Talking to Piers Adams, recorder player and member of the Red Priest Baroque Ensemble

On March 1st 2014 British recorder player Piers Adams and I met in the lounge of the Dan Eilat

Hotel, where the “Red Priest” Baroque Ensemble had given two performances at the Eilat Chamber Music Festival. Members of the ensemble are Julia Bishop-violin, Angela East-‘cello, David Wright-harpsichord and Piers Adams-recorder.

PH: Piers Adams, where did you grow up?

Piers Adams: I was brought up in the Home Counties of England and I now live in the historic town of Lewes in Sussex.

PH: When did you start playing the recorder?

PA: Not that early – when I was about ten in school classroom lessons. Then I had a music teacher at my secondary school who was a big admirer of David Munrow and had all his recordings. Just after David Munrow died, the teacher started an early music group at the school. We had a chest of crumhorns and some wonderful old instruments. He picked me out and suggested I join the group. He was very inspirational, actually, and it is because of him that I am where I am now.

PH: Did you study music at university?

PA: No. I studied physics at university and only then went on the Guildhall School of Music to do a year of post-graduate early music. Then I had private recorder lessons in Italy with Kees Boeke. (He had been one of Frans Brüggen’s students). Not an extensive training; the rest I learned “on the job”. I think my main training was listening to Frans Brüggen recordings in my teens; that is how I got the sound and the feel of the recorder.

PH: In “Venetian Carnival” and “Handel in the Wind” you were playing a huge range of recorders.

PA: I play a lot of recorders. Some of them, the keyed instruments, are modern recorders with a larger sound. This is very important as we play in bigger concert halls than in Baroque times. Some of these were made by Dutch recorder-builder Adriana Breukink. She has developed an instrument which is a kind of hybrid. It has the bore of a Renaissance instrument. Renaissance recorders had a bigger sound than Baroque recorders, when dimensions got smaller and became more refined. So she has taken the model of the Renaissance recorder and added to it and maximized it; she has done some clever tricks with it. She calls it the “Eagle” recorder. They take a lot of work to control them, but they are rewarding and sound very good.

PH: Well, the “Red Priest” performances of Baroque music we heard at the festival are not what you would call mainstream.

PA: I guess not. We have actually got quite used to it now, but it seems that not everybody else has.

PH: Does your approach come under fire from the more conservative listener?

PA: Occasionally. People are entitled to their own opinion and even not to like our performance, but most people realize that what they are coming to hear is not going to be mainstream. We are quite happy with the 95% of positive reviews. There have been people who miss the point of what we are doing and see us as not serious, that we are messing around, but the truth is that we take our performance very seriously. You can even take your humor seriously. I think you can guess that In the Baroque period people were funny; they were wild, wacky and trying things out. They would go through such a range of emotions even as they performed: every moment had to be different and surprising things would happen all the time. You have got to imagine yourself in the mood of that day, rather than looking at it like in a glass case in a museum and thinking at that is how it has to be played and that it will never change from that. What was really was about was changing things and taking people by surprise and jarring an emotional response from them. We do use some humor but we use a lot of other things as well.

PH: When is it a good interpretation and when is it over the top?

PA: That is a hard question to answer because we try to be totally free but try to preserve a core in everything we do. If we let everything go wild, I think we would lose it. So we try to keep to 60% or 70% of what we consider to be hard core Baroque playing, with the rhetorical devices, ornamentation etc. For the other 30% we can just do our own thing. It is hard to say; we do start with the music and then we think about what to do with it, how to present something different. We try lots and lots of different things but what we decide on is definitely suggested by the music. Take, for example, “The Potter’s Vessel” from “Messiah”; we started it really slowly and then sped it up a lot, just like a gypsy piece. I think that when you are translating a large-scale piece to a smaller ensemble, you will end up with a very pale imitation of it if you do not do something different with it.

PH: Do you ever change you take on a work after a while?

PA: Sometimes, but we are more interested in moving on and doing new pieces. There is a huge amount of work to get to this stage and, as we do so much from memory, it is hard work to put in a tiny change.

PH: In rehearsing, is the input from all of you?

PA: Yes it is, so rehearsal is a messy affair with lots of arguments, and occasionally storming out if people’s ideas not being taken seriously!

PH: How often do you rehearse?

PA: With a new project coming up we will rehearse a couple of times a week for a month or two. It has taken us around six months to put the new “Händel in the Wind” program together.

PH: In what kinds of venues do you perform? And in what countries?

