*_The rest of the documentation by André Tubeuf in the French language 1/1_* *Couperin hors du tombeau* A peine ne, Ie disque a eu toutes les audaces. Les annees 30 ont ose - honneur a His Master's Voice, qui a imagine cette ceuvre de pionnier - imprimer et diffuser les textes les plus explosifs, les plus porteurs d'avenir. lis dormaien~, parfois depuis des siecles, dans Ie secret des blbllotheques. Le disque donnait a lire a des milliers de destinataires (des millions virtuellement), ce qui jusque-Ia n'avait pratiquement ete lu. que par des savants ou entendu par des privilegies. Pour adresser ainsi au grand nombre Ie tresor de la musique classique, HMV eut une idee aussi simple que I'ceuf de Christophe Colomb : les societes de souscripteurs. A une epoque ou il existait a peine deux ou trois versions de l'Appassionata en disque, et aucune de I'opus 111 , il etait fou de pretendre vendre au public I'integrale des Sonates de Beethoven par Schnabel , comme les libraires avaient vendu tout Balzac. Mais c'etait aussi une folie, Schnabel etant I.a, de ne pas lui permettre d'ecrire ce testament. Une Societe Beethoven rendit I'entreprise possible, reservant son benefice d'abord a ceux qui rendaient Ie projet viable, les souscripteurs. De meme, les Operas de Mozart, a Glyndebourne d'abord avec Fritz Busch, puis a Berlin avec Beecham. Et les cycles de Lieder de Schubert avec Gerhard Husch. Et meme Hugo Wolf, cet inconnu. Un jour viendraient les Symphonies de Sibelius. La premiere contribution fran
Interesting find, of historical value. Landowska was a musicologist in that she searched for manuscripts of unpublished, which differed from the published works of the composers of the 17th and 18th century. Her use of the Pleyel revival Harpsichord (aka plucking piano) and a technique vastly different from the historical La douceur toucher technique descriptions has drawn later criticism (her technique compared her hand position to the extreme contractures of rheumatoid arthritis, the only harpsichordist of today with a similar technique which approaches this hand position if not as extreme is Diego Ares). A description of the hand technique of J S Bach as taught by W F Bach to J N Forkel and shown to Griepenkerl was in the latter’s edition of the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue when published as a description of the Forkel’s performance. An abbreviated version is found in one of Kalmus reprints of JSB organ music of Griepenkerl and in Historical Harpsichord Technique by Yo it Lea Kosovske.
Thanks again for the background information. At the moment I am finishing the last touches of a Pleyel recording (at least I think it is a Pleyel because there is no documentation at all) from the 1950s (?) where Gudula Kremers is playing J.S. Bach-pieces. Although it is of course completely out of date and fashion, I think it is a wonderful recording, which was worth the struggle to reduce the clicks and pops.
@@HarpsichordVinylGallery Wanda Landowska was quite influential, her student Ralph Kirkpatrick work on cataloging Scarlatti’s Sonatas was a major achievement. My first and truly only Piano teacher (I had others in college but these contributed little), let me borrow her copy of Landowska playing the Well Tempered Clavier part 2, and her historically based tempi choices compared with back then, throughout the second half of the 20th century, and today pianists (and too many piano students copy the bad habits) speed through pieces similar to gobbling down a five course dinner on a ten minute coffee break. She also recorded piano music, including three Scarlatti harpsichord sonatas, which I never heard. Her quotations are amusing, on hearing Gould’s Goldberg Variation 1955, “I don’t like it, but he’s wonderful.” Her remark to her good friend Pablo Casals when both played Bach Cello Sonata together privately was a good natured joke, not a put down or chiding him, as others have written, “You play Bach your way and I’ll play him his way.” And why I treasure your channel so greatly, it’s an archive I could have never afforded or found available. Many thanks are insufficient to express my gratitude for your hard work.
@@HarpsichordVinylGallery An afterthought, Landowska attempted with heavy hints to Arnold Dolmetsch to build her a (free) harpsichord but he never took the bait.
@@Renshen1957 Nice view. I noticed that the last let's say 8 years the importance of Wanda Landowska is underlined in the world of the harpsichord. Of course, she has never been very far away, and I was able to buy a second hand copy of 'Landowska on Music' by Denise Restout (1964) with marks of the 'Julius Forstmann Library' in it long ago. But I was at a recital some 6 years ago in Brugge (Belgium) where Skip Sempé actually played a Pleyel next to a French and a virginal. He told the audience that without Wanda, we might not sit there, and he would not play at that moment. And this year he held a lecture at the Festival of Early Music in Utrecht about Wanda Landowka. It was very early in the morning, so I was not there, but in the booklet of the Festival there was a prominent article about that lecture too. And as you mentioned, Diego Ares is playing or demonstrating the Pleyel in some short TH-cam films. She somehow had a vision and that she asked Dolmetsch to build her a harpsichord, as you mentioned, fits that picture perfectly.
