New Music Views

            My introduction to the harpsichord and the world of new music occurred almost simultaneously. I was a sophomore at Brandeis University when Joel Spiegelman, my theory professor, walked into the room and announced that the university had purchased a new harpsichord. Would anyone have an interest in studying the instrument?

            Having grown up in a musical family, I had the inevitable piano lessons as a young child with my mother, an accomplished pianist and teacher. My father, a symphonic flutist, who had played in the Baltimore Symphony for a short time in the 1940s before being drafted for the war effort, saw to it that my sister and I studied the violin. (My father had the opinion that string players never wanted for work.)  Both of us wanted to play in the junior high school band so flute lessons came next. In high school, I moved on to the organ, another practical move instigated by my father. While my sister claimed the flute as her own, none of these instruments stuck with me. I entered Brandeis as a pianist, and graduated--- a harpsichord convert!

            The Music Department at Brandeis, headed by composer Arthur Berger, stressed early music and new music.  One of my early research projects as a fledgling harpsichordist centered on the appropriate use of “les notes inégales” in J.S. Bach’s keyboard music and my senior tutorial project focused on Alban Berg’s “Wozzeck”. Graduate student composers drafted me as one of the few pianists willing to perform their creations. Philip Hughes, a John Cage aficionado, visited harpsichord composition in a piece that mimicked Bach’s Prelude in C Major (WTC, I). This piece consisted of a series of chords (“simultaneities”, in new music lingo) in which one note changed with every chord.   Unfortunately, the changes were barely audible as the chords were thick and struck only as the sounds of the preceding one faded totally.

            Years later as a resident of New York City immersed in a solo harpsichord career (“Elaine Comparone Plays Red-Blooded Harpsichord”--- headline, The New York Times), I founded Harpsichord Unlimited as a vehicle to produce concerts and to keep the harpsichord in front of Manhattan’s concert-going public. For my Lincoln Center solo debut in 1980, I programmed a harpsichord sonata composed in the 1950s by Vincent Persichetti, who was teaching at the Juilliard School at the time. Thinking his criticism would be helpful, I invited Persichetti to my studio. Not only did he make many helpful suggestions, but he caught the harpsichord bug again! He telephoned me several months later with the news that he had composed a couple of works that he’d like me to see---his Second and Third Harpsichord Sonatas, both dedicated to me. I subsequently recorded these two works for Laurel Record of Los Angeles, along with the Fourth Harpsichord Sonata and some pieces by another Italian composer, Domenico Scarlatti. Persichetti went on to compose five more harpsichord sonatas, a parable, serenade and his Little Harpsichord Book.

            When I founded The Queen’s Chamber Band in 1995, I decided that commissioning new music for the group would be one of my primary goals. Since I had lifted the name from John Christian Bach’s ensemble (formed for the purpose of entertaining England’s Queen Charlotte Sophia in her private chambers), it seemed fitting that we perform music composed especially for us, just as the original Band had. My choice of composers began with two Band members, countertenor Marshall Coid and flutist Daniel Waitzman.  Amplifying the list were Robert Baksa, who had composed many solo pieces for me and several for my Trio Bell’Arte (flute, oboe and harpsichord); Stephen Kemp, a medical doctor/amateur harpsichordist/composer, whose concerto I had recorded with Gerry Schwarz and the Seattle Symphony Orchestra; Paris-born Elodie Lauten, whose mentors included La Monte Young and Allen Ginsberg; ‘cellist/music critic Peter Susser; and, jazz pianist Charles Sibirsky. While I asked specifically for a piece in “jazz style” from Sibirsky, I never dictated style or content to the other composers.  I merely requested specific instrumental or vocal combinations to vary the program’s sonic colors. (Works by Baksa, Coid, Lauten, Susser and Sibirsky can be heard on our HarpsichordAlive:New York City Music recording for Capstone.)

            In subsequent years, I continued to work with our “resident” composers, but began to broaden and lengthen the list with old friends and new ones.  While creating new music for the harpsichord was the primary purpose of each piece, some composers began to take the musical personalities of the Band members into account. My main concern was to create annual programs of new music that would entertain and stimulate audiences that have heard everything. Over the years, our presentations have included neo-classic and neo-baroque works; highly chromatic, “romantic” music bordering on atonality; minimalism; rock, klezmer, folk and jazz-influenced works. 