PA: A complete mix. Because we obviously have a slight crossover appeal we will end up in theatres where we are the only classical music act, but sometimes we are in very mainstream classical series; it can be anything and everything. We never quite know. We do some 30% to 40% of performances in England, 25% in Europe, particularly in Germany and Italy, we usually do to USA concert tours a year and maybe once a year to the Far East. So it is quite busy!

PH: How long has “Red Priest” existed?

PA: We have been going for 17 years. David Wright is our third harpsichordist. Our first unfortunately died very young, our second harpsichordist played with us for ten years but decided he wanted a quieter life and we linked up with David three years ago.

PH: Do you teach?

PA: Not at the moment. I have in the past but decided to give it up when the group got going.

PH: Piers, your work with Red Priest is most thought-provoking. Many thanks for the interview and for sharing your ideas.

A meeting with violinist Carol Lieberman (USA)

On March 9th 2014 I met with violinist Carol Lieberman (USA), in Jerusalem together with her husband, harpsichordist Mark Kroll. Ms. Lieberman was in Israel to perform, hold master classes and meet with colleagues, some of whom she had met in Israel in 1967, 47 years ago, when she was playing with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. One of America’s leading exponents of Baroque music, Carol Lieberman is equally acclaimed for her performance of 19th and 20th century violin repertoire. She frequently lectures on violin performance practice, including vibrato and bow technique and has given master classes in Poland, Israel, France and England, recently delivering a lecture-recital titled “Vibrato in the Franco-Belgian School from G.B.Viotti to E. Ysaye” in La Spezia, Italy.

PH: Carol Lieberman, would you like to talk about your early musical experiences?

CL: I do not come from a musical family, but my older brother was given a violin by my grandfather and he began studying it. I then immediately demanded a violin for myself, but was only four years old and was too young. So I waited until I was six and then began learning the violin.

PH: Where did you grow up?

CL: In the Bronx, New York. I went to the Manhattan School of Music (preparatory division), the High School of Art (now called LaGuardia High School), then to City College (New York) and finally to Yale University for my doctorate.

PH: Was City College the right place for music then?

CL: Absolutely! We had a lot of refugees who had come before World War II. They were all Jews who had come from Vienna or Hungary and they were fine musicians. So the music department was phenomenal. For example, I played my senior recital with Fritz Jahoda (who had been conductor of the Vienna Opera). I also worked with the great ‘cellist Otto Deri, violinist Felix Galimir and other great names, all music professors at City College.

PH: So your undergraduate studies were in modern violin.

CL: My studies were in modern violin, but I actually got my B.A. in history! When I came to Yale, I was playing all the great violin concertos of Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Sibelius, Bartok, etc. And then I met Mark. I continued playing modern violin (and still do), but then began playing Baroque violin.

PH: How did you find the transition to Baroque violin?

CL: To the instrument, it was easy. The two different pitches (i.e. a=451.3 and 440) were no problem since I already had perfect pitch. Now I can play at any pitch. There are also different Baroque bows for each national style and period. The violin is different as well.

PH: Do you teach Baroque violin?

CL: Yes. For more than 20 years, I taught Baroque violin and chamber music at the Boston University School of Music, while also teaching at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester (Massachusetts, USA), a Jesuit school where I have taught for 27 years. I am a professor there and teach music history and theory, direct the Holy Cross Chamber Players and sometimes take private violin students.

PH: Are you a violist?

CL: Yes, I love playing the viola, too. In fact, I have just bought a beautiful new instrument, which fits me beautifully.

PH: Would you like to mention the instruments you play on, both modern and Baroque?

CL: Gladly. My favorite violin is older than my “Baroque” violin. It is a Ferdinand Gagliano (1746). I also have several bows, including some lovely ones by Tubbs and Vuillaume. My Baroque violin is an anonymous instrument, probably German from about 1780, which I found in its original condition, with layers of dust on it. Your readers might also be interested in knowing that there were definite marks on both sides of the tailpiece, proving that the violin was held under the chin at that time, and on either side!

PH: On what are you currently focusing in your performing?

CL: Right now, a lot of chamber music on modern violin. My next concert features the Mendelssohn Piano Trio in d minor and the string trio transcription of Bach’s Goldberg Variations with a pianist who will be playing the original variations. I also play a lot of contemporary repertoire for violin and harpsichord with Mark, such as Walter Piston’s Sonatina for Violin and Harpsichord, which we have recorded, and also works by Vittorio Rieti and Viktor Kalabis, the late Czech composer who was married to the great harpsichordist Zuzana Ruzickova, a Holocaust survivor still living in Prague.

