Remembering Wm. Neil Roberts
(1929–2011)
Contemplating an invitation to play a harpsichord recital in California and not knowing where to find a suitable instrument, I turned to Gustav Leonhardt for some advice. His response, “You can’t go wrong with an instrument by William Neil Roberts and Anthony Brazier,” led me to that Los Angeles team of harpsichord builders and early music promoters. Diary entries show that my initial query to Roberts and Brazier resulted in their delivering a very fine small Flemish double harpsichord for the 1981 recital at Chapman College, south of the city, as well as an invitation to play the March 8 and 9, 1980 solo recitals for their Harpsichord Center series in Los Angeles.
Thus began an association that resulted in my inviting the more-experienced Neil to help with planning and to share teaching assignments for the first Southern Methodist University Harpsichord Workshop at the school’s New Mexico campus, the Fort Burgwin Research Center near Taos. In August 1988 Neil and Tony drove cross-country from the Pacific Coast to “the land of enchantment,” transporting not only two of their instruments to complement the ones being brought from Dallas, but also, in a bit of luck, serving as emergency transportation for Neil’s student Ed Petron, a participant in that and each subsequent workshop, whose aging Volkswagen had given up the ghost outside Albuquerque as he drove eastward, fortuitously noticed by Tony as the Harpsichord Center van nearly sped by the stranded motorist.
The instruments were, indeed, superb. So was the teaching. I particularly recall Neil’s inspired connection of the term “fringing” (a non-simultaneity of bass and upper chord notes) with a possible Anglicization of the word “frenching,” as indeed this technique for softening certain textures at the harpsichord is a particularly French one. After the lengthy closing recital given by students, Neil shared some memories of similar workshop recitals past, including the daunting recall of an already very long California program that morphed into a marathon when the final player decided she wanted to play the entire Goldberg Variations—with repeats! Both from experience and this anecdote we learned to put strict time limits in place for such closing events!
Invited back for the next summer offering at Fort Burgwin, Neil was sidelined by an attack of kidney stones only days before the event, but hoped to be able to travel. It was not to be: an early morning call from Tony on day one of the summer program relayed the bad news that they would be unable to make the trip. I was fortunate to find Susan Ferré as an immediate replacement, but with the largest enrollment of all the seventeen workshops, and only the two harpsichords that we had brought from Dallas, this extremely wet week proved a challenge for all of us. The Roberts-Brazier duo was sorely missed.
Neil and Tony did have one subsequent summer outing at the Fort during the first segment of a two-week workshop scheduled in July 1990. I did not observe Neil’s insightful interaction with the small group of students, since he had made it clear that he did not want me to attend his classes, but I remember the sensitive French works on a duo flute and harpsichord recital with Tony as the highlight of the week’s faculty concert offerings. I had assumed that most of the students would find the opportunity—to learn both from Neil’s teaching and from a second week in which Susan Ferré would coach them in continuo playing with her Texas Baroque Ensemble artists—an irresistible package deal. But, in reality, half of the class enrolled in either one or the other week, meaning that our expenses doubled while our tuition income basically halved, and we closed the books deeply “in the red.” A double session was not offered again.
The national convention of the American Guild of Organists was held in Los Angeles in summer 2004. It served as a focal point around which to organize pre- and post-meeting stays with Neil and Tony, memorable both for the vocal interjections of Gus, their parrot, and for the opportunity to observe Neil’s new interest in non-harpsichord-related painting. During our visit Neil was frequently to be found in the studio, working on his evocative watercolors. We departed Burbank’s Bob Hope Airport that July with new purchases for the Palmer-Putman art collection: the framed sketch of a friend relaxing with his three dachshunds, and a limited edition signed photograph of Neil’s Portrait of Dr. Bell, violinist Joshua Bell’s psychologist father Alan, a work that continues to elicit strong reactions from those who see it. If the eyes truly are the gateway to the soul, Neil’s concentration on the upper part of Dr. Bell’s face is certainly apt, striking, and unexpected. The unique 2002 painting belongs to Los Angeles collectors Kay and Jack Lachter; thus, the rest of us, including Dr. Bell’s family, must remain satisfied with a print edition of ten numbered examples.
Neil was born in Iowa on June 2, 1929. He succumbed to lymphoma in Los Angeles on April 7, 2011. Concerts had taken him to central Europe, Taiwan, Tahiti, Mexico, and the Casals Festival in Puerto Rico, in addition to the continental United States. Memorable career moments included frequent appearances on American Public Media, especially those on Bill McLaughlin’s “Saint Paul Sunday.”
Roberts’ musical growth was influenced by harpsichordists Alice Ehlers, Ralph Kirkpatrick, Gustav Leonhardt, and the many artists sponsored by the Southern California Baroque Association, of which he was president. His solo harpsichord recordings covered a wide range of composers and styles: Byrd to Bach, Scott Joplin rags (“even before they were discovered by E. Power Biggs,” Neil pointed out), and his beloved French repertoire, including period transcriptions from Lully and other solo keyboard works by D’Anglebert, played stylishly on two then-recent Roberts & Brazier instruments for a 1981 Nonesuch disc. Obviously, it is extremely rare for a professional player to build his own harpsichord. (I can recall only the young Tom Pixton doing a similar thing.)
Penning a laconic dedication on my complimentary copy of that long-playing record, Neil wrote, “I’d better get a good review!”
Accomplished, dear friend!
Finally, to complete an arch form of associations, my May 2011 harpsichord recital in Santa Rosa, California, was played on the 1988 Franco-Flemish double instrument belonging to Concert Artist Cooperative founder and director Beth Zucchino. It seemed appropriate to add one of the most intensely moving commemorative pieces from the 17th-century solo repertoire to this program, Louis Couperin’s ineffably beautiful F-major Tombeau de Mr. Blancrocher, as my way of remembering Wm. Neil Roberts.
Among Neil’s gifted students, two outstanding ones, now professionally active in the San Francisco Bay Area, are Gilbert Martinez (attracted to that first Fort Burgwin Workshop through Neil’s influence) and Katherine Roberts Perl (who continues Neil’s rare combination of distinguished harpsichord performance and skillful technical expertise in the maintenance of the instrument), both of whom have contributed to this memoir. Further information was offered by David Calhoun of Seattle; Elaine Funaro, through the Aliénor Newsletter for Spring 2011, viewable at www.harpsichord-now.org; and by Neil’s business and life partner, Anthony Brazier, who survives him.
Comments and news items are always welcome. Address them to Dr. Larry Palmer, Division of Music, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX 75275. E-mails to [email protected].
