In the Beginning
Creativity will always express itself! Newly returned to the musical scene, the “ancient” harpsichord soon attracted living composers – at first a few, then others in ever-increasing numbers. Less than five years after two Parisian firms, Érard and Pleyel, and the musical instrument restorer Louis Tomasini each constructed their first “modern” harpsichord and displayed them at the Paris Exposition of 1889, composer Francis Thomé (1850–1909) dedicated Rigodon, pièce de claveçin, Op. 97, to “his friend Louis Diémer,” a piano professor at the Paris Conservatoire; he played both the eighteenth-century Taskin harpsichord borrowed from the builder’s descendants and the newly built harpsichords at the Exposition.
Jules Massenet included a harpsichord in the scoring of his opera Thérèse (1907) – probably the first twentieth-century use of the instrument in an orchestral score. As for solo harpsichord works, it now appears that the harpsichord’s first twentieth-century piece to appear in print came from the pen of French organist Henri Mulet (1878–1967), whose Petit Lied très facile pour claveçin ou piano, truly a miniature at only thirty-four measures, was published in 1910.1
More substantial is Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s three-movement English Suite (1909), first conceived when the fourteen-year-old Italian was a student in Florence. Thirty-one years later, in 1940, Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895–1968), by then a resident of the United States, transcribed his early work from memory for the harpsichordist Ralph Kirkpatrick. A printed score “for piano or harpsichord” was published by Mills Music (New York) in 1962.2
Within the next two decades, Ferruccio Busoni, Ottorino Respighi, Richard Strauss, Gabriel Pierné, and Manuel de Falla included the harpsichord in their orchestral scores, and Busoni, whose home in Berlin was graced by the long-term loan of an American-built Dolmetsch–Chickering harpsichord, wrote a lone solo work, his Sonatina ad usum infantis “per cembalo composità” in 1915. Published in 1916, this work has both originality and charm, but, strangely, the composer allows his compass to descend to a low E, a semitone below the range available on the preferred instrument, and, like many subsequent works for harpsichord, this piece would benefit greatly from a damper pedal – a device not found on the historic instrument.3
Two Early Masterpieces, First Recordings, and Several Other Endeavors
On 25 June 1923, the first staged performance of Falla’s puppet opera El retablo de maese Pedro took place in the Paris music room of the Princesse de Polignac.4 It was an event with far-reaching significance: Wanda Landowska (1879–1959), the most widely known advocate for the twentieth-century revival of the harpsichord and its most celebrated artist (see Figure 16.1), was engaged to play the prominent harpsichord part.
Figure 16.1 Wanda Landowska, Unsigned Caricature, gift of Momo Aldrich, Larry Palmer Collection.
On this occasion, both the player and her instrument impressed the youthful composer Francis Poulenc, who was in attendance. Subsequently each composer presented Mme. Landowska with a concerto: Falla in 1926, Poulenc in 1929. These two major works, the Spanish master’s chamber piece for harpsichord, flute, oboe, clarinet, violin, and cello, and the Frenchman’s jaunty Concert Champêtre for harpsichord and full symphonic ensemble both rank highly among the twentieth century’s most important (and popular) pieces for the revived instrument.
Landowska never recorded the Falla concerto, but Falla himself did, on both harpsichord and piano.5 As for Landowska’s recording of Poulenc’s Concert Champêtre (a 1948 broadcast performance conducted by Leopold Stokowski), it remains, despite some flawed orchestral moments, the most definitive and individual among the plethora of subsequent recordings.6 A later disc from Landowska’s student Rafael Puyana comes closest to his teacher’s rhythmically stimulating and joyful rendition.7 Both of these recorded performances employed a Pleyel instrument equipped with foot pedals for quick, and frequent, changes of the instrument’s ample variety of tonal colors.8
The 1920s saw the first commercial recordings of contemporary music for harpsichord. Two of Landowska’s own compositions, Bourrées d’Auvergne I and II were committed to disc during her earliest recording sessions at the Victor Studios in Camden, New Jersey (USA), in 1923 and 1928. Slightly earlier, in 1920, the British virtuosa Violet Gordon Woodhouse (1871–1948) included three English folk dances during her pioneering recording venture: Newcastle, Heddon of Fawsley, and Step Back as arranged by the folksong collector Cecil Sharp – totaling nearly three minutes of music!
Equally of short of duration, and dedicated to Woodhouse, is the 1919 Dance for Harpsichord (or piano) by Frederick Delius (1862–1934), yet another work that requires major adjustments if it is to sound convincing on the harpsichord. Two years later, Dutch composer Alexander Voormolen (1895–1980), a student of Maurice Ravel, composed his Suite de claveçin (Ouverture – Gigue – Sicilienne – Toccatina) – of approximately eight minutes in duration.
More Concertos
Organist and composer Hugo Distler (1908–1942) was a leading talent of the German organ scene with its growing appreciation of music from the early baroque period, as well as a renewed interest in historic keyboard instruments, both original and those which copied the baroque style. A unique composition by the young composer is his Concerto for Harpsichord and String Orchestra, Op. 14 (1931) – a work both spicy and appealing. With a tonal pallette that has hints of Hindemith and Stravinsky as well as a rollicking third movement based on the song Ei du feiner Reiter by the early German master Samuel Scheidt, it is a challenging piece but one that rewards the required technical effort with scintillating and fresh music. A fourth movement (Allegro Spiritoso e Scherzando), deleted from the published score by the composer, is preserved in the Distler Archive in Lübeck. The Nazi cultural police chose to censor Distler’s magnum opus by including it in their “degenerate art” category, thereby outlawing any further performances in the Reich after it was performed to great acclaim during a 1936 festival of German church music in Berlin.
The Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959) also produced an elegant and tuneful Concerto for Harpsichord and Small Orchestra (1935) during his sojourn in Paris. Composed for the harpsichordist Marcelle de Lacour, it is particularly noteworthy for its employment of piano as continuo instrument supporting the harpsichord’s solo, a reversal of the more usual instrumental roles!
Frank Martin (1890–1974), a Swiss composer who spent much of his career in Holland, composed two major works for harpsichord and orchestra. The twenty-minute Concert pour claveçin et petit orchestre (1952) is a graceful addition to the concert repertoire, but pride of place goes to Martin’s earlier work from 1945, the Petite symphonie concertante for three solo instruments – harp, harpsichord, and piano – and two string orchestras. Commissioned by, and dedicated to Paul Sacher, conductor of the Basel Chamber Orchestra, Martin’s pleasing work maintains a place in the active concert repertoire.
From the United Kingdom: Charming Works by Howells and Leigh
Herbert Howells (1892–1983) composed the twelve short pieces that comprise Lambert’s Clavichord as a tribute to the noted photographer and instrument maker Herbert Lambert of Bath. With the 1927 publication of this set, his Opus 41, the British composer earned a place in musical history: These charming neo-Elizabethan miniatures are the first published modern works for clavichord. During a 1974 interview with the composer, I inquired if they might be played on the harpsichord. Dr. Howells replied that he often performed them on the piano and gave his permission to play them on any available keyboard instrument.
Another audience-friendly work is an eight-minute Concertino for Harpsichord and Strings (1934) by Walter Leigh (1905–1942). One wishes that this piece were much longer, for its three short movements (Allegro – Andante – Allegro Vivace) never fail to charm listeners. Perhaps the best solution might be to play it twice!
A Prolific Commissioner of New Music: Sylvia Marlowe
More than any other member of her generation, Sylvia Marlowe (1908–1981) increased the significant contributions of major American composers to the literature of her chosen instrument. Considering the Pleyel harpsichord a “vehicle for modern music, even swing,” the keyboardist, largely a self-taught harpsichordist, built her career as a popular radio performer, playing more than 1,500 broadcast concerts, many of them in two series – Lavender and New Lace and New Portraits of Old Masters. For these programs, Marlowe performed standard harpsichord repertoire as well as instrumental foxtrots based on such popular harpsichord classics as Rameau’s Tambourin (“18th-century Barrelhouse”), Daquin’s Le Coucou (“Cookoo-Cuckoo”), Mozart’s Turkish March (“Mr. Mozart Meanders”), and Haydn’s D major Sonata (“Haydn Seeks”). Her broadcasts introduced the sounds of the harpsichord to vast numbers of new listeners.
Marlowe also appeared as an entertainer, revolving with her harpsichord on a rotating platform at the Rainbow Room, a New York City nightclub. This close association with dancing may have been the major influence that led Marlowe to commission her first serious contemporary work: She heard Vittorio Rieti’s Second Avenue Waltzes for Two Pianos and fell in love with them. This infatuation led to her commissioning the ensemble work Partita for Flute, Oboe, String Quartet and Obbligato Harpsichord from Rieti (1898–1994) in 1945. It was premiered in 1951 and followed by three more Rieti pieces for Marlowe’s collection: Sonata all’antica for solo harpsichord (1946), Concerto for Harpsichord and Orchestra (1955/1957), and Alla Francesca (1961).9
More works from Alan Hovhaness (1911–2000), Paul des Marais (1927–2013), Carlos Surinach (1915–1997), Ben Weber (1916–1979), and Alexei Haieff (1914–1994) joined the Marlowe playlist, but her most distinguished and honored commission was the Sonata for Flute, Oboe, Cello, and Harpsichord (1952) by Elliott Carter (1908–2012), a work in three intellectually stimulating and aurally attractive movements. The composer stated that his idea was “to stress as much as possible the vast and wonderful array of tone colors available on the modern harpsichord,” and to that end he provided detailed instructions for a large John Challis instrument with pedals that operated the changing of the harpsichord’s registers.10 The sonata’s first movement (Risoluto) begins vigorously with an arresting gesture from the harpsichord and proceeds as one continual diminuendo from this initial energy. The second movement (Lento) commences with a single note (G), arches through a contrasting middle section that employs the composer’s signature technique of metric modulation, and returns to the initial lone G. The final movement (Allegro), in a rollicking 6/8 meter, is the most challenging in terms of ensemble. Marlowe reported that it required more than forty rehearsals to prepare this demanding work for performance. Carter’s quartet was awarded the prestigious Walter W. Naumburg Musical Foundation Award in 1956.
