Harpsichord Notes: Mattheson's Fingersprache

Mattheson: The Melodious Talking Fingers and Harmony's Monument

Johann Mattheson: The Melodious Talking Fingers (Die Wohlklingende Fingersprache), Colin Booth, harpsichordist. Soundboard, SBCD-220, $16.98.

Johann Mattheson: Harmony’s Monument (Harmonisches Denckmahl), The Twelve Suites of 1714, Colin Booth, harpsichordist. Soundboard, SBCD-208 (2 CDs), $16.98. Both available from ravencd.com.

Of the memorable Baroque composers of quotable music and words, Johann Mattheson does not appear as a household name, but in his day he achieved recognition among his peers, particularly for his writings on music. Nowadays he is known both as a composer and author of theoretical works, and as the one who nearly brought an early end to the composer of The Messiah! Handel and Mattheson violently quarreled during the premiere of the latter’s opera Cleopatra, and were it not for an obtrusive coat button deflecting a sword thrust, Baroque music might have lost a significant body of music! The two later reconciled, and Mattheson dedicated his Melodious Talking Fingers to Handel. Keyboardists are fortunate enough to hear this work and Mattheson’s twelve suites in a masterful recording by harpsichordist and builder Colin Booth. His research into Mattheson’s life and music are well reflected in these two albums, which provide a window into the music of a highly instructive and colorful composer. In addition, Mr. Booth precedes this captivating repertoire with program notes that bait the listener without meaningless or uninformed conjecture.

Though different in many ways from Bach, Handel, and Telemann, Mattheson utilized many of the same musical ingredients via different tastes and yielding highly inventive and engaging flavor. The collection’s curious title perhaps hints at the occasionally capricious nature of its contents. These “technically competent fugues . . . do not sound as if written to demonstrate Mattheson’s desired contrapuntal rigor from his colleagues,” yet the contrapuntal mastery is evident. Numerous fugues consist of multiple subjects and demand considerable dexterity and singing interpretations to convey their richness. Additional pieces in this collection display grace and wit, providing even more opportunities for the player’s hands to sing and speak. Colin Booth does both. His performance shows admirable command of the fugues’ structure, yet the learned nature of the pieces yields to very characterful interpretations, from the singing quality of the fugues’ subjects to the unusual fugal characteristic of complete silence. The radiant first fugue gives way to a graceful and lyrical fifth fugue (complete with the buff stop), while the severe eighth and the triple-subject ninth receive their own creative colors, even with their austere nature. A palpable energy permeates most of the livelier fugues, and the listener is rewarded for embarking on this journey in the peaceful conclusion of the final fugue on the chorale Werde munter mein Gemüte. The dances are likewise imbued with character befitting their wit and charm, and Mr. Booth delivers a both a humorous Burla and a Seriosità whose sensitivity recalls the warmth of Couperin’s many sensuous pieces.

The twelve suites contrast enormously from those of Mattheson’s German contemporaries, as the former contain a more overt personal touch, especially in their fantastical opening movements. Their dance movements, though similar in nature, are far more adventurous in rhetoric and surprise, and Mr. Booth’s recording captures the adventurous qualities of these suites as a whole. His performance conveys the architecture of both individual dances and entire suites with the same mastery as in the fugues. His tempo choices and interpretations of character hold the suites together well, and his use of inegalité, though occasionally predictable in allemandes and courantes, imbues the dances with elegance. Gigues drive relentlessly and energetically, while their slower counterparts sway gracefully, whether sarabandes, airs, or minuets. The more fantastical movements rivet the listener in their arresting character, from the seventh’s virtuoso “Prelude” to the sixth’s suave “Prelude” to the second’s brilliant “Tocatine.” Mr. Booth seems especially committed to selling the unusual movements or those placed unusually; these stand out, especially the hilarious fugue that begins Suite No. 11 and precedes an equally outrageous gigue of an overture! The gorgeous third and sixth suites are the highlights of the album. Their soulful allemandes, energetic courantes, dulcet slow movements, and vivacious gigues show that composer of austere fugues could write absolutely beautiful dances.

