The Art of Harpsichord Duets: 18th-Century Music for Two Harpsichords

Description

There are musical instruments whose primary vocation is to play with other instruments, and that only exceptionally sustain the entire weight of a performance by themselves. Such is the case, for instance, with the flute: the vast majority of pieces for flute, including solo pieces, involves the participation of other instruments, while pieces for flute alone constitute a minority within the whole corpus.
Conversely, there are other instruments which may be excellent partners in chamber music or in the symphonic repertoire, but which are employed at least as frequently as self-standing instruments. Such is the piano, for instance, or the guitar; the harpsichord participates in this vocation even though it is not as pronounced as in the case of the piano.
Being a keyboard instrument, the harpsichord allows one performer to play a variety of melodic lines, and/or a melody and accompaniment, so as to sustain the whole structure of a complete scoring by itself. Its timbral and dynamic resources, albeit limited, also afford the possibility of supporting an entire musical architecture without the need for other instruments.
Of course, the harpsichord (as the piano, or perhaps even more) was also very frequently employed in ensemble music. It was an almost irreplaceable element of continuo playing, and thus it participated in virtually all, or at least a great many, works for all kinds of ensembles. And it could interact as a peer with melodic instruments in concertato pieces, such as sonata with obbligato instruments and harpsichord. And here too the similarity with its descendant, the piano, is clear.
And equally similarly, both the piano and the harpsichord can also interact with other instruments of the same species, but, within the corpus of chamber music with piano or with harpsichord, works for two keyboards are much less frequent than, for instance, works for keyboard and strings. The reasons for this are probably firstly practical and economical. A violin or a cello can be brought where a keyboard instrument usually is found; whereas a household with two harpsichords or two pianos in the same room is much rarer to find. A keyboard instrument was and still is a luxury item; having two or more together is decidedly unusual.
This happens, of course, more frequently in the houses and homes of professional musicians, especially if there are several musicians in the same family. And the prototypical musicians’ family in the Baroque era was, clearly enough, that of Johann Sebastian Bach. Not only he had a numerous bunch of children of his own, many of whom were budding or already professional musicians. He lived by the Thomasschule, and – from the testimonies we have – his home was very open for his students, especially those who were most gifted and most interested in progressing. As much as Bach was unnerved by idleness and imprecision, he was enthused by people who genuinely wanted to become good musicians “for the greater glory of God”.
Furthermore, playing together is always a formidable school for young musicians, and it is particularly valuable when one’s teacher plays on the same kind of instrument. For a harpsichordist, playing with a professional violinist is certainly very profitable, but playing with another harpsichordist teaches volumes without uttering a single word.
Not negligibly, for instance, the kind of attack of the harpsichord is sharp and precise. Even though asynchronization and arpeggiation are commonly used for expressive purposes by harpsichordists, the effect of asynchrony in, for instance, a passagework of scales or arpeggios is terrible. Playing with two harpsichords is a ruthless school in the control of fingers and precision.
And, of course, it is fun, not least because it involves a dimension of competition which thrills and excites many professional players. The word concerto, which recurs in the pieces recorded in this Da Vinci Classics album, has a doubly etymology: it refers to both concentus, the joy of playing together, and to certamen, the struggle, the fight between two gifted competitors.
These qualities are evident in all pieces recorded here, where the competitive dimension is frequently very pronounced, although at times the pedagogical element is also very evident (for pedagogical purposes, of course, it is unadvisable for the teacher to “show off”, as this could discourage the student; it is better to set a scale of progression and betterment in which the teacher represents a model which the student can emulate).
There are several pieces which are in fact connected precisely with the Bach household in Leipzig. This is obviously the case with the works written by Wilhelm Friedemann and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. The former was Bach’s eldest son, his pride and joy. Since there was a longstanding tradition of musicianship in the Bach family (to the point that in some zones of Saxony and Thuringia the word “Bach” indicated a musician rather than a brook!), it was understood that Bach’s children would follow, as much as possible, in their father’s footsteps. And since Johann Sebastian himself had been orphaned at a very young age, had learnt music with one of his own brothers but without all the encouragement he needed, he was probably anxious that Wilhelm Friedemann receive the very best musical education available.
