Two concerts featuring harpsichordists Skip Sempé and Olivier Fortin provided ample reason for making the trip to Michigan's Grand Valley State University to attend the 2004 annual meeting of the Midwestern Historical Keyboard Society. Slightly fewer than 50 members did just that from May 20-22; they were rewarded with a carefully calibrated schedule of events, beautifully organized and efficiently administered by program chair and host, Grand Valley State's University Organist Gregory Crowell.
The opening duo-harpsichord recital featured an all-French program comprising works by Chambonnières, Lully, le Roux, and François Couperin, symmetrically framed by six compositions of Jean-Philippe Rameau: a keyboard transcription of Air pour les esclaves africains from his opera Les Indes Galantes, and five individual movements from the Pièces de claveçin en concerts. These included an especially arresting performance of La Forqueray, one full of verve, agogic surprises, and unexpected accelerandi, all contributing to a characterization of the gambist-composer more willful than usually encountered, but fully in keeping with Sempé's reputation for innovative interpretations. Displaying a splendid partnership, the duo drew rich sounds from two harpsichords by Douglas Maple, optimally heard in the resonant acoustic of the University's Cook Dewitt Center--a high, narrow white plaster hall with a wall of glass windows affording a view of tall trees and spring greenery.
For the closing concert the harpsichordists were joined by violinist Olivier Brault and gambists Susie Naper and Margaret Little from Sempé's ensembles Capriccio Stravagante and Les Voix Humaines in works by Buxtehude (Sonata in G, opus 1/2 and two overly-fleet organ works transcribed for two harpsichords, Ciaccona in e and Passacaglia in d); Schenk (Ciacona in A and a Sonate for two violas da gamba); Biber (the virtuoso Passacaglia for solo violin); Kühnel; Reinken (Bach's transcription of an Adagio from his Hortus Musicus, additionally transcribed for two harpsichords); and a culminating Germanic "hoedown," the exhilarating Fechstschule [Fencing School] by Johann Schmelzer, replacing a second Buxtehude Sonata listed in the program.
The meeting's topic, Music of the Netherlands and Scandinavia, gave focus to the well-paced events of Friday and Saturday. Judith Conrad, in gentle affirmation of Greg Crowell's rhetorical query "What could be better than to begin a morning with clavichord music?," opened the morning events with her well-chosen and lovingly played program of post-Reformation music from the Baltic trade routes, performed on her new triple-fretted clavichord by Andreas Hermert of Berlin (based on a Swedish instrument of 1688). At the harpsichord Helen Skuggedal Reed presented Buxtehude's dance suite on the chorale Auf meinen lieben Gott (BuxWV 179), convincingly relating its five movements to the five stanzas of the chorale, as both words and music progressed from darkness to light. Asako Hirabayashi followed with a program of unfamiliar Swedish harpsichord music by Gustav Düben (a dance suite), Johann Agrell (whose Sonata IV began well with a virtuoso, Scarlattian Allegro, but became less interesting in the succeeding three movements), and Hinrich Philip Johnsen (Sonata V), with its expressive Adagio sensitively rendered.
The day's first violent thunderstorm pummeled the roof of the recital hall, making it a challenge to hear all of John Koster's informative illustrated lecture on harpsichord making in the Low Countries before and after Ruckers. We all appreciated the forethought of the planners, however, when all was dry enough for open-air enjoyment of Julianne Vanden Wyngaard's carillon concert, graciously played for the group shortly before she was scheduled to leave for another recital in Washington, DC.
Calvert Johnson gave a useful introductory talk on English and Dutch psalm accompaniments for congregational singing, a topic taken further both practically and lustily in the evening program, a Genevan Psalter Sing, with organists Pamela Ruiter-Feenstra and Christiaan Teeuwsen skillfully evoking jolly sounds from the splendid 1981 Noack tracker instrument of Grace Episcopal Church. Non-congregational psalm settings were interspersed, courtesy of the Calvin College Alumni Choir, conducted by Pearl Shangkuan. A thunder crash and an exceedingly-near lightning strike prefaced Nature's second cloudburst of the day, giving percussive accent to the choir's first notes of Sweelinck's Psalm 65. At that point there were no somnolent singers or listeners in the church!
