At the seemingly unlikely location of the Bank of England on December 5th, a notable event took place: a recital by Gustav Leonhardt, no less. The occasion was the launch in this country of a publicity and fundraising drive for a new institution entirely dedicated to the harpsichord, the Piccola Accademia di Montisi. Situated - somewhat obviously - in Italy, but international in character, the Academy appears to have two principal aims: to be a centre for the well-known harpsichord builder Bruce Kennedy, and to mount masterclasses.
The first part of the evening was dedicated to a display and introduction. A large and beautifully produced chart was on view, with printed copies supplied, consisting of a map and illustrations of ten instruments, showing the places in Europe where they originate and giving brief descriptions of their character and usefulness. This would make an informative resource for those seeking basic instruction. However, it does raise a familiar problem: oversimplified ‘authenticity’ can easily become inappropriately prescriptive. No doubt our friends in the British Clavichord Society would argue with the description of a clavichord as (no more than) ‘the practice instrument of choice’, and some of us would wish to qualify the claim that the Theewes harpsichord is ‘the instrument of choice for Byrd, Farnaby and Phillips’. No offence to that instrument, and certainly not to the talent and scholarship that have gone into its re-creation by Malcolm Rose, but to describe it as the instrument of choice is reductive: it is one of the ideal instruments for such music - an Italian virginal or a Flemish muselar (among others) being other ideals with equal claims. (The choice of Phillips - or Philips - as one of the three composers named is strange: it is unlikely that he managed to take a large and heavy English harpsichord with him when he escaped abroad to the place where most of his music was composed...)
If a bank seemed an odd location for a harpsichord recital, it was the ideal location for the fund raising which - as no one attempted to disguise - was the main point of the evening. The sums under discussion are substantial. Friends who join what is described as the ‘Makers Circle’ are asked to donate in one of four bands (each of them carrying the name of an historic harpsichord maker - becoming a member of the Ruckers family, interestingly, costs more than twice as much as joining the Blanchet workshop): at the lowest level, the donation invited is £1000 per annum; at the highest... £17,000. Those of us who devote some time and effort to promoting musical activities on a budget of zero are left searching around for a polite version of the term ‘gobsmacked’.
The Academy has been founded in the belief that there is presently ‘no city or institution where the full experience of the various schools of harpsichord-making and the best master teachers come together to bring the learning of the past to musicians of the twenty-first century’. The Academy aims to reach to the musical community through an annual programme of masterclasses, weekly performances and a summer festival, and a programme of internet-based recording. Its chairman is the finance executive Ms Laurel Powers-Freeling (to the kindness of whom I am indebted for my invitation to the event); the general director is Bruce Kennedy, and the artistic adviser Alan Curtis. The organisers very frankly shared information with us: launch costs alone are €680,000; capital investment is set at €2,100,000 – in addition to operating costs, naturally. And the ‘endowment ambition’ is €5 million.
After the inevitable security checks and a longish walk through the surprisingly bland corridors of the Bank of England, we had come out in the much more spectacular Court Room: a fitting venue indeed for a celebrity harpsichord recital - were it not for the disturbing absence of chairs...
It was a varied miniature programme, giving a taste of several composers important in themselves or representative of a school, and mixing the well known with the less familiar; though whether some members of the seemingly ‘non-specialist’ audience would have preferred a higher proportion of popular pieces is open to question:-
Jakob Johann Froberger, Plainte faite a Londres pour passer la Melancolie
Jakob Johann Froberger, Toccata 3
Louis Couperin, Prélude non-mesuré in F major
Johann Pachelbel, Two fugues
Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer, Chaconne in a minor
Domenico Scarlatti, Sonata K60 in f minor
Johann Sebastian Bach, Sarabande in a minor (from French Suite No 2)
Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, Polonaise in f minor
So the pieces ranged from around 1650 to 1765: the only major regret (felt at least by some of us) was that we heard nothing from the previous hundred years or so of superbly great music for keyboard. The only serious problem was nothing to do with the music and by no means the fault of the famous performer: we were required to stand throughout the recital. This impaired concentration at a time when it ought to have been functioning at optimum level. One or two people moved about during the music; others were distinctly heard to whisper about replenishing their drinks. All this while Gustav Leonhardt was playing great music!
It would seem impertinent to write a critique of the performance – and unnecessary, since readers of this organ will know Leonhardt’s style. Opinions will vary as to whether he is, as Christopher Hogwood described him in his introduction to the recital, the greatest harpsichordist now alive in the world. He certainly has a claim to that status, and he certainly carries it with unpretentious dignity: one of the minor sources of enjoyment was the way the great man simply wandered into the room as soon as any number of people had arrived, unannounced - almost unnoticed - and took up a position in a corner, from where he appeared content to chat with any brave enough to approach. To pursue the ‘greatest harpsichordist’ question seems unnecessary: comparisons at such a level of excellence are relatively unproductive. The question is surely not who is ‘greater’ out of Gustav Leonhardt and (say) Trevor Pinnock – to name the candidate from our own shores who obviously comes to mind; the task is rather to attempt to analyse, and certainly to celebrate, the different kinds of greatness that such performers demonstrate. Unquestionably, the debt that every player and listener owes Leonhardt in his role as one of the chief pioneers of historically-informed performance can hardly be overstated.
I will allow myself only two comments at a personal level: it was a great delight to have two pieces by Froberger included (the first of them particularly appropriate to the location), and hearing one of my absolute favourite of favourites (that Bach Sarabande), played live by Leonhardt was... well, the hackneyed superlatives are inadequate. All in all, it was an unforgettable experience, and I consider myself privileged to have been there.