As if the listener were not already in for a treat, Colin Booth’s instruments add yet another dimension of both inventiveness and craftsmanship to these albums. His 2016 restoration of the Nicolas Celini harpsichord yields a sound befitting to the speaking quality of Die Wohlklingende Fingersprache, and both instruments in the suites provide a vibrant sound for the many contrasting movements. Furthermore, Mr. Booth recently issued an edition of Fingersprache, available for purchase on his website (colinbooth.co.uk) and from Raven. All in all, these albums provide a rare opportunity to hear lesser-known and deserving repertoire played by someone committed to making its presence known and able to deliver it masterfully via both interpretation and instrument.

A member of The Diapason’s 20 Under 30 Class of 2021, Curtis Pavey is a graduate of the doctoral program at the University of Cincinnati where he studied harpsichord under Michael Unger and piano under James Tocco. In fall 2023, he will be the assistant professor of piano pedagogy and performance at the University of Missouri. More information is available at curtispavey.com.

Fischer: Eight Suites of 1698, Colin Booth - harpsichords. Soundboard, SBCD-222, $16.98. Available from ravencd.com and colinbooth.co.uk. 

Harpsichordist Colin Booth’s latest recording focuses on the music of German composer Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer’s (1656–1746) suites from 1698 published as Musikalisches Blumen-Büschlein. The recording, finished in August 2021, appears to be the only available complete recording of this collection, offering listeners an excellent opportunity to hear this music in its entirety. 

Fischer’s Musikalisches Blumen-Büschlein was originally published as Les pièces de clavessin in 1696, but Fischer enlarged and revised it, and it was published again in 1698 under the new title. The work contains eight suites that comprise a variety of different dances. Each suite opens with a praeludium unique and stylistically different from the others, similar to Bach’s partitas. The ensuing set of dances in each suite differs greatly, and most do not contain the traditional “core movements” (allemande, courante, sarabande, and gigue) as mentioned in the CD liner notes. Booth believes that Fischer’s collection functions as a “survey” of contemporary French dance suites, which allows listeners and performers to become familiar with genres such as plainte (lament), variation sets, branle, and other dance types. 

In his detailed liner notes, Booth discusses Fischer’s life and works and additionally how these works influenced other German composers of the time, namely J. S. Bach, G. F. Handel, and Johann Mattheson. Several of Fischer’s preludes contain textures that Bach borrowed for his Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I, and it is clear that Bach was quite familiar with this set. Suite VI is perhaps the most interesting of the collection, containing the largest praeludium of the entire collection, which Bach later used in his first B-flat-major prelude. The influence of Fischer’s work on Handel is also apparent in this work, given Handel’s later use of the variation form in his suites, in addition to the fact that Handel’s suites are also inconsistent with the types of dances included in each suite. 

Booth recorded this collection on two different instruments from his workshop. The first instrument is a seventeenth-century Italian harpsichord that includes a short-octave bass. Both harpsichords are strung in brass, but the Italian harpsichord is tuned at A = 392 in Werckmeister III. The other harpsichord, a French double manual based on an instrument from 1661, provides a slight tonal contrast. In the liner notes, Booth clarifies the need for a short-octave bass given that the first and sixth suites in the collection require its use; however, he also wanted the additional registration benefits of the double-manual harpsichord.

Throughout the recording, Booth’s performance is strong, and each suite sounds unique from the others. Booth used a variety of registrations and frequently added ornamentation to the repeats of dances. Each dance is infused with character and careful attention to details. The disc includes many highlights; among them are the large “Praeludium” from Suite VI, the deeply pensive “Plainte” from Suite VII, and the rigorous “Chaconne” from Suite VIII. Perhaps most impressive, though, is Booth’s handling of Suite V, which contains an aria with eight variations. Booth performs this suite with varied approaches to articulation, dialogue between the different voices, and a clear arch to unite the whole suite as a singular work.