PH: And Baroque violin?

CL: I perform Baroque music with Mark, of course, and our repertoire now spans the entire 17th and 18th centuries and well into the 19th century, with works of Beethoven, Schubert and Hummel. Our next concert is on July 17th at the Newport Music Festival (Rhode Island). We will play two Bach sonatas for violin and harpsichord and I will play the Bach Chaconne for solo violin.

PH: Do you find the concert-going public open to hearing modern works with which they are not familiar?

CL: Yes, at least in the major cities and also because we always pair these works with more familiar repertoire. Actually, I find audiences do enjoy the modern repertoire.

PH: What have you and Mark been recording recently?

CL: Our most recent recording is of Biber’s Sonate Solo of 1681, eight secular sonatas that are very different to Biber’s more famous so-called Mystery Sonatas. There is nothing “mysterious” about the 1681 sonatas; they are beautiful and very difficult. They feature a great deal of virtuosic violin writing. This is not surprising since Biber was a great violinist, one of the greatest of his time. Not many violinists play these difficult works.

PH: How do you explain that?

CL: If you are a “real” modern violinist and can play the Tchaikovsky-, the Sibelius- and Brahms- and Mendelssohn violin concertos, then you can play the great violin Baroque repertoire. Unfortunately, most Baroque violinists (including many who have come to me as students) have not had that training, the kind that prepares you for all the violin repertoire. Also, too much Baroque violin playing has become codified: everyone plays that same way, even though they do not know why they are playing that way. What young violinists have forgotten is that the only real musical model for instrumental music is the human voice. For example, someone who is playing totally without vibrato has not read the treatises of the time, where musicians describe how and where to play vibrato, often referred to as “tremolo” or in other terms. Vibrato was not invented in the 20th century.

PH: Where do you think we now stand in violin-playing regarding the authentic movement?

CL: I have to say that I am not fond of the word “authentic”. There were so many styles of Baroque playing – German, French, Italian – all were different, with different ways of performing, interpreting and ornamenting. I think many violinists have become stuck in one way of playing, believing that that is what “authentic” means and that they will not be hired for ensembles if they play differently and not according to the “accepted” style. Those Baroque violinists with limited skills will accept anything they are told and do not have the ability to be expressive, interpret and think for themselves. For example, there has been much emphasis on playing Baroque music short and fast. Where does legato playing come in? I would like to see a lot of different styles of playing. I like the way I play, but I would like to hear other people who play differently. Baroque musicians wrote treatises and they all said different things. How can you play French Baroque music without reading Couperin’s treatises? We hear much too much Baroque violin playing that all sounds the same.

PH: Professor Lieberman, what kind of music do you listen to for relaxation?

CL: To be totally honest, since I am involved in music seven days a week, teaching and playing, to relax I usually read novels or go to a movie or museum with Mark.

PH: Carol Lieberman, many thanks for giving of your time. It has been very interesting talking to you.

Talking to harpsichordist Mark Kroll



On March 9th 2014, I met with harpsichordist Mark Kroll in a peaceful garden café in Jerusalem. Accompanied by his wife, violinist Carol Lieberman, Maestro Kroll was in Israel to perform, hold master classes, record and visit with colleagues. Mark Kroll has earned worldwide recognition as a harpsichordist, scholar, and educator in a career spanning more than 40 years. Professor emeritus at Boston University, he has published scholarly editions of the music of Hummel, Geminiani, Charles Avison and Francesco Scarlatti and is the author of several books.

PH: Mark Kroll, do you come from a musical family?

Mark Kroll: Yes. Musical, but not a family of professional musicians. My father never took lessons but he always played the piano. He played by ear. My mother was a poet of sorts and she loved to write. Together they wrote Broadway-style songs of the ‘40s and ‘50s. They had an arranger. The songs were really very, very good! I even have a little demo recording they made of them. They were hoping to break into Broadway, but they did not manage to. That was the music with which I grew up, plus, of course, the major classical repertoire. My parents also took me to live performances as often as they could, including Leonard Bernstein’s “Young People’s Concerts”.

PH: When did you start playing music?

MK: In those days everyone had a piano and every Jewish boy and girl learned to play an instrument. I started piano lessons at age six. I was a pianist and, till age 15; all I wanted to play was Khachaturian, Liszt and Rachmaninoff.

PH: When did you start playing the harpsichord?