@@HarpsichordVinylGallery Speaking of Skip Sempé and Landowska, did you see the video of his lecture demonstaration at The Library of Congress (which house an impressive Landowska Archives) , Bach & the Landowska Legacy? It's on TH-cam uploaded 10 years ago at th-cam.com/video/tQppWyIfOlk/w-d-xo.html Although I don't always have animousity towards the revival instruments, Luciano Sgrizzi's Nonesuch LP of Scarlatti was fantastic, or Richter's playing of J S Bach, he must have had the muscles of a Blacksmith, but I'm not particularly found of the tone compared to the antique or reproductions or the stop choices (many an instrument had 16' 8' on the lower manual, and 8' and 4' registers on the upper manual (except a Zacharias Hildebrandt Harpsichord advertisement in the 1770's, the historical harpsichords that have the disposition had been modified later in the lifetime). I listen to these performances for what the artist brought to the table. One of the problems with the Serian Instruments and instruments not derived from a historical prototype , both of these revival instruments frequently posse pedals for the registers, with the temptation to frequently and continually change stops (registers) on the fly, and the over use of the 16' register (William Byrd the Bells had an artificial crescendo and 16' stop final addition which he never had on the Italianor English instruments at his disposal, and mostly by their lack of projection of tone earned the nickname of "whisperchords", and too frequently with very heavy actions. Many of the revival artists eventually moved on to historical prototypes or the better heeled (richer) purchased antique harpsichords. Thank you for the Heads up on the Pleyel Diego Ares. He has a virtuoso ability and speed, but I can't find any precedent for his technique, in the historical record (I don't observe his hands anyway) except it resembles the photographs and rare videos of Landowska. I didn't share my favorite quoted of hers, Composers aren't Wolves, they don't eat each other and, I never make the same mistake twice. I make it five or six times, just to be sure...
Thank you so much, Dear HVG! So much to say about these recordings. Where to begin? Well, let's start big : though she was the first to bring this repertoire into the publick mind on the harpsichord, it seems that, in spite of the passage of time, this is still the bar for a performance of the musick of Francois Couperin. If Landowska has an equal in this repertoire, it is not on the harpsichord, but perhaps only on Marcel Meyer's grand piano. Why Landowska is so supreme, here, is difficult to sum up, but, I will try : in each piece she has a full expressive concept that is a living marriage between the composer's rhetorick and her particular insight into it. In other words, the objective and subjective live in great harmony with her, in each and every one of these performances. Her use of agogicks is so masterful - ever slowing and accelerating in such a way that one never quite gets the feeling that the next note is ' inevitable' and yet, when one heasr it played, it seem so ' inevitable' that it is difficult to imagine that note having been placet anywhere else but, in the time and space where she placet it. Moreover, with such a copious use of sforzandi, her playing is never polite, which insures that the tedium which so oft occurs in many other solo classical musick performances does not transpire here. On an adjunct point, I have to say that her Pleyel instrument, as would be quickly deridden, nowadays, by those who cannot imagine a harpsichord built in this style, manifests so many colours - from friendly and intimate to monstrous and symphonick, that, again, no tedium can set in. Lastly, her articulative palette, from legatissimo to staccatissimo, is so wondrous that one could listen to just this aspect, alone, and never cease to be amused! In Landowska's Francois Couperin the Fete-Galants of Watteau and Lancret live on, winking at us from the corner of a dim, candle-lit, and wainscot-paneled room...
So nice to read your elaborate thoughts about the approach of Landowska in the Couperin-pieces.It gives an extra dimension when listening it over again. However with my 2018 ears and being an amateur but trained hpschd-listener I also hear different things. It might be lack of concentration but I experience great difficulties to listen and enjoy the music from start to finish. Simply missing the stamina to adapt to so many different approaches and ideas. But the idea of admiration for Landowka as a pioneer is still prominent in the thought to produce such recordings in the 30's. In any way your comment helps to get some grip.