For those unfamiliar with Fischer’s music, this disc serves as an excellent introduction to his first collection of harpsichord suites. Booth performs Fischer’s harpsichord suites in a convincing manner that helps connect stylistic elements from France to the harpsichord literature of the eighteenth century.

Prelude to Twilight

Dark Harpsichord Music, by Colin Booth. Soundboard, SBCD 203, 2023, $16.98. Available from 
ravencd.com.

Jean-Henri D’Anglebert: Prelude in G Minor; Armand-Louis Couperin: Allemande in G Major; Johann Mattheson: Air in G Minor; Louis Couperin: Prelude in F Major; Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: “Andante” from Sonata in F Major, W62/6; D’Anglebert: Prelude in D Minor; Johann Sebastian Bach: “Chaconne in A minor” from Violin Partita in D Minor, transcribed by Booth; François Couperin: “Prelude in A Major” from l’Art de Toucher le Clavecin; Louis Andriessen: Overture to Orpheus; Louis Couperin: Passacaille in G Minor.

This album is the replication of a program that Colin Booth presented in the Great Hall at Dartington, England, on a summer’s evening in 1995, a performance involving gradually dimmed candlelight throughout the program until only twilight remained with birdsong accompanying. With such an evocative title, one may wonder what music will unfold and how, and Mr. Booth’s compelling album invites the listener to sit with and absorb equally compelling music. As one discovers throughout this album, the moving selection of harpsichord works is never truly “dark,” i.e., without light. Rather, Booth’s own note on the Andriessen work speaks to the theme of the entire program: “exploring at length, and in a limited range of tonalities, a mood of subtly varied introspection.”

Without question the objets d’art of this album are the prelude and postlude of sounds of nature, and the improvisatory links between works complement the atmospheric approach to programming. Booth’s brief improvisatory links guide the listener through both changes of key and of nuance between the works of Mattheson and Louis Couperin, and then C. P. E. Bach, D’Anglebert, and J. S. Bach. The shortest of links is a mere five seconds and opens an unmeasured prelude in a relative minor key to the piece preceding it. The other two links are over twenty seconds and are comprised of more elaborate improvisatory material.

After an atmospheric presentation of birdsong, the first sound of the harpsichord is a D’Anglebert prélude non mesuré in G minor. Booth gently acquaints the listener with this new timbre emerging from the twilight, and his pacing is a foretaste of the sweetness to come. Armand-Louis Couperin’s “Allemande in G Major” from the 1751 Pièces de clavecin smoothly follows the D’Anglebert and graces the listener with its richness and suave character. Couperin’s exploration of the lower, richer, and indeed darker register of the harpsichord renders Booth’s selection of the work highly appropriate. A graceful “Air” from the second of Mattheson’s two suites in G minor from the 1741 publication follows. It is an ambling piece and contains a blending of French and German styles common with Mattheson’s works. Booth tastefully changes registration between a single 8′ and the lute stop. (If one listens to Booth’s other albums, one will find considerable creativity in registration.)

The grander of Louis Couperin’s two préludes non mesuré in F Major follows a brief improvisatory link, and the listener is invited to sit with a soliloquy-like statement from the pen of the first remembered Couperin. Booth’s timing in works of this genre becomes somehow predictable, especially in ornamental gestures that contain repeated notes, which come across as accents more than graceful additions to texture. In the French dance movements, one may observe a similar predictability in Booth’s inegalité, occasionally preventing one from enjoying these magnificent dances as entire structures comprising significant harmonic events and flowing passagework between them.