MK: I heard the harpsichord when I was 15 and at age 17 I simply switched to it. That was in 1963. I started taking private harpsichord lessons in New York, where I grew up. Where I was studying at Brooklyn College there were no harpsichord lessons, but it was there that I learned to play basso continuo; we did a lot of early music there, even with some members of Noah Greenberg’s “New York Pro Musica” who were on the faculty. My first harpsichord teacher was Louis Bagger. I was 17 and knew little of anything about the harpsichord. I also started “jobbing” (freelancing) at the time, including several gigs at Carnegie Hall and Town Halls.

PH: Tell me about Louis Bagger.

MK: He is not so well known today. He was a large man, learned and eccentric, a typical upper west-side New Yorker. He lived in a big, old apartment with floor-to-ceiling books and cats everywhere. Sometimes when he opened a harpsichord there would be a cat sleeping inside. He taught me everything that I needed to know in the beginning about articulation. He had worked with both Leonhardt and Kirkpatrick. He really gave me an idea about what touch, sensitive articulation and expressive playing are. He was the scariest guy I had worked with up to that time but a good teacher.

PH: Where did you continue harpsichord studies?

MK: After graduating from Brooklyn College, I decided to audition to take graduate studies with Ralph Kirkpatrick at Yale University.

PH: What do you remember about the audition?

MK: I took the bus from New York to New Haven, Connecticut. I had a 5 o’clock audition. Walking in at 4:50, he was still giving a lesson. There I was, waiting to play for the greatest harpsichordists in the world…the harpsichordist who had recorded all the works of Bach twice – once on harpsichord and once on clavichord – and who had written the book on Domenico Scarlatti. I stood there asking myself what I was doing there and almost walked out! Kirkpatrick was trained as an art historian and I love engravings, so, for the first hour of our meeting, we had a discussion in German about Dürer and 16th century engravers. Finally, going to the harpsichord, he asked if I could read a figured bass. Luckily, I had been doing that and, for the next hour, he had me reading figured basses. Then he brought out the score of the Bach c minor Violin and Harpsichord Sonata, requesting that I play the harpsichord part and sing the top line. He then gave me a fugue to play, asking me to sing the tenor line and play the other three parts; that was the third hour. He then asked me what I had brought to play for him, but by that time I was so exhausted I was not sure I could have played a c major scale! After finishing, I was convinced he would never accept me as a student, but as he walked me out, he said “I look forward to seeing you next year”. I received a full scholarship to study with Ralph Kirkpatrick.

PH: Tell me about studying with Kirkpatrick.

MK: That was an experience! Lessons could be anywhere from one to six hours. He had two students; those were the days when a full professor had two students! Lessons with him were just like that audition. They were always on Fridays and I was so nervous before them…two years of never sleeping on Thursday nights. But we would work on the music of Scarlatti, Bach, Couperin, Froberger, William Byrd – you name it - in ways few do nowadays. He would also tell me about how he went into the Marciana Library in Venice and how he first saw the Scarlatti manuscripts. We used to look at the copies he had made of them in 1946 and 1947.

PH: Your teaching methods are similar to his.

MK: Correct. Because it worked and still does. Kirkpatrick’s methodology is all set out in the introduction to his Schirmer edition of the “60 Scarlatti Sonatas”. For example, he wrote that the way to understand the melodic contour of a phrase is to sing it; to understand the rhythmic nature of a phrase - dance it. And that is what we did in his lessons. His knowledge was significant but he never actually taught “technique”. He simply got rid of any student within a year who did not have adequate technique. His was the old method of teaching. You had to be tough and accept his way of teaching. For example, before my first recital, I played him the whole of the Bach Partita in D major, with repeats, – all 35 minutes of it. After sitting there for a while he looked up and said “Well, you have proved to me that you are not totally unmusical.” This, by the way, was a compliment! In those two years of tension and stress, I learned more about music than I had in the previous twenty! And, deep down, I know he was fond of me.

PH: Yale University is known for its musical instrument collection.

MK: Indeed. Its keyboard collection is one of the best in the world – in particular, a wonderful collection of harpsichords.

PH: Did you stay in touch with Kirkpatrick?

MK: Well, he was not the warmest of people. We lost touch, although we did speak several times in 1981, when I invited him to play a solo recital at the first Boston Early Music Festival, which, by the way, I founded along with Friedrich and Inge von Huene and Scott Kosofsky. I then called him a year or so before he died…perhaps in 1984. He said he had heard my recording of Scarlatti and thought it was very good. I think that was the first real compliment I had ever received from him.

PH: What followed your graduate studies?