As different from the Carter as any work could be, Lovers (A Narrative in Ten Scenes) by Ned Rorem (b. 1924) consists of short musical vignettes portraying the events of a day in the life of a young couple; it is scored for four players: harpsichord; oboe/English horn; cello; and a percussionist on tympani, vibraphone, xylophone, glockenspiel, and chimes. This is programmatic music, attractive and appealing even though the harpsichord writing, while manageable, is quite pianistic with thick chords and large leaps. Again, the harpsichordist often longs for a sustaining pedal! Quartet and Lovers have the same relationship in Marlowe’s repertoire as did Falla’s concerto and Poulenc’s Concert Champêtre in Landowska’s: One critically regarded work rarely played contrasts with an audience-pleasing piece heard much more frequently.
In 1960 Marlowe recorded the disc Six Americans: works by Ben Weber, Arthur Berger, John Lessard, and Rieti, as well as three pieces originally for the piano: Harold Shapero’s Sonata in D, and two works, Sonata No. 4 and Portrait of Nicolas de Chatelain, by Marlowe’s longtime advocate, the music critic and composer Virgil Thomson. Interestingly, the adapted works fit the harpsichord at least as well as Rieti’s and Lessard’s piano-inspired creations.
With one of her most unusual projects, it would seem possible that no other performer introduced as many young listeners to the harpsichord as Marlowe did: Her children’s record Said the Piano to the Harpsichord presented the story of a rivalry between the two instruments.11 Included in the musical illustrations was not only an improbable bit of Chopin (played first on the piano, then repeated a second time on the harpsichord!) but also one of the more charming of new works, Douglas Moore’s short arrangement of The Old Gray Mare (1948) in which both keyboard instruments, ancient and modern, ultimately played together as friends. At least one of those fortunate young persons who succumbed to the antique instrument’s charm, Richard Kingston (b. 1947), would eventually grow up to become one of America’s foremost harpsichord makers in the second half of the century. He credits his early infatuation with his life-long love to Marlowe’s record and the harpsichord “licks” from the television serial The Addams Family.12
Patroness of the Avant-Garde: Antoinette Vischer
Another determined champion for new music, the Swiss harpsichordist Antoinette Vischer (1909–1973), commissioned an extraordinary collection of harpsichord works by a stellar group of modernist composers. Outstanding among this group of thirty-eight creators are Bohuslav Martinů, Maurice Ohana, Hans Werner Henze, Earle Brown, Luciano Berio, Cathy Berberian, Duke Ellington, Boris Blacher, Isang Yun, Mauricio Kagel, John Cage, and György Ligeti, whose Continuum is frequently cited as the most original among all twentieth-century works for solo harpsichord (see Figure 16.2).13 Both unusual and effective, this four-minute composition is basically an expanding tremolando that builds to a mighty climax that then subsides to a single fast-repeated high pitch. Totally unexpected from a composer whose organ music often relied on crashing tone clusters, this sensitive music is extraordinarily well crafted to display both the tonal resources of the harpsichord and the technical prowess of an executant.
Martinů, cited earlier for his Harpsichord Concerto, composed a solo Sonate pour claveçin for Mme. Vischer in 1958, less than a year before his death. Three connected short movements display both a welcome knowledge of the instrument’s tonal possibilities and an audible nostalgia for the Czech homeland from which he had spent so many years as an expatriate. (Musical references to the Dvorak Cello Concerto and the bells of Prague are heard, and the vigorous final section of the Sonate ends softly, leaving a sense of quiet resignation.)
Cathy Berberian’s dramatic chance music from 1969, Morsicat(h)y bears a title that is a four-way pun dealing with death by biting, a mosquito, Morse Code, and the composer’s abbreviated name. This type of “regulated improvisation” requires the player to create a score by employing specified metrics: The right hand is to simulate mosquito sounds while the left hand attempts to swat the “audible” insect away. The printed “score” includes a sample sketch, but the work is, in a sense, no longer authentically performable since the piece depends on reciprocal communication with its composer. Using rhythms determined by telegraphy’s Morse Code, the player is expected to create snippets of music with pitches derived from a chart provided in the score. But the text to be set to these pitches was to be determined by sending a postcard to the composer (several copies of an addressed card were included in a pocket on the inside back cover of the publication), who would then respond with a message to be translated into the required musical gestures. Unfortunately, Berberian (1925–1983), talented singer and wife of composer Luciano Berio, is no longer answering written requests. One of the last truly authentic performances thus occurred during a harpsichord recital at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, when Marilyn Saker, a harpsichord major in the Master’s degree program, chose Berberian’s work as part of her group of pieces by women composers. She sent the obligatory request and received the promised response (dated 5 October 1982). Unforgettable was the graphic and vivid sonic explosion at the mimed destruction of the eponymous (imaginary) mosquito in a final smashing gesture that provided a loud dissonant tone cluster in the lowest range of the harpsichord! This type of “chance music,” or improvised dramatic performance, was a hallmark of its period.
A similar Vischer commission, Mauricio Kagel’s Recitativarie (for Singing Female Harpsichordist) begins with a very slow procession to the instrument (with the artist’s hands held aloft in a prayerful position), a panorama meant to mimic Wanda Landowska’s carefully choreographed entrance to a concert stage. When the music finally begins, Kagel (1931–2008) combines short excerpts from Chopin piano pieces and snippets from Bach cantatas, complete with nonsensical texts – surrealistic, and entirely typical of avant-garde performance expectations of the era.
