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Harpsichord News

April 12, 2003
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Letter to the harpsichord editor

Dear Mr. Palmer,

I don't often comment on articles in The Diapason, that is,
in a positive manner, but I don't know when I have enjoyed any writing as much
as yours on Momo Aldrich ["Momo!" in the August 1997 issue]. I assume
it was because I knew both Mr. And Mrs. Aldrich in the mid-50s. I worked in a music store in Palo Alto and met Mr. Aldrich when he watched me hang a picture of Landowska seated at a Pleyel. Mr. Aldrich asked me if I knew who the
"Lady" was; I said it was Wanda Landowska. He was surprised that I
knew.

At this point in time I knew Mr. Aldrich was on the faculty
at Stanford, but not much more. Shortly after that a friend also on the faculty
at Stanford saw me talking to Mr. Aldrich and later told me who he was, and
that he had studied with Landowska in France. Still later I read an article
about Landowska and it talked about Momo, but it took an organ recital at the
Stanford Chapel for me to meet Mrs. Aldrich, who he introduced to me as Momo.
Then the wheels started to turn.

I rebuilt several harpsichords in the next few years and after I completed the first one, and I might add that I was very proud of it, I asked Mr. Aldrich if he would play it and tell me what was right and what was
wrong.  This he did and he found
very little that was right. He made a list for me to follow and he came a
couple times a week to check on my work. Finally it suited him and he brought
in a student who wanted to buy a harpsichord. She liked it and it was sold.
Later he asked me to call on a friend in Palo Alto with a Neupert harpsichord.
It had all sorts of problems.  Mr.
Aldrich made a few suggestions, but it was Mrs. A. who came up with answers.
She told me that Landowska regularly rubbed a bar of soap on the sides of any
jack that seemed sluggish to her. And that she also trimmed plectra that she
thought were digging too much with a pair of fingernail clippers. I ended up
using both on the Neupert.

I have always felt that I learned much from both of the
Aldrichs, both in working on the harpsichord and in learning to hear it
"sing" as Landowska called it.

Some years later I was working for a company building
automated commercial broadcasting equipment. We were dubbing classical music
from records to tape and inserting tones and so on for it to control the
equipment. We had hired a recording engineer who had done much work in the
eastern part of the States and one day he happened to mention recording
Landowska. I asked him about it as she recorded at home. style="mso-spacerun: yes">  He said that in one session they
detected an "extraneous" note that didn't sound like anything even a
Pleyel might have made. When they played it back for Landowska, she listened
carefully, and finally shrugged her shoulders and said, "I broke
wind," and walked off.

Anyway, again thanks for bringing back a lot of deeply
seated and very fond memories of two people who left many impressions on me
that still guide my thoughts in my work today . . .

Richard Warburton

Skykomish, WA

English early music losses

Carl Dolmetsch (23 August 1911-11 July 1997)

Carl Frederick Dolmetsch was the second son of early music
pioneer Arnold Dolmetsch.  His
mother, Mabel, a leading writer about early dance, was Arnold's third wife.
After his father's death in 1940 Carl succeeded him as director of the
Haslemere Festival. Carl Dolmetsch was best known as a player of the recorder.
Wartime production of plastics in the Dolmetsch workshop led to his creation,
after World War II, of the Dolmetsch plastic recorder, an instrument used by
millions of school children. Carl Dolmetsch also expanded the modern repertoire
for recorder by commissioning more than fifty new works from composers such as
Lennox Berkeley, Edmund Rubbra, and Jean Françaix.

Ruth Dyson (28 March 1917-16 August 1997)

Professor of Harpsichord and Piano at the Royal College of
Music from 1964, Dyson, of Dorking, had a long association with fellow townsman
Vaughan Williams (who was a patient of her doctor father). As Leith Hill Music
Festival Librarian in the 1930s Dyson had the duty of erasing pencil marks from
orchestral parts, and she particularly treasured the telephone call from
Vaughan Williams in which he queried, "Now, my dear, you haven't
forgotten, have you, that we're meeting on Monday at 10 to rub out the whole of
Creation?"

Dyson recorded the clavichord works of Herbert Howells, the
principal keyboard duets before Mozart, and particularly loved the music of the
English Virginalists and English Baroque composers Purcell, Arne, Chilcot, and
Blow.  Her long association with
the Dolmetsch family is documented on the compact disc, The Dolmetsch Years,
Programme Six (Allegro PCD 1018), although not all of her selections played on
the clavichord are correctly identified. (She plays C. P. E. Bach's Variations
on Les Folies, Howells' Dyson's Delight 
and Hughes' Ballet, and, as track 9, C. P. E. Bach's Fantasia in C
minor  from the 18 Probestücke
of 1753, not Lambert's Fireside [Howells].)

Ruth Dyson died of a heart attack following a particularly
happy week of teaching at the Dolmetsch Summer School.

George Malcolm (28 February 1917-10 October 1997)

Well-known as a harpsichordist of brilliant technique, whose
repertoire included the English Virginalists and the major 18th-century
composers, Malcolm was also Master of Music (1947-59) at Westminster Cathedral,
where his work with the choir of men and boys was highly regarded. style="mso-spacerun: yes">  He was named CBE in 1965 and, in 1966,
an honorary Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, from which he held degrees in
classics and music.

International Competitions in Bruges

The 12th Harpsichord and 6th Fortepiano Competitions (with a
first prize of 150,000/100,000 Belgian Francs) will be held this summer in
Bruges, Belgium from July 24 through August 1.  The competition, open to players born after December 31,
1965, will be judged by Francoise Lengellé, Wolfgang Brunner, Jesper
Christensen, Johan Huys, Gustav Leonhardt, Davitt Moroney, and Ludger
Rémy.  Information and
application forms (due by April 15), Festival van Vlaanderen-Brugge, C.
Mansionstraat 30, B-8000 Brugge/Belgium. 
Telephone 00.32.50/33 22 83; fax 34 52 04.

Clavichord Symposium in Magnano

The third biennial International Clavichord Symposium (24-28
September) co-chaired by Bernard Brauchli and Christopher Hogwood, was held in
its unique setting of Magnano in northern Italy. Special interest centered on
the pedal clavichord built by John Barnes and Joel Speerstra and expertly
demonstrated by Mr. Speerstra. Another unusual instrument was the style="mso-spacerun: yes">  copy of a rare octave clavichord after
Praetorius, presented in a program of 15th- and 16th-century music. Many fine
copies of more familiar clavichords, particularly of the 18th century, were
displayed and demonstrated in a series of recitals, illustrated papers, and
discussion sessions.

The reawakening of interest in the clavichord is most
heartening and more than ably promoted by this influential international
conference.

--(Virginia Pleasants, London)

Features and news items for these columns are always
welcome. Address them to Dr. Larry Palmer, Division of Music, Meadows School of
the Arts, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX 75275. E-mail:
[email protected]