MK: The first teaching job I had was at the University of California, Santa Cruz and I went up and down the coast performing. It is one thing to know how to play the harpsichord. Now I was learning the art of recitals. I then moved to Toronto, as that was where my wife Carol Lieberman was teaching. We gave the first ever Baroque violin and harpsichord recital in Toronto. We also recorded a lot for the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation). Then I moved to Boston and gave a debut recital there and in New York. Boston at that time was so exciting for harpsichordists; Boston had 11 full-time harpsichord builders and, during these golden years, there was a harpsichord recital every week. I got the job teaching at Boston University and built up my program in harpsichord and historical performance there; I retired to do more performing and writing.

PH: Can you talk about your performing career?

MK: I started by playing in the United States, then performing in Europe and South America and then on to the Middle East and Asia. We (Carol and I) were actually the first American Baroque violinist and harpsichordist to play in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. They tell me I am the first American harpsichordist to have played in Bangkok. And I always teach wherever I go. I have played in Hong Kong, where there has been much harpsichord activity and there are some fine harpsichords there. I have played a lot of recitals and concertos (both Baroque and contemporary) and, since 1979, I have been harpsichordist for the Boston Symphony.

PH: What about contemporary music?

MK: I perform a lot of contemporary music. One of the things I wrote in my book on harpsichord playing is that the harpsichord died and had needed revival once and that, if we do not write music for it now, it will die again. Well, this may be an exaggeration but by playing the music written for it and encouraging composers means that it becomes a viable- and not a just historical instrument, with equal rights with other instruments like the piano, violin or other “mainstream” instruments.

PH: You did not come out of the European early music revival.

MK: No, I did not. Many people think it came out of Europe. For example, a lot of people like to think that early music was “invented” in Amsterdam or Vienna in the 1960s or England in the ‘70s. It was not invented anywhere. In fact, during the ‘50s and ‘60s we were at the forefront in America. I myself had an antique style harpsichord in 1963 - a copy of a Flemish instrument built by William Hyman!

PH: What repertoire do you like to play most?

MK: More than any other repertoire, I love to play François Couperin’s “Pièces de Clavecin”. I feel I understand this music. There is no doubt that this is the finest Baroque harpsichord music. Nothing is better written for the instrument. It is also guaranteed to draw the fewest people to a concert. Bach and Scarlatti will draw the most. Well, having studied with Kirkpatrick, I of course play their music, but also the great works from the 16th and 17th centuries, those of Byrd, Frescobaldi, Froberger, Louis Couperin and Chambonnières. Incidentally, Kirkpatrick was especially fond of Chambonnières’ music.

PH: I understand you play a lot of solo recitals.

MK: Yes, but not just. I do a lot of duo work with my wife, violinist Carol Lieberman. We met at Yale as graduate students in 1969; we played some good gigs, mostly performing at weddings for 25 dollars a night. At that time, Carol was the top violinist at Yale, going for her doctorate.

PH: In Baroque violin?

MK: No, in modern violin. But I led her astray! And we have since played Baroque music all over the world, while Carol also continues on “modern” violin, playing Brahms, Bartok, Messiaen and Carter.

PH: Tell me something about your duo repertoire.

MK: Our first recording was of the sonatas of Simon Leduc…mid-1740s French sonatas, fabulous music, almost Classical, with fine violin- and continuo writing. We also made one of the earliest recordings of all the Bach violin sonatas on Baroque violin. That was in 1974. We did a lot of recording in those years. Apart from the major repertoire, Carol and I have also performed wonderful sonatas for obbligato harpsichord and violin by C.P.E.Bach, J.C.Bach and J-J.Mondonville, plus lots of Biber and even some violin (!) sonatas of D.Scarlatti. Apart from performing with Carol, I have close colleagues in Germany; I play a lot there with a superb gamba player and Baroque ‘cellist - Thomas Fritzsch. We play with colleagues in England and we have played a lot in Rome. In the 1970s, after playing in the Palazzo della Cancelleria (Palace of the Chancellery), I was told that that was where Corelli had played. Because of its fine acoustics, that was the first time I really heard what the harpsichord was supposed to sound like: the building has frescos, hard walls everywhere, marble floors and ceilings at least 40 feet tall. We played in Europe as much as we could, not only because of good audiences but also because of better acoustic spaces.

PH: What about the fortepiano and other early pianos?

MK: I have a copy of a Johann Andreas Stein five-octave fortepiano, a copy of an 1805 Anton Walter fortepiano (5½ octaves) and our latest treasure is an 1842 Pleyel on which Chopin played! Carol and I recorded the Schubert Sonatinas on fortepiano and we plan to record Schumann and Moscheles – on the Pleyel.