The most extreme of Vischer’s happenings was undoubtedly John Cage and Lejaren Hiller’s HPSCHD (pronounced harpsichord), first experienced on 16 May 1969 at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. Lasting from 7:30 p.m. until midnight, the music comprised twenty-minute solos for one to seven harpsichords and magnetic tapes played on fifty-two amplified monaural machines. These musical materials were to be used in whole or part, in any combination, with or without interruptions. Both players and instruments formed varied groups: David Tudor played an electronic harpsichord; the begetter of the event, Madame Vischer, and Philip Corner shared one Neupert two-manual instrument; William Brooks played a Challis single; Ronald Peters, a Brueggeman double; Yuji Takahashi, a Dowd double; and the young pianist/composer Neely Bruce, one by Hubbard. In addition to playing his/her own solo, each harpsichordist was free to play any of the others (according to a note in the program).14
Reviewing the subsequent Nonesuch vinyl recording of HPSCHD, record critic and harpsichordist Igor Kipnis commented, “At first noisy, this ‘experience’ ultimately becomes one of tedium and almost unrelieved boredom. Personally, I find the New York Subway offers as much sonic anarchy, and at least there you are getting from one place to another.”15
Vischer’s extensive list of new works for the harpsichord practically guarantees that she will not be forgotten. Her friend, the distinguished Swiss author and playwright Friedrich Dürrenmatt, wrote:
Antoinette Vischer has gone down in the annals of musical history in the most legitimate manner: as patroness. She caused the modern and ultra-modern composers of our time to interest themselves in an old-fashioned instrument – the harpsichord. As a result, the old-fashioned instrument became modern, and its abstract quality suited modern music.
By commissioning compositions for it, Vischer led modern music on to new paths. The manner in which she did this proves how consciously she proceeded … She knew whom she was ordering from, and was supplied with what she wanted: musical portraits by composers of themselves, in that they had to occupy themselves with apparently unfamiliar tasks. Thus, through the wiles of a woman once again, something new was born.16
Meanwhile, in the UK
On the other side of the English Channel, British composer Peter Maxwell Davies (1934–2016) offered his own version of an avant-garde happening, albeit one that was four hours shorter than HPSCHD. With a duration of thirty intense minutes, Eight Songs for a Mad King requires a male singer of extraordinary vocal prowess as well as virtuoso histrionic ability (the vocal line ranges from a falsetto high B all the way down to the lowest basso profundo sounds). Scored for an instrumental ensemble of six players: flute (piccolo), clarinet, percussion (21 different instruments), keyboard (harpsichord, piano, and dulcimer), violin, and cello, Davies’s music ranges from swoops and screams to recognizable quotations from Handel’s Messiah as he portrays King George III’s descent into madness. Premiered at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London on April 22, 1969, this solo cantata/happening predated Cage’s extravaganza by twenty-four days and managed to accomplish nearly as much musical chaos in 240 minutes less performing time.
Harrison, Persichetti and a Recital by Kirkpatrick
Born in Portland, Oregon, Lou Harrison (1917–2003) was truly an American original. Before moving to New York City in 1943 he composed a series of six sonatas for harpsichord. With spare, often two-voiced textures, and by suggesting the replacement of equal tempered tuning with the more distinctive baroque unequal tunings, Harrison had already set himself apart from the mainstream.
In his own words about these path-breaking works:
The first [of the sonatas] dates from the mid-1930s but the set was not completed until the early 1940s, and they were published in 1943. The original impulse came from two sources, as the Sonatas themselves have probably already made clear … the first of these was my intense admiration for Manuel de Falla and especially for his use of the harpsichord in several instances including the famous Concerto. This was, in my own feelings, perhaps erroneously embedded in a matrix of feeling which concerned California. The “Mission Period” style of life, artifacts, and the feelings intrigued me very much. [It was] the Works Progress Administration period and the dominant impulse was “Regionalism.” Thus the Cembalo Sonatas reflect “nights in the Gardens of Spain,” “Flamenco” as well as [American] Indian Dances, and Provincial “Baroquery” in the West.17
On occasion, Sylvia Marlowe had programmed individual selections from Harrison’s sonatas, but the complete set formed an integral part of a “Recital of Twentieth-Century Harpsichord Music” presented at the University of California, Berkeley, on 21 January 1961, by the era’s most prominent American harpsichordist, celebrated Yale professor Ralph Kirkpatrick (1911–1984). Other offerings heard on his program entirely devoted to contemporary works included the premiere of Set of Four by Henry Cowell (1897–1965), from whom Kirkpatrick had specifically requested left-hand octave trills to demonstrate the technical prowess of his oversized hands (an attribute the recitalist proudly noted in his introductory commentary to the published score), plus additional pieces composed for him by Ernst Lévy (Fantasie Symphonique [1939]) and Peter Mieg (Le voyage à Montfort [1956]). Completing the extensive list were compositions by Halsey Stevens, Vincent Persichetti, and David Kraehenbuehl. Delius’s Dance served as the single gesture to music from earlier in the century.
