Archive for October, 2014
Monday, October 13th, 2014
Goldberg Variations
”Count Kayserling, formerly Russian Ambassador at the Court of the Elector of Saxony, who frequently resided in Leipzig…once said t Bach that he should like to have some clavier pieces for his [court harpsichordist] Goldberg, which should be of such a soft and somewhat lively character that he might be a little cheered up by […]
Monday, October 13th, 2014
Frick Collection, NYC 2012
William Byrd belongs to that benighted generation of visionaries who began to liberate keyboard composition from purely vocal models and exploited new techniques in harpsichord playing. We can say with some confidence that it is in this period that the instrumental virtuoso – the counterpart to the many prized singers and poets in Europe’s countless […]
Monday, October 13th, 2014
Musica Sacra Maastricht 2013
From Secular to Sacred, England to Germany: A Few Remarks From a historical perspective, it is understandable that to the Northern mind of the eighteenth century the skill of counterpoint came to have a spiritual dimension. In the greatest flowering of the German enlightenment, contrapuntal forms were used as topoi – long after their use […]
Monday, October 13th, 2014
Wigmore Hall July 2014
I must confess to a certain distaste for “themed” concerts and have always wondered why they are expected with a certain imbalance in the world of period instruments when a pianist can simply play what he likes. Accordingly, I have endeavoured when I can to avoid this approach to recital programming. Nonetheless, in looking over […]
Monday, October 13th, 2014
Coming to C.P.E. Bach
The following are programme notes I wrote for a recital at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., in April 2014: Of the homage paid by the world to Johann Sebastian Bach we know full well, but what of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach(1714-1788)? In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, he was well known […]