PH: What are your expectations of the harpsichord?

MK: I always expect the harpsichord to be an extremely expressive instrument: that is not done with agogic accents, with pushing and pulling the tempo but with subtle articulation. The basic sound of the piano and harpsichord involves decay; you play with the silences that occur between the notes. This trait is not exploited as much as it could be. For example, François Couperin spoke of music having its prose and its poetry. My teacher always taught me, as I also teach my students, that the harpsichord has vowels and consonants. When I teach, I have my pupils make up words to the piece they are learning and then try to make the harpsichord do the same. Sometimes I sing the student a song in French or German and then request them to play the harpsichord that way. The student has to believe the instrument can reproduce these things. When I ask them to make the harpsichord sing, I really mean it!

PH: What prompted you to write “Playing the Harpsichord Expressively”?

MK: On retiring from teaching, I worried that nobody would continue my way of playing and teaching, so my colleagues suggested I write a book. I thought they were crazy. How can you put in print all that you do in person by showing, playing and explaining? Well, I seem to have succeeded. It is basically a giant lesson presented exactly how I teach and play, including lots of historical information to back up what I am teaching and why. It was not an easy task as one wants to show things. Of the 100 pages, half are filled with examples. I wrote it so that people could put it on the harpsichord and go through it step by step. It got good responses and I am proud that a young French harpsichord teacher is translating it into French.

PH: You have been involved with J.N.Hummel’s music.

MK: Yes, first through his transcriptions. In the late 1990s, I became fascinated to know who this person was and did a lot of research on him. A student of Mozart, he lived with his teacher from age 8 to ten. Haydn’s successor at the Esterházy estate, Hummel wrote Masses and choral music, the latter genre being considered his best music. Schubert modeled his “Trout” Quintet on Hummel’s quintet version of his Septet op.74. The more I listen to Hummel’s “real” music I realize that he was a major musical figure too few people know about - not only as a very fine composer (well, less than Beethoven) but the most famous musician and pianist in Europe. He was a virtuoso pianist and his writing for the piano was accordingly difficult. The German teacher and writer Karl Friedrich Zelter claimed that Hummel, in hindsight, was the first Liszt. When I wrote my Hummel biography, there was only one piece everybody knew – the Trumpet Concerto. But he has written some wonderful piano concertos, including the A minor piano concerto, which was traditionally played by 19th century virtuoso pianists making their debut, among them, Schumann, Clara Schumann, Franck, Grieg, Brahms and Liszt. He also wrote lots of great and extremely virtuosic piano music. He was an influential teacher, writing a very large treatise on playing the piano which included 2000 exercises!

PH: On what piano would Hummel have played?

MK: He played on a wide range, often whatever was available to him on his many tours, like Broadwoods, Grafs, Pleyels and Erards. You need 6½ octaves to play Hummel’s music; these pianos had that range.

PH: What are you writing at the moment?

MK: A biography of another great musician - Ignaz Moscheles. It is being published in November of this year. Moscheles was Jewish, the son of a cloth merchant. He married Charlotte Emden, from the prestigious Emden family in Hamburg, also Jewish. Moscheles and his wife converted to Christianity (as did Mendelssohn), raised four wonderful children and lived a long happy life. His daughter Emily, a virtuoso, studied with Chopin. At a young age, she played the very challenging Mendelssohn d minor Piano Trio with Joachim. Another daughter, Clara, sang for Rossini. In his last 14 years, Moscheles taught at the Leipzig Conservatory, where his students were Sir Arthur Sullivan, Edvard Grieg and Sir George Henschel. (Henschel was a conductor of the Boston Symphony for a while.) Moscheles and Mendelssohn were very close friends – I have devoted an entire chapter to that friendship. In his diary, in 1824, Moscheles wrote about meeting the Mendelssohn family in Berlin, referring to it as “a family like no other”. As I conclude in my Preface to this book, Moscheles was a superb musician and a superb human being who was and remains a man worth knowing.

PH: Mark Kroll, many thanks for giving of your time and sharing so much interesting information.

Talking to pianist Daniel-Ben Pienaar

On February 28th 2014 pianist Daniel-Ben Pienaar performed Book 1 of J.S.Bach’s “Well-Tempered Clavier” at the Eilat Chamber Music Festival. On March 1st we met in the lounge of the Dan Hotel Eilat to talk.

PH: Daniel-Ben Pienaar, can we start with your childhood?