In notes to the program, the artist wrote: “[Pieces by] Douglas Allanbrook [Sonata Number One] and Daniel Pinkham [Epitaph for Janet Fairbank] were written by composers who are themselves accomplished harpsichordists, and the pieces of Mel Powell (Recitative and Toccata Percossa) and David Kraehenbuehl (Toccate per Cembalo) were written respectively for my former pupils Fernando Valenti and Robert Conant.”18
Of particular interest was the inclusion of a single movement (the first: Andante sostenuto–Allegro) from Sonata, Op. 52, by Vincent Persichetti (1915–1987). This piece, written for Fernando Valenti and premiered by him at New York’s Town Hall in 1951, remains, in my opinion, the most appealing of all the ten essays in sonata form produced by this genial composer. After a thirty-year hiatus, Persichetti resumed his composing for harpsichord, producing a bumper crop of three sonatas in 1981, two more the following year, and one each in the years 1983, 1984, 1985, and 1987. The composer’s additional solo harpsichord pieces Parable XXIV, Op. 153 and Serenade No. 15, Op. 161 are also splendid additions to the repertoire.
Earlier in his illustrious career, Ralph Kirkpatrick had toured extensively with the violinist Alexander Schneider. At their New York Town Hall concert of 30 November 1945, the artists premiered one of the most distinguished contributions to the twentieth-century duo repertoire, Sonatina for Violin and Harpsichord by Walter Piston (1894–1976). Subsequently their performance of this beautifully crafted work was recorded for Columbia Records as the first disc in a Modern American Music Series. Another major contemporary work in Kirkpatrick’s wide-ranging concert offerings was the Concerto for Harpsichord and Orchestra by his Yale University faculty colleague Quincy Porter (1897–1966). This was the newest work to be heard on Kirkpatrick’s December 1960 concerts with the Cleveland Orchestra (Robert Shaw, conducting) – the first evenings in the orchestra’s forty-two-year history at which a harpsichordist appeared as assisting artist on regular subscription concerts by this renowned ensemble. Such a tardy debut was sweetened by the presentation of three concertos as the first half of the program: Porter’s new single-movement work, J. S. Bach’s Concerto in A major, BWV1055, and the iconic twentieth-century concerto of Manuel de Falla. An equally important concert debutant shared the Severance Hall stage on those evenings: a just-completed 1960 two-manual harpsichord by the Boston master-builder William Dowd, on loan for these performances from Cleveland’s Unitarian Church (where Assistant Conductor Shaw was Director of Music).
Contributions from Four Major Composers
Among the twentieth-century’s more famous composers such as Igor Stravinsky, Béla Bartók, Paul Hindemith, and Benjamin Britten, only Bartók might be considered to have joined the harpsichord’s list of composers. The Hungarian master suggests in the preface to Volumes III–VI of his Mikrokosmos (for piano) that certain pieces might be suited for performance at the harpsichord. Stravinsky, the most celebrated international composer of the century, had planned to write a harpsichord concerto during the 1920s, but nothing for harpsichord materialized from his pen until he gave the instrument a major role in the score of his neoclassical opera The Rake’s Progress (1951). Not only does the harpsichord fill its classic role as keyboard continuo instrument, it becomes, as well, an aural, vibrant character in the spine-chilling climactic card game scene that seals the leading protagonist’s fate. Hindemith, a fine violist, who had made concert tours with harpsichordist Alice Ehlers, would have seemed to be a “natural” match for the instrument considering his contrapuntal and linear style of composing, but he, too, restricted his use of the harpsichord to brief appearances in two late operas: the 1952 revision of Cardillac and his 1960 opus The Long Christmas Dinner. Britten pursued a similar path, utilizing the instrument in his operatic adaptation of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1960), and once again in the late cantata Phaedra (1975).
Mid-Century Music from France, Hungary, and the United States
A work popular with harpsichordists during the second half of the twentieth century is a set of six insect portraits, L’insectarium by Jean Françaix (1912–1997). These clever, if sometimes unwieldy, musical portrayals of centipede, ladybug, water spider, sea flea, beetle, and ant were completed in 1953. Since the composer dedicated his score to Wanda Landowska (who was at this time a resident of the United States, well ensconced in her Connecticut home), it was fitting that the premiere performance should be given by one of her students, the Belgian harpsichordist Aimée van de Wiele, at the Abbaye de Royaumont on 14 July 1957. A second popular score by Françaix is the compact, five-movement Concerto for Harpsichord and Instrumental Ensemble (flute and strings). Neoclassical in its clarity, and typical of its composer in charm and wittiness, the work dates from 1959.
Another pleasant piece is Concertino for Harpsichord and Orchestra (1949) by the Hungarian composer Ferenc Farkas (1905–2000), whose spicy tonal palette may have evolved from a mingling of his studies with the Italian colorist Ottorino Respighi and an equal admiration for the Viennese composers of the early twentieth-century. This worthwhile twenty-minute work displays a classic three-movement concerto design: Allegro – Andante – Allegro.
“Seldom in a long life of record-reviewing have I been so utterly beguiled, captivated, seduced, entertained, and generally delighted by a new piece as by Lester Trimble’s Four Fragments from the Canterbury Tales,” began Alfred Frankenstein’s review of the first recording of this elegant 1956 work scored for high voice, flute, clarinet, and harpsichord.19 Trimble (1923–1986) set Geoffrey Chaucer’s poetic Middle English descriptions of a “Knyght,” a “Yong Squier,” and the “Wyf of Biside Bathe” and prefaced these beguiling musical portraits with the scene-setting opening lines from the medieval classic: “Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote …” as “Prolog.” The music that brings these ancient texts into the present is precisely as lovely and satisfying as inferred by the critic’s words. A performance for the National Convention of the American Guild of Organists in Dallas (1972) offered this gem as part of a harpsichord-centered program. Commendations of this selection were relayed to the performers through several subsequent decades of these biennial national gatherings. Trimble’s hauntingly lovely piece is one that “got everything” just right.