Thank you for your thoughts, Dear HVG!. By the way, it is perfectly okay with me if you dislike Landowska's Couperin, as many today do. Having arisen from the late 19th century, she developet her playing at a time when the conservatories were beginning to exert strong influence,and, in advocating an modern objectivist approach to historical performance practice, these academies made a considerable effort to stigmatize those performers who would not 'reform' their interpretive habits to be more mechanical. and, hence, completely untrue to historick performance practice. Landowska, like Casals and Cortot, was one of the of those pre-1880 born who refused to reform, until, like Elman and Segovia, she did so very late in life, when, living in Lakeville Connecticut, she made recordings of Bach that, in many ways were antithetical to the kind of work she had done before. Since at least the 1940s, her playing has been regarded by most professors as 'too mannered', and, as such, has been seen as 'a quaint eccentricity'. As for myself, the fact that she was a pioneer is interesting, but, not central to my reaction. No, even if a young person came along, today, and played this way, I would love it. The only harpsichordist in the last 50 years that comes close to Landowska in this repertoire is Blandine Verlet, for the latter also plays musick in a 'highly mannered' way which is quite 'unobjective'. Kipnis could be expressive in this repertoire, as he demonstrated with his recording of the Marchand suite, and Marlowe intense, but, sadly, the vast majority of harpsichordists who have recorded this repertoire are so influencet by modernist objectivisms as to be tedious intellectually and vapid expressively. Kenneth Gilbert was perhaps the most notable example, but, he had competition in Scott Ross, he who never found a 17th century musical phrase he could not make modern. There are many others who have recorded but, in most cases you quickly get the feeling listening to them that they are playing more for the approval of their modern conservatory colleagues, than for the musick, and, that so, they bring very little except polite articulation of ' inegalitè' and atmospherick sonicks. Thank you, once again!
It was my pleasure. You are rather harsh on the way they teach at conservatories ;-) Can't you tell them also that they don't win prizes by playing pieces as fast as they can? This music is much more beautiful when the compositions can breathe and the quality of the tone can be appreciated especially the steady French basslines. When I stumble on any vinyl of François Couperin by Blandine Verlet I will most definitely publish it here, since you raised expectations ;-)
How right you are, Dear HVG - I am 'harsh' on conservatories, this because they do to great musick what universities do to European Countries - train their students to eviscerate their own traditions and kind by believing in eine Idee über alles. Thank you for your good humour, and, yes, you have already publisht a very fine recording of Miss Blandine's of which I was not aware - a pre-Astree recording of Louis Couperin. Thank you so much for that, as the instrument she used on that recording was much more enjoyable for his musick than the one she later used - The Kolmar-Ruckers. God bless you!
*_The rest of the documentation in an English translation 1/1_* *Couperin disentombed* The record had hardly been born when it dared everyth ing. The 'thirties -thanks to His Master's Voice who originated this pioneering work - were bold enough to print and distribute the most explosive and future-oriented works. They had in some cases slumbered for centuries in the secret confines of libraries. The record enabled thousands (virtually millions) to enjoy what had until then practically only been read by the pundits or heard by a privileged few. To make the treasures of classical music available to the large number of devotees, HMV hit on an idea as simple as it was brilliant : the subscription society. At a time when there barely existed two or three versions of the Appassionata on record and No. opus 111 at all, it would have been madness to attempt to sell the publ ic Beethoven's complete piano Sonatas played by Schnabel in the same way booksellers used to sell the collected works of Balzac. But at the same time, since Schnabel was right there, it was also madness not to allow him to write th is testament. A Beethoven Society made this venture feasible, its benefit being first and foremost for those responsible for making the scheme viable in the first place - the subscribers. The same was done with Mozart's Operas, first at Glyndebourne under Fritz Busch and then in Berlin under Beecham, Schubert's Lieder cycles with Gerhard Husch, and even that great unknown, Hugo Wolf. One day, the Symphon ies of Sibelius would follow. The first French contribution was high ly significant: a "Couperin Ie Grand Society ". Its hig h-priestess was Wanda Landowska. She was unafraid of danger. From her earliest age she faced the fashion of the day with sovereign disdain. Sure of her instinct, sure of the soundness of her taste, sure of the ardent, indeed the frantic patience with which she served her gods, she knew that their hour would come. She had just recorded Bach 's Goldberg Variations. She was going to produce a full measure of Scarlatti Sonatas and then one of Handel Sui tes. It would have been more rational to combine this "Couperin Ie Grand Society", this "Scarlatti Society" as well as this "Handel Society", none of which ever got beyond volume I (the approach of the war and the great harpSichord player's volunt~ry exile in the USA were evidently not unconnected with this) under the general heading "Wanda Landowska Society". This would only be fair, for there has been no other performer to shoulder so many musical resurrection tasks; nor, to be sure, any other who, after first rehabilitating an instrument of which everybody made fun, had the privilege of additionally rehabilitating as well as bringing to life and making known to the public, through the record, the glorious repertoire which had been written for it. It is significant that Wanda Landowska should, to beg in with, have chosen Couperin. Who was he? Only an organist, and then a performer on the harpsichord. In other words, a practitioner. And that is just what the expression " instrumental ist" means. Yet there are new instruments which open up to those who know how to appraise their poss ibili ties, lands as bountiful as the New World. Wholly a practitioner and an empirici st, never a theoretician, Couperin was in that respect something like Wanda Landowska's godfather and ancestor: they both made it their business to show that the instrument cou ld be played. He at first, and she in another century, brought the harpsichord to life. It is the whole range of fantasies of a French century which did not troub le itself with problems of form that Couperin has, as it were, recorded on the harpsichord and animated by its sound qual iti es, inventoried at long last. Bach would later go through the same Obung : an indefatigable exercise which turns an instrumentalist into a kind of creator and an instrument into a New World. It is indeed lhe tradition of improvisat ion that is creative here. The imag ination gets hold of a theme, sketches and embroiders. And ornamentation animates these brief and lively picturesque sketches which owe everyth ing to accent (on the part of the performer) and to concentrated attention (on the part of the listener, who has to be captivated, persuaded, won over). An immense rhetorical art, which, unless it is brilliant, will only turn out to be flatly gallant - just like pictures and drawings for that matter. And Couperin is brilliant. So was Wanda Landowska, with her creative instinct, which prompted her to recreate that which is worthy of life and carries the promise of a healthy and fruitful future. This daring sonority, this regal ornementation, this sovereign tone - are they orthodox? They do better than that. They are irresistible. They make you feel you want to be a musician. They inspire some to take up the harpsichord as a vocation. They still produce the lightning sensation that this is the first time one hears them. André Tubeuf
@@louiscouperin3731 If you are really interested, compare the photographed text in the film with the OCR-scan of the backside of the cover. Sometimes letter types are not that easy to convert to text with my OCR-program. I consider it an extra service and a tool to convert it with google translate to the native language of the viewer.