D-B.P: Yes. I was born in South Africa, living there till age 18. When I was little we lived just outside a town called Kimberley (where there used to be the famous diamond mines) on a military base, where my father was a chaplain. When I was nine, we moved to Port Elizabeth on the southeastern coast.

PH: Do you come from a musical family?

D-B.P: ‘Musical’ I don’t know, but certainly not a music family. My father was a reverend in the Protestant Church and my mother was the traditional “reverend’s wife” with her own social/pastoral duties.

PH: When did you start learning music?

D-B.P: The places where we lived were not really “cultural centres”, but I had music lessons at my local school from age eight. My very kind first teacher instilled in me a love for music. It was immediately apparent that I had natural facility and a good ear. In those days lending libraries were still thriving and I spent many happy hours reading about the “great composers” and their music, often trying to fathom an idea about their music before I had had a chance to hear it. And, from my reading and playing, I started to dream of Europe from a place far away from Europe. Now that I live in Europe, well, in England, I realize that that Europe is still very far away! Of course the fantasy was of a Europe of the past…something that actually no longer exists…but perhaps more so – of a magical place that indeed has never existed. I think people from the New World countries can understand that – especially if you imagine the days before long-distance travel became so easy for everyone (and at that time South Africa was of course further isolated because of sanctions). In Port Elizabeth I had a piano teacher from the university and also an incredibly inspiring violin professor, whose teaching was intensely concerned with technique - the power and economy of real technique. I was not a natural violinist, but this restless (sometimes very cerebral) inquiring into ‘how things work’ physically, and how best to achieve brilliance and beauty, have been very important for me as a pianist.

PH: When did you make your debut in the performing world?

D-B.P: Still as a child in South Africa, I played in some national competitions. My parents never pressured me (in fact they were probably rather cautious and protective) and I took on the competitions quite nonchalantly, winning most of them! In this way I then got to perform concertos with some of the better orchestras in South Africa. Eventually I won a scholarship to study at the Royal Academy of Music (London). I moved to London at 18 and have lived there ever since.

PH: With whom did you study at the Royal Academy?

D-B.P: I studied with Christopher Elton, who was Head of Keyboard Studies then. He is a finely-tuned, but open-minded musician, with a real, poetic sensibility – and with an impressive list of very accomplished students and ex-students who sound very different from each other (I think it a rare gift indeed to be able to nurture such a class). Other musicians have been influential, too, one of them being viol player Laurence Dreyfus (Phantasm Viol Quartet), who taught at the Academy for a while. There was much excited discussion around that time about early music and about what the real priorities are when performing this music. Notions of ‘performance practice’ can so often become didactic or restrictive – and people start to judge the means and not the ends; of course aesthetic-expressive priorities remain primary. Another influential person was Jonathan Freeman-Attwood, today principal of the Royal Academy of Music. He had very interesting ideas about recording and what the recording process can really do (following on from Glenn Gould, but seen from quite a different cultural and repertoire perspective), which set me thinking along particular lines.

PH: What then?

D-B.P: Then I had a few years when I was not specifically involved at the Academy. I travelled to Japan a lot, playing chamber music and solo recitals. I worked with violinist Narimichi Kawabata and we performed absolutely everywhere, as he was (and still is) a very popular classical musician in Japan. That was good concert experience for me and was actually also quite a nice way to ‘experiment’ in concerts, taking risks, trying out possibilities… Japan is famous for having a lot of excellent, good and okay halls, most having well-maintained concert grands. Even small towns have these cultural centres (bunka-kaikan) – partly a function of the boom years – and halls with decent acoustics; and audiences are attentive.

PH: And then you returned to London.

D-B.P: Well, I always lived in London. I decided I needed to ‘settle down’ and in 2005 was offered a teaching job at the Royal Academy. In 2003 I had started my recording projects – recording the repertoire that I had learnt and loved and performed. This lifestyle (earning a small salary from teaching, with enough time to practice and ‘think’, and always having a big project at the back, or in the forefront, of my mind) means that I only do the concerts I want to – and I have to admit I probably have not spent enough time trying to consciously forge a ‘career’; anyway, I have no taste, and very little talent, for these intensely focused promotional activities many artists are engaging in – seemingly constantly. For one thing, Facebook and Twitter are not for me!

PH: Can you elaborate on that?

