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Harpsichords and Related Topics

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From:
"Kelzenberg, David C" <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Harpsichords and Related Topics <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Wed, 10 Feb 2016 08:40:06 +0000
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Tilman, I think your points are excellent.  However, I think a few more elements were in play too:



When these instruments were in their infancy, there were very few antique harpsichords around in playing condition, and perhaps none that had been properly restored.  The few that might have been marginally playable would have recorded poorly, if the bulky recording equipment of the day could have been taken to the instrument, and the fragile old instruments in museums would not have been permitted to travel to recording studios, even if there had existed a market for the recordings at the time.  Of course, the luxuries of world travel which we enjoy today were but a dream in those days (unless you could afford the Hindenburg), and several wars in Europe made international travel even more difficult.



There is another factor too:  money.  At least in France, piano makers Pleyel and Erard no doubt sensed a new niche market for their own instruments, and the factories that sprung up in Germany too would have felt that they were tapping a new market.  And since these instruments were basically all that were available, they are the ones people learned to play, and thus they were the ones that were heard.  It was a self-perpetuating cycle.  People just didn't know any better, until Wally Zuckermann, Skowroneck, Hubbard and Dowd, Ralph Kirkpatrick, and of course GL came along.  We thought that was the true sound of the harpsichord (and it sure seemed different from the piano!).  Once we had a few good historical restorations and instruments built along historic lines, and recordings began to be made, the scales fell away from our eyes and ears.



It is only fair to point out, however, (you are free to disagree with this old man!) that musicians like WL and Ahlgrimm and Woodhouse and Valenti made wonderful music on these beasts--performances that transcended the limitations of these pseudo-harpsichords, even though they were as far removed from historical performance practice as the instruments were from their historical antecedents.



dk



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