ear—the ear of audiences—has had a ago and it seemed to me that the decisions couple of centuries of absolutely of the-jury as a whole were so grotesque irreversible musical experience since that I don't want to be mixed up in them. Bach and Scarlatti were writing. We At this particular competition there were have had Beethoven, Brahms, Wagner, a number of young competitors and I felt Puccini, Strawinsky, Stock-hausen, jazz there were just two of them that had and everything. And we can't be listening something to say to the audience, to music now with eighteenth-century particularly one young girl who was quite cars. That's got to be taken into account, outstanding. You know how there are I think. And this business of going to always quite big audiences on these great lengths to reproduce the exact occasions—friends of the performers, performing conditions of the eighteenth students, and so on—and they are half century, for example, seems to me asleep most of the time. But you could questionable, because you are never feel the audience waking up when this girl going to reproduce the listening conditions got going—she really projected, and she of the eighteenth century whatever you could play. Now in the course of her do—it's not going to have the same playing she committed a number of impact on a modern audience as it did in crimes against authenticity. She did some the eighteenth century. naughty things, getting her ornaments wrong and using

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