The linking of French claveciniste repertoire to a German Rococo sonata movement may strike the listener as odd, but the suave nature of the C. P. E. Bach “Andante” movement follows the smoothness of the Couperin prelude well. Booth’s graceful ornaments and creative fermata improvisations serve the placement of this German andante between two French claveciniste works. The subsequent D’Anglebert prelude arrests the listener with its registration and its frequently breathless pacing. The agitation Booth brings to this performance perhaps prepares the listener for the scope of the Bach “Chaconne” to come, following an appropriately solemn link. Perhaps the pièce de résistance of this album is Booth’s transcription of Bach’s monumental “Chaconne in D Minor” for solo violin, transcribed to A minor in this rendition. Booth’s performance effectively highlights the dance element to this massive work and allows the listener to follow the natural unfolding of Bach’s writing. Rather than create a virtuosic transcription à la Busoni or merely replicate the backbone of the work à la Brahms, Booth both honors and amplifies Bach’s original harmonic and motivic structure, adding material idiomatic to the harpsichord’s sound and textural capabilities while leaving the core of the work intact. Booth also utilizes his harpsichord’s registration to great effect, thus showcasing contrasting sections and highlighting the work’s structure. This is among the most engaging performances on this album and worth the lengthy listen. (Interested harpsichordists may find Booth’s transcription in the key of D minor at https://www.colinbooth.co.uk/.)

From the darkness of the chaconne’s end, a gentle glimmer of light emerges in the François Couperin “Prelude in A Major” from L’Art De Toucher Le Clavecin. Some of the Bach’s energy may have carried over into this performance, as Booth takes a little time to settle into the differing affect of the work. The only contemporary piece on the program, Overture to Orpheus, comes from the pen of Louis Andriessen, a Dutch composer recognized for his early serialism and neoclassicism, and later for his minimalism. Booth’s performance emphasizes the score’s tranquillo markings, perhaps placing the mind at ease as twilight falls. Whether the piece ponders, dances, races, or waits, it must be experienced as Andriessen himself described it, “prelude-playing.” The number of improvisation-based works on this album lead up to this one piece, which surpasses them all in length and as such must not just be listened to, but absorbed, even accepted.

The final work on the album, a gentle Passacaille in G Minor by Louis Couperin, cleanses the palate and allows the listener a final respite before a night’s rest. The sweetness of the middle G-major section in particular lifts the spirit from the darker sonorities of this album, and the final G minor seems less heavy than the solemn register of the harpsichord may indicate. The final birdsong becomes all the more meaningful. Having listened to several of Colin Booth’s albums, I can confidently state that this is my favorite so far. From start to finish, its originality engages the listener, who is transported into a mysterious twilight and beyond.

J. S. Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier, by Colin Booth, harpsichord. Soundboard, Book One, SBCD-218, $16.98; Book Two, SBCD-219, $16.98. Available from ravencd.com and
colinbooth.co.uk.

Colin Booth, harpsichordist and harpsichord maker, performs Bach’s complete Well-Tempered Clavier in these two CD sets. Making use of his own harpsichord, a copy of an instrument by Nicholas Celini from 1661 built in 2016, Booth here performs a convincing rendition of one of Bach’s most important works for keyboard instruments. The discs were recorded between 2018 and 2019 and demonstrate Booth’s vast knowledge of Bach’s compositional style and notational language.

Booth has a special relationship with the harpsichord used in this recording. Before building his own copy of this double-manual instrument, Booth restored Celini’s original 1661 harpsichord in 2013. In replicating this harpsichord, Booth expanded the compass and strung it in brass. The brass stringing sounds beautiful and allows for exquisite clarity of contrapuntal lines. While the instrument has three choirs of strings, Booth only uses the two 8′ sets of strings—individually and in combination—noting that he wanted to preserve the contrapuntal clarity as much as possible. Regarding tuning, Booth uses Kirnberger III, preferring its conservative qualities while preserving unique characteristics for each of the different keys.