            With each composer who needs or requests my help, I try to explain and illustrate the differences between idiomatic harpsichord writing and that for piano. Sometimes my comments make a dent, sometimes not. Composing at a piano and automatically using the pedal without realizing it is a common habit I have observed.  Occasionally I assist the composer to alter the writing to suit the harpsichord (or my hand!)  If a composer is writing for a harpsichordist with a large hand, my advice might be slightly different. The point is, the player must be able to sustain the notes for the best sound.

            For instance, I explained to a young composer recently that closely voiced chords that fit in the hand make a better sound than chords with wide spacing. In a piece for viola and harpsichord that he was composing, he had written an accompaniment composed of a series of open fifths in the right hand and one note in the bass.

            “This is not the best sound you can get from the instrument,” said I. “Determine what your harmonies are and add more notes. You’ll get a better sound.”

             “But I like the delicacy of this sound, “ says he.

            “Yes,” I counter. “But it will be hardly audible, especially in those passages where the viola is playing long sustained notes.”

            Another suggestion I often make is to keep the harpsichord part moving. We can take François Couperin’s advice to performers in his L’Art de toucher le Clavecin and pass it along to aspiring composers for the instrument:

            …my feeling is that one should not forsake the style suited to it. Quick passages or runs, batteries (arpeggios) within the compass of the hand…pieces in which the chords are played arpeggio, or broken rhythmically….and syncopated pieces are to be preferred to those which are full of sustained notes, or notes that are too deep in pitch.

            Of late, The Queen’s Chamber Trio ( Robert Zubrycki, violin; Peter Seidenberg, ‘cello and myself) has given frequent performances of a powerful trio by Joseph Fennimore (Molinos de Viento), rich in complex harmonies and  ideas. Fennimore likes to use the bottom register of the harpsichord---and I mean the very bottom! Sometimes it’s difficult to hear pitches in that range, so when I play them, I try to give extra time for them to sound. Parenthetically, I do the same thing in Haydn’s Trio in C Major, the first movement, eight bars into  the development, where he repeats a two-note motive (F-sharp G-natural) in the middle register, then the upper register, followed by a descent into the instrument’s bowels--- on my harpsichord, to the penultimate key and the one above. But these are interpretive issues for the player. Ultimately the composer has to write what he/she hears. We can only suggest.  I always offer access to my studio and my instruments. In some instances, I loaned out a harpsichord.

            Since 2001, our annual New Music Concert has carried the title Bachjuxtaposed:// newmusicfortheband.  Selections from Bach’s “Art of Fugue” complement freshly minted works in this ongoing cycle. What composer would not listen and learn from these works as he/she develops his/her art?  Our audiences appreciate the juxtaposition as well. On May 9 of this past season, the Band performed Contrapuncti  12 and 13 alongside premieres by an international roster of composers:

            Passacaglia for Solo Harpsichord, Edvinas Minkstimas (Lithuania)

            I Wander…? for Viola & Harpsichord, Arni Egilsson (Iceland/USA)

            Four Short Pieces for Three Players, John Stone ( New York City)

            Suite for Three Instruments, Kristian Blak ( Faroe Islands)

            *Pocahontas in the Court of James I, Part II for Soprano, Countertenor, Flute, Oboe, String Quintet & Harpsichord ,George Quincy (USA)

            Next season our participating composers will be Donald Hagar (piece for viola and harpsichord); Hanna Levy (poems in Hebrew and English set for countertenor and instruments); William Foster McDaniel (a trio for violin, ‘cello and harpsichord using Afro-American musical influences); and, David MacDonald (a work for the entire ensemble of flute, oboe, string quintet and harpsichord). If any reader would like a list of composers and works we have premiered over the years, which could include descriptions of pieces as well as suggestions for performance, please write to me at: info@harpsichord.org. Many of the composers mentioned here maintain websites and would appreciate your attention. Our own website currently displays information on our upcoming New York City series. Please visit us!

*As a result of this commission, the Smithsonian Institution, American Indian Division, has invited The Queen’s Chamber Band  to perform Parts I and II of George Quincy’s Pocahontas at the Court of James I, in celebration of the 400^th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown and the onset of Native American Month.