NO unequal notes??? The great Rudolf Dolmetsch was doing them at the this period (indeed, Arnold actually corrected my father in the '20s when he was playing the French repertory 'as written'). Wanda is surprising me here...
Interesting observation indeed. Maybe because these were the very first steps into the realm of Couperin? I was rather curious and looked it up in the book "Landowska on Music" published in 1964, pages 386-7: *_Rhythmic Alterations_* Today some musicians interested in the music of the past have come to realize that rhythmic alterations, such as notes inegales, were required in the execution of this music. Here is Landowska's warning: "To apply this style constantly and to play all the notes unevenly is evidently a barbarism. A researcher who is a true artist will avoid doing that because it would be a denial of the magnificent long and pure lines of Bach, Handel, and so many other musicians of the past. Certain phrases within a piece demand rhythmic alterations, while others do not. To use this alteration all along would give the piece a uniformity detrimental to its flavor. Here enters what I call discrimination-to know. where, when, and how rhythmic alterations should be employed. The French dotted style deeply influenced Bach and Handel, who created . magnificent overtures-. This style brought its own particular way of playing. The dotted note had to be played as if it had two dots instead of one. The length of the following note had to be shortened in such a way that it was played very close to the note coming after it. This way of playing the stile francese was rigorously observed at the time of Bach and Handel. It slackened off, little by little, toward the second half of the eighteenth century. Quantz, being conservative, observed it to the letter, while Karl Philipp Emanuel Bach-a budding romantic was less rigorous. This slackening increased, and nineteenth-century romanticism went as far as to reject completely this manner of shortening the note after the dot. Busoni said in his edition of The Well-Tempered Clavier, apropos of the D major Fugue from Book I: "Take care not to play the dotted note too long or the sixteenth-note too short-mistakes to which teachers' ears have long since grown accustomed; not this way [example in notes] It is thus that my revered master Michalowski taught it to me. According to him, the prolongation of the dot brought vulgarity to the phrase. Oh, the puerility of esthetics! That which from Lully to Bach was proud, chivalrous, and magnificent became vulgar in the nineteenth century!"
To which I can only add (in the modern era) listen to Kenneth Gilbert... Wanda is speaking about the 18th century German repertoire, which is a different kettle of fish. And the point with notes inegale is that they're not dotted or whatever - it is almost always much less than a dotted effect. Subtlety is what's required, not a Handelian triple-dot ;-)
In the book is no context mentioned but they are stated as general guidelines in small paragraphs: about On Fingering, On Touch, About Phrasing, On registration, About rhythm, On tempo, About rubato, etc.
So do I! Just found a nice quote by Landowska in it about ornamentation which has nothing to do with this subject but it was quite a lady (page 119, 1979) ... The results are often inartistic and unconvincing, or as Mm. Landowska put it so well: *"an ornament badly played is like a smile in a toothless mouth"*
*_The rest of the documentation by André Tubeuf in the French language 1/1_*
*Couperin hors du tombeau*
A peine ne, Ie disque a eu toutes les audaces. Les annees 30
ont ose - honneur a His Master's Voice, qui a imagine
cette ceuvre de pionnier - imprimer et diffuser les textes les
plus explosifs, les plus porteurs d'avenir. lis dormaien~, parfois
depuis des siecles, dans Ie secret des blbllotheques.
Le disque donnait a lire a des milliers de destinataires (des
millions virtuellement), ce qui jusque-Ia n'avait pratiquement
ete lu. que par des savants ou entendu par des privilegies.