MHKS founding president Nanette G. Lunde presented a well-played sampling from Arietta con 50 Variazioni per il Clavicembalo by Israel Gottlieb Wernicke and a Sonatina by Johann Daniel Berlin in her Saturday morning program of early keyboard music from Norway. The "Gottlieb Variations" occasionally seemed to attempt emulation of the masterful Goldberg Variations of J. S. Bach, but save for two charming double counterpoint movements (22 and 23) and a March in French Overture Style (number 42) there would be little reason to hear them again.
The program Passion and Repose: an Italian Musical Tableau gave a welcome opportunity to share the fascinating and revelatory repertoire played by the ensemble La Gente d'Orfeo (Daniel Foster, violin; Kiri Tollaksen, cornetto; Debra Lonergan, cello; and Martha Folts, organ and virginal). Splendid works by Scarini, Dario Castello, Biagio Marini, and Giovanni Picchi were elegantly articulated and lovingly presented. Of special poignancy was Folts' dedication of Picchi's Toccata to the recently departed builder of her virginal, Peter S. O'Donnell. A second, if even gentler, highlight of the afternoon was Gregory Crowell's program on his newly acquired Dolmetsch-Chickering clavichord (number 6, built in 1906), which he shared with soprano Kathryn Stieler. Together they created true chamber music as she scaled her attractive voice to the instrument's dynamic, remaining seated as she sang. Johann Krieger's Es ist mir von Natur gegeben was particularly apt, with its rapturous three-stanza expression of appreciation and love for the clavichord.
Todd Decker's brilliant exploration of Domenico Scarlatti's School of Virtuosity: the Essercizi per Gravicembalo proceeded from his viewpoint that these thirty published sonatas are best understood as a methodical progression of technical challenges. His lucid handout supported this thesis, and his competent ease in demonstrating even the most technically challenging of the Essercizi at the harpsichord certainly impressed this listener. A doctoral student in historical musicology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mr. Decker is a gifted younger scholar-performer, whom I hope to hear again in the very near future.
David Pickett's humorous and interesting talk on some of the ways a composer's notation may affect our understanding of the score began with a quotation from British comedians Flanders and Swann, proceeded through Telemann's graphic scribing of a Lilliputian Chaconne (in tiny notes) and his contrastingly 24/1 metered Brobdingnagian Minuet, concluding with a short foray into the works of Brahms, and the composer's brief use of the alto clef in the opus 122 organ chorale prelude O Gott, du frommer Gott.
Beside concerts and papers during this varied two-day meeting we heard a panel discussion on practical matters in current early music performance, with comments from Skip Sempé and David Sutherland; many of us enjoyed walking through the forested landscapes and seeing the well-chosen and abundant outdoor sculptures on the relatively-new Grand Valley University campus; and we benefited once again from sharing communal meals, included in the low registration fee. Many of us chose to lodge in a campus dormitory (for a very reasonable amount). The only disadvantage to this arrangement was the unavailability of a nearby campus breakfast spot. To remedy this problem Chairman Crowell delivered bagels and cream cheese to the dorm before Saturday's schedule began--a much appreciated and thoughtful gesture.
In addition to the concert harpsichords by Douglas Maple, builders Ben Bechtel and Ed Kottick displayed examples of their work. Numerically, pride of place went to a bevy of bonny clavichords: instruments by Thomas Wolf, Doug Maple, David Sutherland, Roger Plaxton; and, just arrived from England, Crowell's newest acquisition, a double-fretted clavichord by Peter Bavington were all available for trying out.
At the Society's annual business meeting MHKS President Bruce Glenny announced that the Midwesterners would meet with the Southeastern Historical Keyboard Society in 2005. The next gathering is set for March 3-5 at Stetson University, in Deland, Florida.
Traveling to Grand Rapids, planned as a simple (if early) direct flight from Dallas to Michigan, became more complicated when storms over the Great Lakes forced the cancellation of that non-stop flight. Twelve hours and an additional airport later, slightly groggy and very hungry, I made it. On the plus side, however, my luggage was already there. You win some, you lose some, but this MHKS annual meeting of 2004 was worth the trip.
