The true art of not giving up the clavichord

Sad though the demise of the British Clavichord Society undoubtedly is, there is much to celebrate from its twenty-five years as the primary force in the recent revival of the playing, making and appreciation of the clavichord in the UK

Patterns of play: Orlando Gibbons, Simon Lohet, and J. S. Bach’s Fugue in E Major BWV 878/2. Part II

This article, the second of two parts, discusses the interpretation of Bach’s E major fugue from the second book of the Well-tempered Clavier (BWV 878/2) through analysis of its form and structure, its use of stretto, the design of its subject and the motivic development of its countersubject, and through comparison with its presumed model, the E Major Fugue in the Ariadne musica by J.C.F. Fischer (1656–1746). The accompanying musical supplement contains a new complete transcription in open score by the author of the Fugue in E major BWV 878 by J.S. Bach and the Fugue in E major by J.C.F. Fischer

Searching fantasy: Froberger’s fantasias and ricercars four centuries on.

The fantasias and ricercars of Johann Jacob Froberger (1616–1667) provide fertile ground from which to study seventeenth-century counterpoint and its keyboard performance. They constitute just under a quarter of his entire keyboard music and almost one half of his contrapuntal keyboard music. Froberger’s historical significance, e.g. as ‘father’ of the keyboard suite, has often assumed greater importance than his contribution to the development of fugue generating a bias for a small core of more popular genres and pieces amongst performers: a trend reflected across the surviving sources and in current teaching and performance today. Froberger’s autograph collections arrange and group the fantasias and ricercars into single-genre sets. These genre complexes display clear agendas of balance, contrast and self-referencing within and between pieces. This essay discusses the wide dissemination of sources and locates this with the context of the music’s reception history. It is proposed that the fantasias and ricercars form a distinctive grouping within Froberger’s contrapuntal keyboard music which complements the toccatas, suites and lamentations and, in comparison with them, represents a less overt, equally rhetorical, and more intellectually ‘virtuosic’ interpretation of the stylus fantasticus. Issues of performance practice, including ornamentation, tempo and meter, articulation and phrasing, instrumental designation, expression and affekt, and notational practices are considered. The composer’s compositional methods and contrapuntal skills are scrutinised and compared with contemporary theories of counterpoint. A new analytic approach is outlined to understand Froberger’s reliance on motivic construction better and which has practical applications to musical theory, historical inquiry and performance

David Evans 1936–2018: an appreciation

David Evans MBE (born 28 July 1936, died 8 Dec 2018) was a renowned British harpsichord maker who made a highly significant contribution in the revival of historical keyboard instrument making. He built over 50 instruments, mainly harpsichords and virginals, including a copy of the earliest surviving harpsichord: the late-15th-century upright harpsichord now in the Royal College of Music Museum in London

A phylogenetic analysis of Orlando Gibbons's Prelude in G

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Oxford University Press via http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/em/cau10

A four-stave transcription of Froberger’s Ricercar, FbWV 412: why play contrapuntal music from open score notation?

This edition of the Ricercar, FbWV 412 by Johann Jacob Froberger (1616–1667) gives keyboard players a tool with which to experience reading music from open score — a practice generally neglected today. This skill, also known as partitura, was a prerequisite of seventeenth-century keyboard fugue performance. The practice began in Naples with Rocco Rodio's Libro di ricercate, a 4 (1575), and widely adopted across Europe until beyond the time of J.S. Bach, The author's transcription of FbWV 412 is edited from the Seconda Parte of Froberger’s Libro Quarto of 1656 (A-Wn Mus. Hs. 18707, fols. 53v–56v.) is typeset in open score notation with modern treble and bass clefs to assist players who wish to perform this music from a visual presentation similar to that of Froberger's autograph but which does not require fluency in C-clefs. The transcription is accompanied by a brief performance commentary

Three duets for mezzo-soprano and baritone

These pieces began with the idea of writing a song for two to sing. They form a set and share similar contours and preoccupations. For the texts, I started by reading Keats’s ‘O solitude’ but decided to try writing in my own words about isolation. The poem of the first song (‘O solitude’) was the result and the music followed quickly. Next, I came across Robert Lowry's hymn 'How Can I Keep from Singing' which again led me to write my own text, this time about music and giving voice, becoming the third song, ‘Endless Song’. These two enclose my setting of a poem by the pianist, Alexander Kelly. Alex was Head of Keyboard at the Royal Academy of Music when I was a student there. An enthusiastic supporter, he always took time to talk and to encourage. His poem ‘Hurried Letter’ is about life, and how we live it. The three songs are duets for two voices alone and the piano accompaniment in the final duet is optional. The first performance was given on 19 July 2020 by Helen Charlston (mezzo-soprano), Michael Craddock (baritone) and Alexander Soares (piano) in a live broadcast from the St Pancras Clock Tower, London. A recording of these pieces is now available (Delphian Records, DCD34253-CD) see https://www.delphianrecords.com/products/isolation-songbook

Prelude

This piece for harpsichord took its inspiration from two well-known harpsichord pieces, one in C, the other in B flat and explores on the tonal ambiguity of adjacent major and minor triads. The first performance was given on 23 February 2020 by the composer at Wardown House, Luton and this revised version was made for the BBC broadcast on 10 August 2020

Review article: Anthology of Early Keyboard Methods: Revised, enlarged and translated by Barbara Sachs and Barry Ife. Peacock Press, 2023.

Review of Anthology of Early Keyboard Methods: Revised, enlarged and translated by Barbara Sachs and Barry Ife. Peacock Press, 2023. ISBN 978-1-914934-73-5