The playing on these discs is of exceptional quality, demonstrating Booth’s thoughtful approach to musical expression, articulation, and pacing at the harpsichord. There are many highlights throughout this recording: the endurance and structural considerations given to the extensive fugues in A minor and B minor (Book One), effective ornamentation in the G-minor prelude and the C-sharp-minor fugue (Book Two), and contrapuntal clarity within the massive five-voice fugues from Book One (C-sharp minor, B-flat minor). Booth’s attention to detail is audible throughout, sensitively shaping phrases with clear articulation and direction. Of particular interest is Booth’s regular use of rhythmic inequality and unevenness in his playing; sometimes the inequality is quite subtle, other times, less so. It is often effective, particularly in the D-major fugue from Book One, in which French overture performance practice and elements of the notation seem to disagree. Some of Booth’s ideas are unconventional—for instance his approach to the rhythmic gestures at the beginning of the D-major prelude from Book Two. In his choice of tempi, Booth diligently considers meter along with character effectively. The F-minor fugue of Book One, as an example, comes to life in Booth’s unhurried rendition with sliding chromatic lines, whereas the grace of the F-minor prelude from Book Two becomes audible in Booth’s fluent choice of tempo. Listening to the entire collection is rewarding and reveals so many beautiful and thoughtful ideas.

In addition to his performances, Booth has included fantastic liner notes for both CD sets. The essays are lengthy, including a variety of information about historical context, model compositions, tuning considerations, and thoughts on his interpretation. The liner notes go far beyond an introduction to this repertoire, thoroughly breaking down recent scholarly debate on tuning and suggesting ideas for future performers to consider in their own interpretations.

Altogether, these CD sets feature outstanding playing, musically and technically, from Booth. His intimate knowledge of the harpsichord, and particularly this harpsichord, helps him to bring out the best of its beautiful sonic qualities. This recording absolutely deserves a listen and a place among other important recordings of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier.

A member of The Diapason’s 20 Under 30 Class of 2021 (see the May 2021 issue, page 19), Curtis Pavey is a graduate of the doctoral program at the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music where he studied harpsichord with Michael Unger and piano with James Tocco. More information is available at curtispavey.com.

Fogliano to Froberger: A Century of Ricercars, performed by Colin Booth, harpsichord and ottavino. SBCD-221, $16.98. Available from ravencd.com and colinbooth.co.uk.

Ricerchare di Julio da Modena per musica ficta in sol per la via di G sol re ut, Julio of Modena; Ricerchare de Jacobo fogliano, Ricerchada di Jacobo fogliano do Modena, Jacobo Fogliano; Ricercar secondo, Girolamo Frescobaldi; Recercada del primo tono per b mollo, Claudio Veggio; Ricerchare de Jacobo fogliano da modena, Fogliano; Ricercar Terzo, Frescobaldi; Ricercar I, Jacob Froberger; La fugitiva Claudius a.4,
Veggio (?); Ricercar Ottavo, Obligo di non Uscir di Grado, Frescobaldi; Ricercar IV, Froberger; Ricercare di Jocobo fogliono da modena, Fogliano; Recercado per b mollo del primo tono, Veggio; Ricercar Nono, con Quattro Soggetti, Frescobaldi; Recercar del primo tono, Veggio; Ricercar V, Froberger; Recercada per b Quadro del quorto tono, Veggio; Ricercor II, Froberger; Recercada VII, Veggio (?); Recercoda per b Quadro del primo tono, Veggio.

Harpsichordist and harpsichord maker Colin Booth recently recorded a collection of ricercars from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The recording includes works of nearly forgotten sixteenth-century composers such as Giacomo Fogliano, Julio of Modena, and Claudio Veggio, as well as works of Girolamo Frescobaldi and Johann Jacob Froberger. Displaying a great variety of different characters, affects, and styles, this recording also features several of Booth’s harpsichords, creating a fascinating sonic tour of the history of the ricercar.

