quoting Diruta 08Jul09 | 0

“… ricercari, motets, and Masses help you improvise well, canzonas to play quickly, and madrigals to achieve different harmonic effects.”

G. Diruta, Seconda parte del Transilvano (1609), libro quarto [1]

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[1] In BRADSHAW, M.C. & SOEHNLEN, E.J.: “The Transylvanian” (Il Transilvano), volume II. Henryville [etc.]: Institute of Mediaeval Music, 1984, p.143.

Handel’s anniversary 14May09 | 0

“Do you play different on the harpsichord and the organ?”, asked me Reitze when I came back downstairs from the organ after I played the overture from Siroe. This question could summarize the main topic of the session today in the project around Handel’s keyboard music combining the harpsichord and organ students.

Articulation has been our demon today… Organ players “fighting” with the harpsichord; harpsichord ones “sliding” on the organ… The question: did Handel and his contemporaries find so different the approach to both instruments? How were voiced their harpsichords? Are ours far too soft, influenced by late 18th century French school, and that increases the gap?

In short, around 1700 there was no separation, but just keyboard players (yes, sometimes devoted more to sacred or secular music, of course). But we can say they were the same people sitting on different instruments. We can’t (can’t we?) imagine a completely opposite technique. Is there then, ONE way of playing?

Personally, I am still looking for my “touch” on the organ, and must recognize that the first experience (today was indeed the first attempt of some of my colleagues in the school) was maybe as frustrating as playing the harpsichord for the first time after years of piano playing.

Nowadays the separation exists: we are either harpsichord or organ players, and when we decide to start playing the other instrument, it is never as “natural” as would have been then: now we come from a style and try to adapt it to another one. It’s normal that the question arises… Of course, there are consagrated players that devote themselves to both instruments: we should look there for a practical example (even to ask them, if we get the chance!). But by now it would be very useful to let the instrument sound and “tell” us what works or not…

At the end, we use the same tools: harpsichordists have a wide sampler of articulations in order to “speak”…, and organists legato devices (even overlegato!). It’s just a question of the amount of ingredients we use depending on the instrument. Or don’t we play different in a Giusti than in a Blanchet?

who said...

"[Beethoven] went in his usual (I might say, ill-bred) manner to the instrument as if half-pushed, picket up the violoncello part of Steibelt's quintet in passing, placed it (intentionally?) upon the stand upside down and with one finger drummed out a theme of the first few measures. Insulted and angered, he improvised in such a manner that Steibelt left the room before he finished, would never again meet him and, indeed, made it a condition that Beethoven should not be invited before accepting an offer."

F.W. Wegeler & F. Ries, Biographische Notizen über Ludwig van Beethoven (Koblenz, 1838)

"[...] the king [Charles II of Spain] eagerly asked me if I had heard Matheuchi sing, when he would come, and if he was impertinent or not, and as if there were no army in the world, nor Milanese state, completely forgot such matters, but this is not surprising given that all his ministers, or most of them, have had the same experience [...]"

Letter of Carlos Felipe Spinola y Colonna to the duke of Medinaceli (1698)

"I was in St Alban's Abbey and I was intrigued: they were building a new organ and I went up to - I suppose it must have been - the verger and I said, 'Is the organ baroque?' And he said, 'No, it's in perfectly good order.'"

John Tavener, The Music of Silence, A Composer's Testament (Faber ISBN 0571200885)

"The Second Harpsichordist will go only to the last rehearsal, sending the Third One to the previous, who won't read more high Clef than Soprano, trying to play without using the Thumbs, don't follow the Numbers, play always the Sixth, don't meet up with the Master, and close all the second Parts of Arias with major thirds, etc. etc. etc."

Benedetto Marcello, Il teatro alla moda (1720)