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Author Palmer, Larry, author.

Title Harpsichord in America : a twentieth-century revival / Larry Palmer
Published Bloomington : Indiana University Press, [1989]
©1989

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Description 1 online resource (xiv, 202 pages) : illustrations
Contents A passion for collecting -- An explorer arrives: Arnold Dolmetsch -- Dolmetsch's American legacy -- The incomparable Wanda Landowska -- Lewis Richards, American harpsichordist -- Landowska's American circle -- Made in America: harpsichords? -- New generation, new aesthetic: Ralph Kirkpatrick -- Two "first ladies of the harpsichord" -- A golden age: Landowska returns -- The past is future -- Marathon man: Fernando Valenti -- Kits, records, and all that jazz
Summary After its eclipse by the piano, the harpsichord survived primarily as a museum curiosity until the end of the nineteenth century. But early in the new century the player and builder Arnold Dolmetsch found a ready market for his harpsichords, clavichords, and virginals and an eager audience for his chamber concerts featuring these new/old instruments. In 1923 the incomparable Wanda Landowska made her American debut. This tiny woman, almost a cult figure, was to exert a powerful influence on the course of harpsichord playing for the next half century. Among her students were Putnam Aldrich, the harpsichord duo of Philip Manuel and Gavin Williamson, Alice Ehlers, and, for a short time, Ralph Kirkpatrick. Landowska's instrument was the heavy, durable Pleyel. As the harpsichord and authentic instrument revival progressed, American builders started to produce lighter instruments, and in recent years do-it-yourself builders have been buying harpsichord kits. Sylvia Marlowe is famous for playing jazz on the harpsichord, and in a reversal of past practice, harpsichordists are now borrowing the music of the piano and making it their own. The harpsichord has come a long way from the days when reviewers patronizingly described it as "quaint," "tinkling," or sounding like "a regiment of mice." It can be powerful and tender, dramatic and delicate, and in the minds of many, the only medium for the performance of early music
Analysis Art music, orchestral & formal music
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 189-194) and index
Notes Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212 MiAaHDL
digitized 2010 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve pda MiAaHDL
Print version record
Subject Harpsichord -- United States
Harpsichordists -- United States
Harpsichord makers -- United States
Harpsichord.
harpsichords.
Harpsichord
Harpsichord makers
Harpsichordists
Cembalo
Klavecimbels.
Klavecinisten.
Muziekinstrumentenbouw.
United States
USA
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9780253055729
0253055725