More Duphly
November’s column on Jacques Duphly and his accompanied harpsichord pieces motivated two readers to send me their welcome compact disc recordings of solo harpsichord works by the 18th-century French composer.
San Francisco-based harpsichordist Katherine Roberts Perl (www.kathyrobertsperl.com) serves up 68 minutes of Duphly favorites played on John Phillips’ superb replica of a 1707 Nicholas Dumont double harpsichord. Her chosen repertoire comprises five dance movements and the titled works La de Belombre, La Damanzy, Les Grâces, La Vanlo, La de la Tour, Médée, and La Forqueray, concluding with the composer’s most extended piece, his Chaconne in F (Dorian Recordings DOR-93169, recorded in 1996, released in 1998).
Yves-G. Préfontaine’s two-disc traversal of Duphly’s Pièces de Clavecin (ATMA Classique ACD2 2716) was recorded in November 2014 and issued in 2015. The Canadian artist utilizes a very lovely Hemsch-based two-manual instrument by Montréal builder Yves Beaupré. The extensive program, organized by keys, includes 27 works culled from all four books of Duphly’s harpsichord music.
Préfontaine also performs the lengthy F major/minor Chaconne, as does harpsichordist Medea Bindewald (on her Coviello Classics disc, cited in the November article). In comparing play-lists, I was fascinated to note the wide variance in tempi for this composition: Binewald plays it in 7 and a half minutes; Perl 8 minutes, 16 seconds; and Préfontaine 9 and a half minutes—wide enough variance that it sent me to the keyboard for my own read-through (since each of the recordings had seemed faster than I would play the piece).
I do not mean this to be critical of these fleet performances: references to Chaconne tempi in several widely-quoted sources (L’Affilard, 1705, and Pajot, 1732, for instance) suggest quick beats when these 18th-century remarks are translated into modern metronome markings. I was comforted to come across a 2007 reference to the findings of Dutch musicologist Jan van Biezen, who suggests that perhaps we read these arcane writings wrongly and points out that if we were to adjust the suggested speed to include both the back and forth movements of a mechanical device we might come closer to the more stately tempi that the music itself seems to suggest: approximately one beat equaling 78 or 79 MM (www.janvanbiezen.nl/articles.html—accessed “Tempo of French Baroque Dances,” February 28, 2016).
I have noticed for several decades that I now prefer slower tempi than I did in my younger years. Indeed students became quite used to my “I’d take that a bit slower” remark, especially when dealing with baroque music. It is a normal progression (or regression, if you wish): as we age, we move somewhat more slowly. I prefer to allow the music itself an unpressured time to unfold; the Chaconne seems to require both elegance and grace. Surely life must have moved more slowly in an age that did not have mechanized travel or instant communication. (I hope it is not too suggestive of a bad pun to conclude these thoughts with a phrase that composer Duphly might have understood: “chacun à son goût” [“each to one’s own taste”]?)
Two more mystery novels
The harpsichord is mentioned thirteen times (the clavichord only once) in author Imogen Robertson’s novel Anatomy of Murder, set in the London of 1781. This second book featuring unlikely forensic sleuths Mrs. Harriet Westerman and Gabriel Crowther is a well-written page-turner dealing with the British aftermath of the American Revolution, skullduggery that besets the (fictional) His Majesty’s Theatre production of a new Italian opera starring a phenomenal soprano of unexpected parentage and a favorite continental castrato singer, plus the daily joys and sorrows of both titled and lower-class inhabitants of the fast-expanding and radically changing urban metropolis. (Pamela Dorman/Viking Books, 2012. ISBN 978-0-670-02317-2).
A visit to Half Price Books, Dallas’s mega-emporium of previously owned reading material, resulted in the acquisition of another work from the pen of Donna Leone, the American expatriate author who resides in Venice. While musical references in Willful Behavior, the eleventh of her Commissario Guido Brunetti series (2002) are less frequent than those in the works I cited in my January 2016 column, there were four that stood out in this volume: an analogy to a Haydn Symphony, a similarity to a Scarlatti oratorio, the mention of Vivaldi’s baptismal church in Venice, and a plot twist reference to Puccini’s opera Tosca. Ms. Leone continues to be both lover and patron of classical music and her books serve as welcome guides to her adopted city for any musical armchair traveler.
Semibrevity
Guest blogger Mandy Macdonald writes about Nelly Chaplin who performed on her 1775 Jacobus and Abraham Kirkman two-manual harpsichord early in the 20th century (illustrated with a picture of a similar 1755 Kirkman now in the collection of historic instruments at Musical Instrument Museums, Edinburgh). Free access is available at www.semibrevity.com, where you should also scroll down to read the amazing story of T. W. Taphouse, British collector of early instruments, who purchased his first Shudi and Broadwood 1773 harpsichord at age 19, in 1857!
The Semibrevity website continues to broaden our knowledge of these largely unfamiliar early proponents of early music on early instruments in its well-researched and beautifully illustrated postings.
Comments are always welcome. Address them to Dr. Larry Palmer [email protected] or 10125 Cromwell Drive, Dallas, Texas 75229.