Pour adresser ainsi au grand nombre Ie tresor de la musique
classique, HMV eut une idee aussi simple que I'ceuf de
Christophe Colomb : les societes de souscripteurs. A une
epoque ou il existait a peine deux ou trois versions de
l'Appassionata en disque, et aucune de I'opus 111 , il etait
fou de pretendre vendre au public I'integrale des Sonates
de Beethoven par Schnabel , comme les libraires avaient
vendu tout Balzac. Mais c'etait aussi une folie, Schnabel
etant I.a, de ne pas lui permettre d'ecrire ce testament. Une
Societe Beethoven rendit I'entreprise possible, reservant son
benefice d'abord a ceux qui rendaient Ie projet viable, les
souscripteurs. De meme, les Operas de Mozart, a Glyndebourne
d'abord avec Fritz Busch, puis a Berlin avec Beecham.
Et les cycles de Lieder de Schubert avec Gerhard Husch.
Et meme Hugo Wolf, cet inconnu. Un jour viendraient les
Symphonies de Sibelius. La premiere contribution fran
Thank you so much for posting this treasure.
The first harpshicordist of the New gen❤
Thank you very much for the wonderful upload with the great Wanda Landowska
Interesting find, of historical value. Landowska was a musicologist in that she searched for manuscripts of unpublished, which differed from the published works of the composers of the 17th and 18th century. Her use of the Pleyel revival Harpsichord (aka plucking piano) and a technique vastly different from the historical La douceur toucher technique descriptions has drawn later criticism (her technique compared her hand position to the extreme contractures of rheumatoid arthritis, the only harpsichordist of today with a similar technique which approaches this hand position if not as extreme is Diego Ares).
A description of the hand technique of J S Bach as taught by W F Bach to J N Forkel and shown to Griepenkerl was in the latter’s edition of the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue when published as a description of the Forkel’s performance. An abbreviated version is found in one of Kalmus reprints of JSB organ music of Griepenkerl and in Historical Harpsichord Technique by Yo it Lea Kosovske.
Thanks again for the background information. At the moment I am finishing the last touches of a Pleyel recording (at least I think it is a Pleyel because there is no documentation at all) from the 1950s (?) where Gudula Kremers is playing J.S. Bach-pieces. Although it is of course completely out of date and fashion, I think it is a wonderful recording, which was worth the struggle to reduce the clicks and pops.
@@HarpsichordVinylGallery Wanda Landowska was quite influential, her student Ralph Kirkpatrick work on cataloging Scarlatti’s Sonatas was a major achievement. My first and truly only Piano teacher (I had others in college but these contributed little), let me borrow her copy of Landowska playing the Well Tempered Clavier part 2, and her historically based tempi choices compared with back then, throughout the second half of the 20th century, and today pianists (and too many piano students copy the bad habits) speed through pieces similar to gobbling down a five course dinner on a ten minute coffee break. She also recorded piano music, including three Scarlatti harpsichord sonatas, which I never heard.
Her quotations are amusing, on hearing Gould’s Goldberg Variation 1955, “I don’t like it, but he’s wonderful.” Her remark to her good friend Pablo Casals when both played Bach Cello Sonata together privately was a good natured joke, not a put down or chiding him, as others have written, “You play Bach your way and I’ll play him his way.”
And why I treasure your channel so greatly, it’s an archive I could have never afforded or found available. Many thanks are insufficient to express my gratitude for your hard work.
@@HarpsichordVinylGallery An afterthought, Landowska attempted with heavy hints to Arnold Dolmetsch to build her a (free) harpsichord but he never took the bait.
@@Renshen1957 Nice view. I noticed that the last let's say 8 years the importance of Wanda Landowska is underlined in the world of the harpsichord. Of course, she has never been very far away, and I was able to buy a second hand copy of 'Landowska on Music' by Denise Restout (1964) with marks of the 'Julius Forstmann Library' in it long ago.
But I was at a recital some 6 years ago in Brugge (Belgium) where Skip Sempé actually played a Pleyel next to a French and a virginal. He told the audience that without Wanda, we might not sit there, and he would not play at that moment. And this year he held a lecture at the Festival of Early Music in Utrecht about Wanda Landowka. It was very early in the morning, so I was not there, but in the booklet of the Festival there was a prominent article about that lecture too. And as you mentioned, Diego Ares is playing or demonstrating the Pleyel in some short TH-cam films. She somehow had a vision and that she asked Dolmetsch to build her a harpsichord, as you mentioned, fits that picture perfectly.
@@HarpsichordVinylGallery Speaking of Skip Sempé and Landowska, did you see the video of his lecture demonstaration at The Library of Congress (which house an impressive Landowska Archives) , Bach & the Landowska Legacy?
