Remembering Igor
Igor Kipnis, performer on the harpsichord, clavichord, fortepiano, and the modern piano, prolific and celebrated recording artist, born September 27, 1930 in Berlin; died January 23, 2002, in West Redding, Connecticut.
Bare statistics provide the "bookends." But what of the life? The following pastiche of notes and clippings from my "Igor File" should help to give a partial picture of an engaging musical career, as well as a personality not devoid of humor.
* From unused research notes for my book Harpsichord in America comes this notice, surely the first public one for the future artist who would become such an expert at the public relations game.
The Musical Courier, 8 November 1930, page 18: IGOR Kipnis Arrives in America. Alexander Kipnis [the great Ukrainian bass singer] had to obtain a special Russian passport to bring his three-week-old son to the U. S. (aboard the SS Europa).
* Kipnis profiles himself as a contributing editor of Stereo Review (February 1977, page 138) and tells how he first discovered the harpsichord:
After detailing his musical ancestry (including maternal grandfather Heniot Levy, head of the piano department of the American Conservatory in Chicago, uncle Hans Heniot, one of the first conductors of the Utah Symphony, and, of course, his father, leading bass of the Metropolitan Opera) Igor described a youthful project: earning enough money to buy Edwin Fischer's piano recording of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, which, to his initial dismay, contained two additional records of the second English Suite played by Wanda Landowska on the harpsichord. But from hearing this "filler" recording came an interest in trying Landowska's strange instrument. This happened during his years at Harvard, where, majoring in social relations, he got the opportunity to put his hands on a harpsichord in Randall Thompson's Handel course.
* My first correspondence with Kipnis:
A letter from Igor, dated March 21, 1971, answered my query about his not including Hugo Distler's Christmas Story in a list of suggested Christmas music recordings for a Stereo Review article, and noted his availability to play a solo harpsichord recital in Dallas for the 1972 national convention of the American Guild of Organists. [Although his manager Albert Kay was able to offer a generous discount from Kipnis' regular fee, it was still a considerable amount since the harpsichordist would have to transport his instrument halfway across the United States. The convention program committee felt that it could not budget that much for a "non-organ" event.]
* A report (by William Bender) on Kipnis' debut with the New York Philharmonic (Time, 13 January 1975):
"To perform [baroque] music the player must have a flawless ability to shape the form, then a knack for making embellishments sound both natural and exciting. Kipnis has both these talents in abundance. Indeed, it is doubtful whether any harpsichordist now performing can match his particular combination of formal restraint, interpretive flair and sheer energy. Certainly that was the case last week as Kipnis made a successful New York Philharmonic debut playing two diverse works under Conductor Pierre Boulez--Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 and Falla's Harpsichord Concerto (1926)."
* Kipnis' curiosity about the early 20th-century harpsichord repertoire lead to occasional letters between us concerning this topic of mutual interest. His 1976 Angel recording of favorite encore pieces (Bach Goes to Town) included Francis Thomé's Rigodon (c. 1893), which still holds a place of honor as the earliest-known solo work of the modern harpsichord revival. Igor generously responded to my search for publication information, enabling me to find my own antiquarian copy of the work.
* In Dallas in the early 1980's for a performance of Francis Poulenc's Concert Champêtre (for which the Symphony rented my 1968 Dowd harpsichord), Igor asked me, at dinner, if I had any idea how to find the score for Duke Ellington's only harpsichord piece. I was able to return his earlier favor by sharing the facsimile of A Single Petal of a Rose (found in Ule Troxler's catalog Antoinette Vischer [Basel, 1976]). Igor had made his own arrangement of Ellington's opus by the time he came back to Texas to play at Austin College in Sherman in September 1985, and enjoyed playing it. Jazz was a favored pastime.
* It took Igor of the eagle eye to observe the surprisingly early date on Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco's English Suite (1909) when he was reviewing Frances Bedford's indispensible catalog Harpsichord and Clavichord Music of the 20th Century, and it was he who followed through on the history of this first solo harpsichord work actually to be composed in the 20th century.
* The same eagle eyes read my "Murder and the Harpsichord" (first installment) in The Diapason (July 1991). Igor sent me another excerpt which included his name in author Joseph Hansen's sixth Dave Brandstetter mystery, Gravedigger. And, in typical Igor fashion, the accompanying note was written on City of Leavenworth (!)-Of-fice of the City Attorney-letterhead, un-doubtedly acquired during a concert visit to Kansas.
* "A Musician's Hobby Is Behind the Camera" read the title of an article in The New York Times for January 21, 1990. Valerie Cruice detailed the background of the 41 photographs (an accidental number or a Bach tribute?) in Igor's exhibition of his photographs at the Mark Twain Library, Redding, Connecticut. Portraits (many of them of conductors at work), buildings, flora and fauna, abstracts, and "scenics," the photos were taken between 1945 and 1989. A simple program-fold "catalog" of the exhibit (which Igor sent me) includes some charming vignettes of the circumstances under which the pictures were taken. My favorite, accompanying a portrait of Yousuf Karsh and Alexander Kipnis:
"When I recently rediscovered the slightly damaged negative of the photo I had shot at the age of fifteen, I called up the secretary at Karsh's New York office to inquire just for my own information as to the exact date of his session with my father. Several days later, to my great astonishment the photographer himself was on the phone, giving me the information and apparently delighted that such a picture still existed (Karsh, now 81, was 37 at the time of that shooting). My wife and I made a date to have dinner with Karsh and his wife, Estrellita, in New York, and at the Café des Artistes, after having given him a copy of that photograph I summoned enough nerve to ask whether he might consider doing my portrait. ‘Yes, I would be interested,' he replied, ‘but only on the condition that your son, Jeremy, takes a picture of the two of us after I have finished, just as you did when I photographed your father.'"
* Communication from Igor, with an inscription--For your "funny items" file:
Orono, Maine: Noted harpsichord soloist Igor Kipnis will perform with the New Stockholm Chamber Orchestra, conducted by James DePriest . . . The performance features a money-back guarantee. "This is an opportunity for people who might never have attended a classical music event in their lives to try something new with no risk at all," said Joel Katz, executive director of the Maine Center for the Arts. [Bangor Daily News, 1-2 April 1989].
Life, unfortunately, does not imitate art with a "money-back guarantee." It is unlikely that Igor will send any more whimsical communications, unless he is able to find that elusive link which enables him to join the "E-mail from the Hereafter" crowd. But having left a plethora of recorded performances, his music-making will be with us in perpetuity. The many who were introduced to the instrument and its music by this individualistic player have much for which to thank the harpsichord's "Prince Igor."