“The Harpsichord on the Contemporary Scene: Roots for a Tradition”
In 1958 Stoddard Lincoln wrote an article for the Bulletin of the American Composers’ Alliance in which he laid out some basic suggestions on ways to write successfully for the harpsichord. Lincoln (1925–2007) had studied harpsichord with both Kirkpatrick and Valenti (who taught at the Juilliard School in New York), and his comments ring true today, more than half a century later. After advising his target audience to study keyboard works from their successful professional ancestors from the baroque era and explaining in clear detail why so many pianistic passages are not equally effective when transferred to the harpsichord, Mr. Lincoln paid tribute to some exemplary living composers. Leading the short list was Vincent Persichetti, highly commended for his harpsichord sonata. Later in the essay Lincoln commented that pianists usually write the best piano music, and, therefore, harpsichordists will almost certainly serve a similar function when they choose to write for their own instrument; a special commendation in this category was given to Daniel Pinkham (a Landowska student), and further kudos went to Robert Parris and to Persichetti, cited as “pianists who have taken the time to familiarize themselves with the harpsichord and its capabilities.”
Other composers and works put forward as good examples: Howells and his Lambert’s Clavichord pieces; Henry Cowell’s Set of Four; the concertos of Poulenc, Leigh, Martin, and Falla; and, as an unanticipated addition to the list, the German composer Kurt Hessenberg (1908–1994), a colleague of the organist and harpsichordist Helmut Walcha, who was praised particularly for the clarity of his writing in his Ten Short Preludes (Zehn kleine Präludien, 1945). From Sylvia Marlowe’s group of commissioned composers, the author chose to recommend works by John Lessard and Elliott Carter.
Concluding his article, Lincoln declared, “The harpsichordist is eager to play new works … and any harpsichordist [would be] eager to work with the composer in the hope that a fine-sounding work will result.”20
New Music Promoted by Harpsichord Societies and Competitions
In 1980, early music received a special boost of grassroots support with the creation of the Southeastern Historical Keyboard Society (SEHKS). During that same year, there began an ongoing conversation concerning the future viability of the harpsichord as a vital musical instrument, initiated by the Society’s founder and first president, George Lucktenberg (a professor at Converse College in Spartanburg, South Carolina) and a generous wealthy harpsichord enthusiast. Their ongoing discussions led to the establishment of the Aliénor Harpsichord Composition Competitions, dedicated to the fostering of new music. The first of these events occurred in 1982 as part of the society’s annual conference in Tallahassee, Florida. Aliénor’s goal was, and is, to encourage harpsichord music with varying degrees of difficulty: keyboard and ensemble music suitable for both amateur and professional players. Usually organized to occur every four years, nine competitions have been held, resulting in a total of more than 750 new scores, submitted from all parts of the globe. Harpsichordist Elaine Funaro, invited by Dr. Lucktenberg to perform one of the submitted works for the final round of that earliest competition, succeeded him as Aliénor director. Some of the compositions she has recorded or included in subsequent recital programs include works by American composers Edwin McLean, Thomas Donahue, Timothy Tikker, Tom Robin Harris, Dan Locklair, Albert Glinsky, Rudy Davenport, Mark Janello, Paul Whetstone, Asako Hirabayashi, Jeremy Beck, Janine Johnson, Kent Halliday, Glenn Spring, and James Dorsa, as well as works from Penka Kouneva (Bulgaria), Nicole Clément (France), Isaac Nagao (Japan), and Stephen Yates (Australia).
In 1984 a companion society, the Midwestern Historical Keyboard Society (MHKS) was founded by Nanette Lunde of Eau Claire, Wisconsin. The two geographical entities worked well together, often holding joint meetings in various parts of the country. Ultimately both groups merged in 2010 to form the Historical Keyboard Society of North America (HKSNA), with Aliénor director Funaro as its first president.
An Indispensable Book: Harpsichord and Clavichord Music of the Twentieth Century by Frances Bedford
The amazing breadth and depth of modern composition for the harpsichord is perhaps nowhere so immediately apparent, or so completely overwhelming, as it appears in this huge volume published in 1993. Even for one well versed in this repertoire, it is mind-boggling to experience the sheer size of this hefty hardbound tome. A 54-page introductory section prefaces a 608-page catalog of works for harpsichord in every category from solo works to opera scores. The 24-page index of composers for harpsichord comprises 2,256 names – and of course only includes composers active before 1993.
When invited to contribute a foreword to this impressive publication, I accepted with pleasure. The final paragraph of that introductory essay reads:
What has been written for the harpsichord and clavichord in our century, as detailed in Bedford’s carefully researched book, is significant, diverse, and quite staggering in its quantity. Considering that before the revival of the harpsichord no obsolete instrument had ever made a successful return to viable concert life, one might even call this outpouring of new music amazing. The bibliography of this music documents an active period in the harpsichord revival. Best of all, by providing users with such practical details as publication data, duration, and level of difficulty, this book will aid new generations of players in exploring the repertoire. This valuable resource for such an exploration is Frances Bedford’s enduring contribution to the harpsichord and clavichord revival.