It's on TH-cam uploaded 10 years ago at th-cam.com/video/tQppWyIfOlk/w-d-xo.html
Although I don't always have animousity towards the revival instruments, Luciano Sgrizzi's Nonesuch LP of Scarlatti was fantastic, or Richter's playing of J S Bach, he must have had the muscles of a Blacksmith, but I'm not particularly found of the tone compared to the antique or reproductions or the stop choices (many an instrument had 16' 8' on the lower manual, and 8' and 4' registers on the upper manual (except a Zacharias Hildebrandt Harpsichord advertisement in the 1770's, the historical harpsichords that have the disposition had been modified later in the lifetime). I listen to these performances for what the artist brought to the table.
One of the problems with the Serian Instruments and instruments not derived from a historical prototype , both of these revival instruments frequently posse pedals for the registers, with the temptation to frequently and continually change stops (registers) on the fly, and the over use of the 16' register (William Byrd the Bells had an artificial crescendo and 16' stop final addition which he never had on the Italianor English instruments at his disposal, and mostly by their lack of projection of tone earned the nickname of "whisperchords", and too frequently with very heavy actions.
Many of the revival artists eventually moved on to historical prototypes or the better heeled (richer) purchased antique harpsichords.
Thank you for the Heads up on the Pleyel Diego Ares. He has a virtuoso ability and speed, but I can't find any precedent for his technique, in the historical record (I don't observe his hands anyway) except it resembles the photographs and rare videos of Landowska.
I didn't share my favorite quoted of hers, Composers aren't Wolves, they don't eat each other and, I never make the same mistake twice. I make it five or six times, just to be sure...
Thank you so much, Dear HVG! So much to say about these recordings. Where to begin? Well, let's start big : though she was the first to bring this repertoire into the publick mind on the harpsichord, it seems that, in spite of the passage of time, this is still the bar for a performance of the musick of Francois Couperin. If Landowska has an equal in this repertoire, it is not on the harpsichord, but perhaps only on Marcel Meyer's grand piano. Why Landowska is so supreme, here, is difficult to sum up, but, I will try : in each piece she has a full expressive concept that is a living marriage between the composer's rhetorick and her particular insight into it. In other words, the objective and subjective live in great harmony with her, in each and every one of these performances. Her use of agogicks is so masterful - ever slowing and accelerating in such a way that one never quite gets the feeling that the next note is ' inevitable' and yet, when one heasr it played, it seem so ' inevitable' that it is difficult to imagine that note having been placet anywhere else but, in the time and space where she placet it. Moreover, with such a copious use of sforzandi, her playing is never polite, which insures that the tedium which so oft occurs in many other solo classical musick performances does not transpire here. On an adjunct point, I have to say that her Pleyel instrument, as would be quickly deridden, nowadays, by those who cannot imagine a harpsichord built in this style, manifests so many colours - from friendly and intimate to monstrous and symphonick, that, again, no tedium can set in. Lastly, her articulative palette, from legatissimo to staccatissimo, is so wondrous that one could listen to just this aspect, alone, and never cease to be amused! In Landowska's Francois Couperin the Fete-Galants of Watteau and Lancret live on, winking at us from the corner of a dim, candle-lit, and wainscot-paneled room...
So nice to read your elaborate thoughts about the approach of Landowska in the Couperin-pieces.It gives an extra dimension when listening it over again.
However with my 2018 ears and being an amateur but trained hpschd-listener I also hear different things. It might be lack of concentration but I experience great difficulties to listen and enjoy the music from start to finish. Simply missing the stamina to adapt to so many different approaches and ideas. But the idea of admiration for Landowka as a pioneer is still prominent in the thought to produce such recordings in the 30's.
In any way your comment helps to get some grip.
Thank you for your thoughts, Dear HVG!. By the way, it is perfectly okay with me if you dislike Landowska's Couperin, as many today do. Having arisen from the late 19th century, she developet her playing at a time when the conservatories were beginning to exert strong influence,and, in advocating an modern objectivist approach to historical performance practice, these academies made a considerable effort to stigmatize those performers who would not 'reform' their interpretive habits to be more mechanical. and, hence, completely untrue to historick performance practice. Landowska, like Casals and Cortot, was one of the of those pre-1880 born who refused to reform, until, like Elman and Segovia, she did so very late in life, when, living in Lakeville Connecticut, she made recordings of Bach that, in many ways were antithetical to the kind of work she had done before. Since at least the 1940s, her playing has been regarded by most professors as 'too mannered', and, as such, has been seen as 'a quaint eccentricity'. As for myself, the fact that she was a pioneer is interesting, but, not central to my reaction. No, even if a young person came along, today, and played this way, I would love it. The only harpsichordist in the last 50 years that comes close to Landowska in this repertoire is Blandine Verlet, for the latter also plays musick in a 'highly mannered' way which is quite 'unobjective'. Kipnis could be expressive in this repertoire, as he demonstrated with his recording of the Marchand suite, and Marlowe intense, but, sadly, the vast majority of harpsichordists who have recorded this repertoire are so influencet by modernist objectivisms as to be tedious intellectually and vapid expressively. Kenneth Gilbert was perhaps the most notable example, but, he had competition in Scott Ross, he who never found a 17th century musical phrase he could not make modern. There are many others who have recorded but, in most cases you quickly get the feeling listening to them that they are playing more for the approval of their modern conservatory colleagues, than for the musick, and, that so, they bring very little except polite articulation of ' inegalitè' and atmospherick sonicks. Thank you, once again!