In his liner notes, Booth details the rich history of the ricercar, beginning with its origins as a piece originally for the lute or bass viol. The ricercars of the sixteenth century invited significant ornamentation by the performer and were freer in nature. The ricercar later developed into a stricter compositional form by the seventeenth century, allowing composers to demonstrate more complexity in counterpoint and form. To represent the early style of ricercar, Booth chose works by Giacomo Fogliano (1468–1548), his pupil Julio of Modena (1498–1561), and Claudio Veggio (ca. 1510–?), all composers of the sixteenth century from northern Italy. Their music, which exists in manuscript form at the Collegiate Church at Castell’Arquato, incorporates a wide variety of different approaches to the ricercar. To contrast this, Booth chose works of Frescobaldi and his pupil Froberger, exemplifying the radical changes to the ricercar genre and form.

For this recording, Booth used three different Italian-style keyboards including two harpsichords and an ottavino, a smaller instrument pitched an octave higher. In the liner notes of the CD, each track is labeled with the instrument that Booth used so that listeners can follow him as he alternates between the different keyboards.

The ottavino has a bright and resonant sound aided by limited damping. It is crafted after an original instrument from the seventeenth century, originally built by an anonymous builder of the time.

Besides this, Booth uses two different harpsichords. Described as a small, single-strung harpsichord, Booth’s sixteenth-century harpsichord used in this recording is pitched at A=440. The other instrument, which Booth refers to as a large double-strung harpsichord, is a seventeenth-century-style instrument with a larger compass necessary for several of the selections. The instrument is pitched lower, creating a mellower, but very sustained sound.

For more information about these instruments, listeners should view Booth’s website, which contains further information about this recording project and several YouTube videos demonstrating this music on his own instruments. The use of several very different keyboards throughout the recording varies the sound and adds to the appeal of this captivating program.

Booth’s playing is musically sensitive and compelling throughout. Claudio Veggio’s Recercada del primo tono per b mollo is played with a flowing approach to the musical lines and gestures. Booth plays Fogliano’s Ricerchare with a persuasive sense of timing, highlighting the stately aspects of the affect. Frescobaldi’s Ricercar Ottavo, Obligo di non Uscir di Grado, an eclectic piece containing no intervals of a second, is played with a probing spirit on the ottavino. While listening to Froberger’s Ricercar I, one can hear how Booth brings out the surprising intervals and shape of the subject to great effect. In Froberger’s Ricercare V, Booth demonstrates his capacity for lyrical sound, shaping the phrases with significant care. The disc also includes extended works of Frescobaldi, Froberger, and Veggio; the latter’s Recercada per b Quadro del primo tono closes the disc in dramatic, virtuosic fashion.

Listeners can expect to find a number of unfamiliar gems on this recording by Booth. His thoughtfully designed program demonstrates the vast diversity within the ricercar genre, and because of this, Booth successfully engages listeners on an exploration of this fascinating repertoire.

Colin Booth’s website: colinbooth.co.uk

A fascinating book by Beverly Jerold, Music Performance Issues: 1600–1900

Readers of The Diapason’s July 2018 issue most likely remember Beverly Jerold’s article about two eighteenth-century concerts of Handel’s music as reviewed by the Berlin Court Kapellmeister Johann Friedrich Reichardt, who attended the programs during his 1785 visit to London. Ms. Jerold has spent much of her life researching for period information about musical performances as reported by the persons who experienced them. One could see in the stunning color headshot of this intrepid author that she has a firm chin and twinkling eyes, ever on the lookout for authentic information about the topic that she is researching. These period verifications serve as guides for those who seek stylistic authenticity in their own present-day performances.

From the many varied essays that Jerold has published in a wide range of journals she has selected nineteen articles for her book Music Performance Issues: 1600–1900, issued in 2016 by Pendragon Press, Hillsdale, New York, as a paperback edition comprising 359 pages of useful knowledge (ISBN 978-1-57647-175-0, list price: $65, available from www.pendragonpress.com).