On to the Twenty-First Century
So, A.B. (after Bedford), how is one to proceed without a guide? Researching historical documents is surely more accurate than attempting to keep up with a constantly expanding repertoire of new pieces or daring to predict which ones might be standard fare, beloved classics, or totally forgotten for future audiences. Thus, in an effort to acknowledge and include as wide a perspective on the various styles and musical personalities encountered by those brave and adventurous souls who seek the new, newer, and newest compositions, I contacted a small group of colleagues comprising a dozen harpsichord-savvy persons known to have an appreciation for new music. Each was invited to submit a list of favorite contemporary harpsichord pieces. Nine responded, most of them with the suggested ten items (several with more, one with less); so, including my own list of ten, we assembled a repertoire of nearly one hundred titles for inclusion in this current essay. Interestingly, both the Falla and Poulenc concertos appeared on seven of the ten lists; and, only slightly less-cited, Ligeti achieved six of ten for his solo work, Continuum. Is it not indicative of this composer’s genius, that, having produced only three harpsichord compositions with a total duration of slightly less than fourteen minutes, he garnered the highest consensus in the solo harpsichord category?21
Perhaps we could continue this ongoing survey by investigating repertoire selections made by one of the more distinguished performer/composer figures of the present, Jukka Tiensuu (b. 1948). His composition Fantango (1984) appeared on two of the top-ten lists, and we have the composer’s own performance of it on his compact disc The Fantastic Harpsichord (Finlandia FACD357). Fantasy, indeed, beginning with the accompanying booklet in which the photograph of the artist displays only his head, which, reminiscent of the biblical John the Baptist following Salome’s dance at the court of King Herod, seems to be equally separated from his body, although in this case, still open-eyed and resting benignly across the keyboards of a double-manual harpsichord rather than on a silver platter. Other “fantastical” works in this program are from Iannis Xenakis, Salvatore Sciarrino, and Kaija Saariaho (b. 1952), whose 1984–1986 Jardin secret II, a highly regarded piece that includes taped electronic and human sounds, was another title submitted for our tally of new works. To provide a welcome contrast, Tiensuu wisely included works from the baroque by Michel Corrette and Antonio Soler as aural palette cleansers.
Second in this trio of Tiensuu recordings, The Exuberant Harpsichord (Finlandia, FACD 367) fulfills the promise of its title with brilliant readings of all three Ligeti solo pieces, plus Erik Bergman’s Energien (1970), Anneli Arho’s Minos’ (1978), Esa-Pekka Salonen’s YTA IIb (1985–1987), and Usko Meriläinen’s Zimbal (1972), François-Bernard Mâche’s Korwar (1972), and, as contrast, two “ancient pieces” by Thomas Morley.
A third disc in the trilogy, The Frivolous Harpsichord (Ondine, ODE 891–2) presents shorter dance-inspired pieces by William Albright, Naji Hakim, Dan Locklair, Penka Kouneya, Dave Brubeck, Erkki Salmenhaara, Jyrki Linjama, John Cage, Mauricio Kagel, Roberto Sierra, Franzpeter Goebels, Tonino Tesei, François Couperin, Domenico Scarlatti, and Tiensuu’s own Veto. Frivolous it may be, but this vast variety from Fandango to Ragtime and the Blues is exciting, too. It also reminds us of the contributions that some great jazz and pop artists have made to the furthering of harpsichord sounds and awareness in our centuries.22
Popular Concertos by Gorecki and Glass
The Polish modernist composer Henryk Gorecki (1933–2010) described his nine-minute, two-movement Concerto for Harpsichord and (Solo) Strings (1980) as a “prank.” Influenced by the vitality of Polish folk music, this short and athletic minimalist work is dedicated to harpsichordist Elizabeth Chojnacka, who reported that each of her many performances of the compact piece resulted in an enthusiastic audience’s demand for an encore; thus, this work should be considered a rousing popular success.
Philip Glass (b. 1937) also contributed a delightful audience favorite with his twenty-three-minute Concerto for Harpsichord (2002). Three movements with obvious groundings in baroque concerto form and content but still of the new century with its jazzy 7/8 metered finale, it was premiered (on short notice) by Jillon Stoppels Dupree, who credited the composer as particularly sensitive to instrumental balances, always seeking to allow an unamplified harpsichord to be heard. She commented that when the first rehearsal demonstrated an overly heavy scoring for the lyrical second movement (the longest of the three), Glass immediately decided to reduce the orchestration to one player on a part.23
Moderate Modernism: A Gentler Music
Elizabeth Chojnacka was also the dedicatee of a well-thought-out and atmospheric solo piece, Rain Dreaming by Toru Takemitsu (1930–1996). However, this particular commission from the Aliénor Competition Awards received its first performance by SEHKS president George Lucktenberg during that Society’s 1986 meeting in Washington, DC.