It was my pleasure. You are rather harsh on the way they teach at conservatories ;-) Can't you tell them also that they don't win prizes by playing pieces as fast as they can? This music is much more beautiful when the compositions can breathe and the quality of the tone can be appreciated especially the steady French basslines.
When I stumble on any vinyl of François Couperin by Blandine Verlet I will most definitely publish it here, since you raised expectations ;-)
How right you are, Dear HVG - I am 'harsh' on conservatories, this because they do to great musick what universities do to European Countries - train their students to eviscerate their own traditions and kind by believing in eine Idee über alles. Thank you for your good humour, and, yes, you have already publisht a very fine recording of Miss Blandine's of which I was not aware - a pre-Astree recording of Louis Couperin. Thank you so much for that, as the instrument she used on that recording was much more enjoyable for his musick than the one she later used - The Kolmar-Ruckers. God bless you!
*_The rest of the documentation in an English translation 1/1_*
*Couperin disentombed*
The record had hardly been born when it dared everyth ing.
The 'thirties -thanks to His Master's Voice who originated
this pioneering work - were bold enough to print and
distribute the most explosive and future-oriented works.
They had in some cases slumbered for centuries in the
secret confines of libraries. The record enabled thousands
(virtually millions) to enjoy what had until then practically
only been read by the pundits or heard by a privileged few.
To make the treasures of classical music available to the
large number of devotees, HMV hit on an idea as simple
as it was brilliant : the subscription society. At a time when
there barely existed two or three versions of the Appassionata
on record and No. opus 111 at all, it would have been madness
to attempt to sell the publ ic Beethoven's complete piano
Sonatas played by Schnabel in the same way booksellers
used to sell the collected works of Balzac. But at the same
time, since Schnabel was right there, it was also madness
not to allow him to write th is testament. A Beethoven
Society made this venture feasible, its benefit being first
and foremost for those responsible for making the scheme
viable in the first place - the subscribers. The same was
done with Mozart's Operas, first at Glyndebourne under Fritz
Busch and then in Berlin under Beecham, Schubert's Lieder
cycles with Gerhard Husch, and even that great unknown,
Hugo Wolf. One day, the Symphon ies of Sibelius would
follow. The first French contribution was high ly significant:
a "Couperin Ie Grand Society ". Its hig h-priestess was
Wanda Landowska. She was unafraid of danger. From
her earliest age she faced the fashion of the day with
sovereign disdain. Sure of her instinct, sure of the soundness
of her taste, sure of the ardent, indeed the frantic
patience with which she served her gods, she knew that
their hour would come. She had just recorded Bach 's
Goldberg Variations. She was going to produce a full measure
of Scarlatti Sonatas and then one of Handel Sui tes. It would
have been more rational to combine this "Couperin Ie Grand
Society", this "Scarlatti Society" as well as this "Handel
Society", none of which ever got beyond volume I (the
approach of the war and the great harpSichord player's
volunt~ry exile in the USA were evidently not unconnected
with this) under the general heading "Wanda Landowska
Society". This would only be fair, for there has been no
other performer to shoulder so many musical resurrection
tasks; nor, to be sure, any other who, after first rehabilitating
an instrument of which everybody made fun, had the privilege
of additionally rehabilitating as well as bringing to life and
making known to the public, through the record, the glorious
repertoire which had been written for it.
It is significant that Wanda Landowska should, to beg in with,
have chosen Couperin. Who was he? Only an organist, and
then a performer on the harpsichord. In other words, a practitioner.
And that is just what the expression " instrumental ist"
means. Yet there are new instruments which open up to those
who know how to appraise their poss ibili ties, lands as bountiful
as the New World. Wholly a practitioner and an empirici st,
never a theoretician, Couperin was in that respect something
like Wanda Landowska's godfather and ancestor: they both
made it their business to show that the instrument cou ld be
played. He at first, and she in another century, brought the
harpsichord to life. It is the whole range of fantasies of a
French century which did not troub le itself with problems
of form that Couperin has, as it were, recorded on the harpsichord
and animated by its sound qual iti es, inventoried at
long last. Bach would later go through the same Obung :
an indefatigable exercise which turns an instrumentalist into
a kind of creator and an instrument into a New World.