I would enjoy sharing many of her remarkable discoveries and observations with you, but it would be unfair for me to present you with Jerold’s discoveries, and it might rob you, the readers, of the surprises that you may have when you read the book for yourselves. I do encourage you to access the volume and to enjoy Jerold’s findings, offered with the utmost clarity and complete references to her sources. To whet your curiosities, here are the titles of the book’s chapters:

• Dilettante and Amateur: Our Evolving Language

• Bach’s Lament about Leipzig’s Professional Instrumentalists

• Choral Singing Before the Era of Recordings

• Why Most a cappella Music Could Not Have Been Sung Unaccompanied

• Fasch and the Beginning of Modern Artistic Choral Singing

• What Handel’s Casting Reveals About Singers of the Time

• Intonation Standards and Equal Temperament

• Eighteenth-Century Stringed Keyboard Instruments from a Performance Perspective [LP: You may be surprised about the clavichord!]

• The Tromba and Corno in Bach’s Time

• Maelzel’s Role in Beethoven’s Symphonic Metronome Marks

• The French Time Devices Revisited

• The Notable Significance of Common Time and Cut Time in Bach’s Era

• Numbers and Tempo: 1630–1800

• Overdotting in Handel’s Overtures Reconsidered

• Notes inégales: A Definitive New Parameter

• Distinguishing Between Artificial and Natural Vibrato in Premodern Music

• A Solution for Simple (secco) Theater Recitative

• How Composers Viewed Performers’ Additions

• The Varied Reprise in Eighteenth-Century Instrumental Music—A Reappraisal

Telemann Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord

Totally unfamiliar music by the most prolific baroque composer Georg Friedrich Telemann (1681–1767) fills a recent compact disc featuring violinist Dorian Komanoff Bandy and harpsichordist Paul Cienniwa (Whaling City Sound, WCS 108). Originally published in Frankfort-am-Main in 1715, these six four-movement works, each comprising alternating slow-fast-slow-fast movements, were composed with the burgeoning amateur house music musician in mind. A seventh sonata of similar style and length that has survived only in the composer’s manuscript preserved in the Dresden State Library receives its world premiere recording to fill out the program.

In disc and numerical order the sonatas are in G Minor, D Major, B Minor, G Major, A Minor, and A Major; the extra seventh sonata is in F-sharp Minor. Each composition bears the TWV (Telemann Werke Verzeichnis [“work catalogue”]) number 41, followed by an indication of its individual key (in German style: g, D, h, G, a. A, fis).

I had met the harpsichordist during a long-ago Boston Early Music Festival visit. He has recently relocated to the warmer climes of Florida where (now Dr.) Paul Cienniwa is music director of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Delray. Thus it was not difficult to locate an email address for this fine artist. I especially wanted to learn who had built the harpsichord used for this recording and to ascertain whether the works were being played from a realized score or from the more probable two-line original engraving. It turned out to be the latter, which made my admiration for such beautiful collaborative musicianship ascend even several units higher. Especially an elegant solo harpsichord introduction to the “Cantabile” of the B-minor Sonata had moved me deeply, and I appreciate the sensitive musical realization of the figured bass throughout. It also pleased me that Cienniwa lists among his musical mentors Jerome Butera, a longtime editor of The Diapason and currently the magazine’s sales director. (File that in your “Small World” folder, please.)

The fine-sounding instrument, it turned out, is a single-manual 2 x 8 example inspired by the unique 1681 Vaudry harpsichord (an instrument that our readers encountered briefly last month through the illustration for Jane Clark’s article on François Couperin). It was built in 2008 by Kevin Spindler. For those who might wish to acquire this music, violinist Bandy suggests IMSLP for downloading (https://imslp.org), or, even better, a facsimile of the 1715 edition published by Anne Fuzeau Productions (http://www.editions-classique.com/en/index.php). With such a fine example of the collaborative harpsichord line for consultation, one might not be so reluctant to realize that figured bass.