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Harpsichords and Related Topics

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Tue, 12 Feb 2008 15:03:25 EST
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Well stated! Good show.
 
 
In a message dated 2/12/2008 12:10:19 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
[log in to unmask] writes:

This  thread's going to have legs......

I think one reason why people have  problems with harpsichord music is 
that both the sound and the type of  music that's played on it require a 
different type of perception to what  many people expect to hear. I 
describe the sound as "something that you  can walk around inside", it 
sort of exists in three dimensions. I've met  this with chorale music, 
especially when the choir is unaccompanied. This  stuff is very demanding 
to record and reproduce (I use it to evaluate  audio equipment), I think 
its because its because our ears are very  sensitive to any artifacts 
caused by the components interacting  (intermodulating). Most music 
carries a strong tune or, in the case of the  clock radio, you know what 
you're listening for, so peoples' ears  selectively grab just the parts 
of the sound that they want to hear which  allows them to manage with 
less than perfect reproduction.

So put  it another way, one man's music is another wife's distortion.

It  doesn't help that people have grown up with poor opinions of the  
instrument. For example,  I have a pianist friend who subscribes to  the 
Beecham view of harpsichords (something about "two skeletons  copulating 
on a tin roof") and it took me quite a bit of probing to find  out why he 
had such a deep loathing for the instrument. I eventually  figured out 
that its a combination of two things. One is that some  harpsichord 
recordings from his formative years appear to have been played  on 
instruments that don't sound right (I've got one from that era which I  
describe as "sounding like a demented music box"). The other is that, as  
a pianist, he has some expectation of being able to play the thing --  
its got keys just like a piano so it should play just like a piano. I've  
seen him trying to do it, and the instrument just chews him up and spits  
him out. Pianistic technique gets you nowhere on this instrument. Even  
if they're able to play the instrument, like another pianist friend who  
has used harpsichords in her youth, they often subsist on a diet of  
Romantic or later music, grand sounding stuff that makes the material we  
like to play sound a bit thin. She and I have had some interesting  
conversations about whether Bach sounds better on a piano, its not  
really the about the instrument but how the music is interpreted. We  
agree to differ.

Martin  Usher





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