For him, Bach compiled notebooks which reveal his extraordinary pedagogical talent. Sequences of short pieces, either written by Bach himself or taken from the best contemporaneous literature, supported the child’s musical growth, providing both instruction and delight at the same time.
With such a teacher, Wilhelm Friedemann could only become a great musician, and so he did. Carl Philipp Emanuel followed in his footsteps, and became in turn a celebrated performer, composer, and also the author of a seminal work about keyboard performance and interpretation, which constitutes, even nowadays, an extraordinary repository of information about Baroque performance practice (mainly, but not exclusively, on the keyboard). Also another of their brothers, Johann Christian, ventured in the composition of music for two keyboard instruments, thus bearing witness to what must have been a common practice in the Bach household.
But, as mentioned earlier, there were also Bach’s students who did not (or not yet!) belong in the family stricto sensu (“not yet” because one of Bach’s best students eventually became his son-in-law!). Johann Ludwig Krebs was one of Bach’s favourite pupils, and was lucky enough to receive tutoring from Bach for nine years at the Thomasschule. He learnt to play the lute, violin, harpsichord, organ, and to compose, acquiring an extraordinary proficiency in the art of counterpoint in which his teacher excelled. Krebs was particularly appreciated as an organist and as a composer of organ works. However, he also left a noteworthy repertoire of harpsichord music, including the Concerto recorded here. It is a notable example of how the Italian idea of concerto, mediated through Bach’s transcriptions after Italian concertos and his own Italian Concerto, became a genre of its own in its keyboard version. Of course, the possibility of employing two instruments, and their dynamic and timbral resources, further enhances the illusion of an orchestral texture. The dialogue of the two instruments is tight and manages to render both the idea of soloists in conversation and of the solo/tutti alternation.
A similar concept is found in the other Concerto recorded here, i.e. that of Padre Antonio Soler, who came from an entirely different tradition. A Catalan, who studied at the monastery of Montserrat and then taught, composed, and played for many hours a day in a monastic community, Soler was however deeply influenced by the Italian school in turn. It is debated whether he also studied under Domenico Scarlatti or not. He certainly discusses Scarlatti in extremely positive terms in his written works, and he doubtlessly shows many traces of his fascination for the Italian concept embodied by Scarlatti. However, whether these were the result of direct teaching or just of a shared cultural milieu is something that has not yet been established. This work for two keyboards, as several others by Soler, is likely to have been composed for Soler himself and his noble pupil, the Infante don Gabriel of Bourbon, who was an extremely gifted and precocious keyboard player. The Infante owned a valuable and rare organ with two keyboards, on which he certainly played with his teacher. Whilst the scoring of Soler’s concerto recorded here exceeds the compass of that organ’s keyboards, it is still probable that this kind of pieces was played on it, albeit with modifications.
The other major work in this recording is by Johann Mattheson, a polymath, a personality with excellent musical gifts (he was an appreciated solo singer both before and after changing his voice, but also a player of numerous instruments and a great composer), and the author of numerous treatises, in which he poured his creativity when he could not play or sing anymore due to his progressive deafness. His Sonata reveals his mastery of the form and of the polyphonic texture required here.
The other Duets are less ambitious in scope and style, but showcase the attention with which the German masters were able to treat this relatively unusual instrumental ensemble.
Together, all works recorded on this Da Vinci Classics CD reveal the fecundity of this combination, and how it lends itself both to the evocation of majestic contrasts of sound masses – proportional to the aesthetics of the Baroque era, but also not to be underestimated – and to the more familiar dimension of home music making. From the large-scale Concerto to the short Duetto, the interaction of two harpsichords lends colours, liveliness, brilliancy and variety to the keyboard repertoire of the late Baroque and stile galante period.
Chiara Bertoglio © 2024