It is indeed lhe tradition of improvisat ion that is creative
here. The imag ination gets hold of a theme, sketches and
embroiders. And ornamentation animates these brief and
lively picturesque sketches which owe everyth ing to accent
(on the part of the performer) and to concentrated attention
(on the part of the listener, who has to be captivated, persuaded,
won over). An immense rhetorical art, which, unless
it is brilliant, will only turn out to be flatly gallant - just
like pictures and drawings for that matter. And Couperin
is brilliant. So was Wanda Landowska, with her creative
instinct, which prompted her to recreate that which is worthy
of life and carries the promise of a healthy and fruitful future.
This daring sonority, this regal ornementation, this sovereign
tone - are they orthodox? They do better than that. They
are irresistible. They make you feel you want to be a
musician. They inspire some to take up the harpsichord as
a vocation. They still produce the lightning sensation that
this is the first time one hears them.
André Tubeuf
Are the mistakes in the text from the original or are they typos?
@@louiscouperin3731 If you are really interested, compare the photographed text in the film with the OCR-scan of the backside of the cover.
Sometimes letter types are not that easy to convert to text with my OCR-program. I consider it an extra service and a tool to convert it with google translate to the native language of the viewer.
+Harpsichord Vinyl Gallery Thanks
NO unequal notes??? The great Rudolf Dolmetsch was doing them at the this period (indeed, Arnold actually corrected my father in the '20s when he was playing the French repertory 'as written'). Wanda is surprising me here...
Interesting observation indeed. Maybe because these were the very first steps into the realm of Couperin?
I was rather curious and looked it up in the book "Landowska on Music" published in 1964, pages 386-7:
*_Rhythmic Alterations_*
Today some musicians interested in the music of the past
have come to realize that rhythmic alterations, such as notes
inegales, were required in the execution of this music. Here
is Landowska's warning:
"To apply this style constantly and to play all the notes
unevenly is evidently a barbarism. A researcher who is a true
artist will avoid doing that because it would be a denial of the
magnificent long and pure lines of Bach, Handel, and so many
other musicians of the past.
Certain phrases within a piece demand rhythmic alterations,
while others do not. To use this alteration all along would give
the piece a uniformity detrimental to its flavor. Here enters what
I call discrimination-to know. where, when, and how rhythmic
alterations should be employed.
The French dotted style deeply influenced Bach and Handel,
who created . magnificent overtures-. This style brought its own
particular way of playing. The dotted note had to be played as
if it had two dots instead of one. The length of the following
note had to be shortened in such a way that it was played very
close to the note coming after it. This way of playing the stile
francese was rigorously observed at the time of Bach and Handel.
It slackened off, little by little, toward the second half of the
eighteenth century. Quantz, being conservative, observed it to the
letter, while Karl Philipp Emanuel Bach-a budding romantic was
less rigorous. This slackening increased, and nineteenth-century
romanticism went as far as to reject completely this manner
of shortening the note after the dot. Busoni said in his edition of
The Well-Tempered Clavier, apropos of the D major Fugue from
Book I: "Take care not to play the dotted note too long or the
sixteenth-note too short-mistakes to which teachers' ears have
long since grown accustomed; not this way
[example in notes]
It is thus that my revered master Michalowski taught it
to me. According to him, the prolongation of the dot brought
vulgarity to the phrase. Oh, the puerility of esthetics! That which
from Lully to Bach was proud, chivalrous, and magnificent became
vulgar in the nineteenth century!"
To which I can only add (in the modern era) listen to Kenneth Gilbert... Wanda is speaking about the 18th century German repertoire, which is a different kettle of fish. And the point with notes inegale is that they're not dotted or whatever - it is almost always much less than a dotted effect. Subtlety is what's required, not a Handelian triple-dot ;-)
In the book is no context mentioned but they are stated as general guidelines in small paragraphs: about On Fingering, On Touch, About Phrasing, On registration, About rhythm, On tempo, About rubato, etc.
Despite its age, Schott's 'Playing the Harpsichord' is reasonably authentic... Still have my very battered copy after all these years!
So do I! Just found a nice quote by Landowska in it about ornamentation which has nothing to do with this subject but it was quite a lady (page 119, 1979) ... The results are often inartistic and unconvincing, or as Mm. Landowska put it so well: *"an ornament badly played is like a smile in a toothless mouth"*
ランドフスカのオリジナルのRPレコードは嫌いなヘンデルを除いて持っている。しかし、クープランは一番良くない。元来チェンバロは、メインのフロント8´が美しい音でなければならない。4´や、リア8´はそれほど使わない。フロント4´は音に華やかさを付け加わえ、リア8´はフロントの8´よりも弱い音量に調節しピアノに使うが、当時の楽器はペダルはないから、頻繁に組み合せを替えることはできない。モダンチェンバロは組み合せに頼りすぎる。