Article archive
18/09/2019 12:32
A very busy summer, with various recitals ticked off, including the Goldberg Variations (some decades later than planned...), and complete Tallis and the last of the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book to come in the next month. Then back to Bach, with the Italian Concerto and French Overture. Various things...
28/08/2019 17:38
Thanks to a kind colleague in Cambridge, I now have a walnut clavichord built in 1957 by Robert Goble (1903–1991), which has come just at the right time for planning some further programmes of 20th century music. For works by Howells and the like, the 'revival' clavichords of Dolmetsch and Goff are...
12/08/2019 14:27
Alex's report on the 2017 CNM contemporary music project we did is now published in the latest 'Sounding Board' www.harpsichord.org.uk/sounding-board/, which also includes a piece of mine about Bach's Inventions & Sinfonias and keyboard technique.
13/07/2019 13:12
Newly arrived, an 8/4/2/1 chamber organ by David Leach (2019), illustrated on the hire page francis-knights.webnode.com/instrument-hire/. It's an ingeniously compact design, with a very sweet tone.
06/06/2019 19:03
Most early keyboard players feel they can always do with an extra instrument or two, perhaps in different national style or at a different pitch - at least, when the price is right. The variety of types of instrument that are historically plausible for the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book is considerable,...
27/05/2019 12:04
This is by no means a new idea (Judith Conrad, Anna Maria McElwain and Wim Winters have done it, and there are even some recordings on YouTube), but I thought to try it out too, on the basis that clavichords were still being made and used into the 1840s, and that some selected Chopin piano pieces...
26/05/2019 13:01
The series of literary dramatizations I've been running over the past two years as part of the President's Evenings at Fitz is now finished, and we covered nearly 4,000 years of literature from around the world: 'The Epic of Gilgamesh' (Sumeria, 18th century BC), 'The Golden Ass' (Lucius Apuleius,...
30/04/2019 11:55
The unexpected acquisition of an ottavino (c/e-c4, based on the c.1595 instrument in the V&A) a few weeks ago was perfectly timed for an outing last Sunday, which was otherwise on clavichord: Fitzwilliam Virginal Book recital 28 was also the third of Farnaby's complete keyboard music, and I...
16/03/2019 12:22
As a break from the ongoing FVB, Bach and German clavichord series, there was a concert last week at Hughes Hall, Cambridge, which was a century-long survey of modern clavichord music, likely the first time that has ever been done. As well as Seiber, Berkeley and Howells, there were a fair number...
30/12/2018 16:56
Having never owned a double-manual harpsichord, but had several on short-term loan from Michael Thomas, John McKean and others, it's a real pleasure now to have a five-octave Flemish double of my own - just in time to start learning the Goldberg Varations, for 2019. Also in planning is a programme...
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