Henri Dutilleux (1916–2013) did not support “aesthetic terrorism” but rather forged his own more individual way with colorfully evocative music. Les Citations for oboe, double bass, harpsichord, and percussion was a two-movement work begun in 1985, to which Dutilleux was adding movements until his death. His “citations” were quotations from modern composers Benjamin Britten and Jehan Alain, and Clément Janequin from the early sixteenth century, thus spanning both geographic and temporal boundaries for his musical inspiration.24
British composer Stephen Dodgson (1924–2013) was known particularly for the high quality of his compositions utilizing plucked-string instruments (guitar, harp, and harpsichord). That the latter instrument inspired many pieces might coincide with his choice for a life partner, the harpsichordist Jane Clark. Of his solo works the best known are five volumes, each comprising six Inventions (1955–1985) and the larger-scale Sonata-Divisions (1982), dedicated to his wife. My own favorite is Carillon for Two Harpsichords (1967), and not far behind that scintillating work on the hit parade are several delightful movements from the First Suite for Clavichord: “Second Air,” “Tambourin,” and “Last Fanfare” – all three of which are equally at home on a harpsichord.
Some Personal Commissions
In 1961 young Neely Bruce (b. 1944), a first-year student at the University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music, was the first composer from whom I received a harpsichord piece (Nine Variations on an Original Theme). The next appeared as an unsolicited manuscript that arrived in my Southern Methodist University mailbox: Rudy Shackelford’s Le Tombeau de Stravinsky (1970). A commission to Stephen Dodgson resulted in his Duo for Harp and Harpsichord; two pleas to organist/composer colleague Gerald Near (b. 1942) resulted in his lovely Triptych, and a stunning Concerto for Harpsichord and String Orchestra (1980). Others included Ross Lee Finney’s sole work for harpsichord, Hexachord for Harpsichord (1984), and nine works by Rudy Davenport (b. 1948), culminating in his poignant Songs of the Bride for Soprano, Oboe, and Harpsichord. Treasured and oft-performed works by Glenn Spring (b. 1939), first encountered in 1990, include the captivating miniatures Trifles and Bela Bagatelles and the longer works In Memoriam Georgia O’Keeffe, Images from Wallace Stevens (for violin and harpsichord) and a 2006 suite, Hommages, comprising Spring’s moving tributes to composers he thought of as mentors: Schumann, Bartók, Debussy, Stravinsky, and Mahler.25
Quite a lot of worthwhile works have been published during the first two decades of the twenty-first century. Among them are William Bolcom’s (b. 1938) Le fantôme du clavecin (2005), a modern evocation of the French ordre comprising nine movements, and, in 2015, his charming miniature, The Vicarage Garden. From Frank Ferko (b. 1950), Triptych (2000) – toccata, theme and five variations culminating in a fine four-voice fugue. Timothy Broege (b. 1947) quotes Dowland’s Lachrymae in his A Sad Pavan, excerpted from Songs Without Words for winds, voice, and harpsichord.
Shadow Journey: Twenty-First-Century Music for Harpsichord
The British Harpsichord Society, founded in 2002, launched its first contemporary music competition one decade later. Shadow Journey is the title of the compact disc recording that comprises the top choices from the more than ninety submissions representing eighteen countries. Included as well is a representative piece from each of the three final-round adjudicators: Larry Goves, Rob Keeley, and Gary Carpenter. The winning composers, Alessandro Ponti, Patrick John Jones, Aled Smith, Ivan Bozicevic, Gavin Wayte, Enno Kastens, Jung Sun Kang, Junhae Lee, Thomas Donahue, Jürgen Kraus, and Satoru Ikeda, might well be among the early representatives in a twenty-first-century successor to the Bedford Catalog. Stay tuned!
A Trio of Women Composers
Léonie Jenkins (1925–2000) pursued a fulltime career in medicine but also found time to enjoy her other love, music. The Elements for Two Harpsichords was first performed publicly in 1994. Six short movements depict Earth, Metal, Water, Wood, and Fire, prefaced by a musical representation of The Void, which returns, referenced in the work’s final measures.
Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (b. 1939), the first woman to earn a Juilliard doctorate (DMA) in composition (1975) and to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Music (1983), wrote her Fantasy for Harpsichord in that same year.
Another brilliant composer who also holds a doctorate from Juilliard, Victoria Bond (b. 1945) seems to have created the perfect companion piece for Françaix’s insects! Her Peculiar Plants for Harpsichord, winner of the 2009 Walter Hinrichsen award from the publishing firm C. F. Peters, is a compellingly dramatic set of pieces with accompanying poetry by the work’s dedicatee, harpsichordist Kenneth Cooper, and the composer. The introductory verse ends with this quatrain:
Twenty-two minutes of music and clever verse form vivid auditory portrayals of the Strangler Fig, Venus Flytrap, Creeping Moss, Blushing Violet, Deadly Nightshade, Ghost Orchid, and Ragweed!
A Postscript from Vincent Persichetti
I don’t miss an orchestra when I’m composing for harpsichord. Most of the harpsichord players I know aren’t very active. They spend their time playing figured bass, accompanying other instruments. I try to give them something else to do. They can play as loud as an orchestra, be whatever they want to be. Meanwhile I am on to another … Harpsichord Sonata. Don’t worry, you certainly do not have to play them all at once … I love the medium. Do you?26
Yes, Vincent, you may rest in peace: I do love the harpsichord! And I continue to seek out new music for this queen of instruments. There is always something new and exciting, for “Creativity will always express itself.”27