D-B.P: Yes. In the spirit of the times it’s inevitable that institutions are teaching management and self-promotion, encouraging young artists to ‘sell’ themselves, exerting pressure to ‘define themselves’ – but this at a time when most of these young musicians don’t quite know what it is they have to offer yet, or before they have a deeply developed repertoire, or a strongly developed musical identity. So often this perceived need to package themselves up as a ‘product’ starts to define the music they make and the repertoire they choose. So you have many young people who are impatient and feel at the age of 22 that they should be in the throes of a ‘career’. To me it feels one has more time than that. (I think that for a soloist, by the age of 30, you should have some good ideas of what you are about, have repertoire and real abilities, but till then it is good to experiment – and to fail a lot! That of course does not mean that experimenting and failing stop there!)

PH: Let’s talk about technique. You have mentioned your “idiosyncratic, individually made technique”. You do have a magnificent technique.

D-B.P: It is interesting, because in South Africa I did not have teachers from any of the established traditions that train young people so effectively. My technical upbringing was not systematic in any way. I never did any kind of technical exercises or studies, always real music. It was only later that I started to formulate things more, mostly through trial and error, but also through reading. I guess, to an extent, I am still experimenting. And I am an inveterate list maker when it comes to these things. Maybe, at some point, it becomes too ideological; one gets too conscious of certain things and needs to recapture the intuitive ways. But maybe when your early training was very free it’s easier to remember that easy playfulness from early on, to find that in yourself again.

PH: Do you call yourself a “Bach pianist”?

D-B.P: Not specifically a Bach pianist, although Bach, in so many ways, epitomizes, exemplifies and encapsulates everything that goes through my mind in terms of how to deal with the past, how to deal with history, the canonic, how to approach performers and performances from the past that I admire, how to deal in my mind with performers whose work I hate. I think works I play tend to be ‘standard repertoire’ – mostly Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Chopin. Chopin is not canonic in the same way as the Germans, but for pianists he is.

PH: Can you describe the relationship between this repertoire and your ideas about ‘history’?

D-B.P: The idea is that, on the one hand, you have old music and we make certain deductions about it, about the texts, their contexts, and engage in some kind of study about historical practices; but then also, because it has been standard repertoire for so long, it has a multi-faceted performance history subsequent to the period of the composition itself. You have 19th-century traditions of playing and, alongside that, the piano evolving in such a spectacular way at that time. Then there are the early 20th-century performers so hauntingly captured by early recordings of these works. Inevitably, following World War II, a new way of thinking, a different sensibility emerges, with different performance mores. And then there is the digital age too! Throughout these eras, composers like Bach, Mozart and Beethoven have always been considered ‘the great masters’, but their music read in constantly evolving, changing ways. So their music is not fixed but capable of encompassing, including or being indeed enriched by all the performers who have played it, those who have listened to it, thought about it, written about it. It can’t be accurate to say we are really playing, interpreting the true Bach; in a way, ‘Bach’ has become greater with each passing generation because of all that has accrued to it! Every now and then, one would imagine stripping things down to some kind of essence, but really performance of such works becomes a kind of lens through which you engage with all these things, all these pasts – and in that way one defines one’s present too, i.e. in that way you are truly ‘contemporary’. Thus I guess you can say, for example, that Shakespeare does not need to be ‘updated’ because he has stayed up to date all this time! Of course, there are some people who challenge the idea that there is or should be a canon of great works. Nevertheless, this continuous engagement and enrichment has, for better or worse, happened around specific works and composers, and is the reason why the ‘48’ has been called the ‘Old Testament’ of the piano literature.

PH: Do you play early keyboard instruments?

D-B.P: ‘Play around’ (with) would best describe it. We have a fine collection of them at the Royal Academy of Music. But I really object to pianists who take a few lessons on the harpsichord and over-night turn themselves into harpsichordists! To play the harpsichord or fortepiano beautifully and brilliantly you have to become a specialist; that takes time. The stakes are different now to the eighteenth century when keyboard players would be expected to switch instruments at a moment’s notice. In connection with that, a quotation from Alexander Pope is so fitting: “One science only will one genius fit; so vast is art, so narrow human wit”. There is so much detail in each discipline. Of course, I like to listen to what harpsichordists do and even play a little, but this is in order to gain tools for myself as a pianist, to look for things I can use to make my playing more expressive, interesting and varied.

PH: And how do you view the authentic movement?

D-B.P: It is very interesting and useful – of course as a distinct modern approach to texts and contexts.

PH: Do you feel you are lucky performing Bach on the piano now that the authentic movement has moved away from its extreme phase?

D-B.P: I think I am lucky in all sorts of ways. For example, growing up in South Africa outside of it all was a great benefit. Being trained in certain severe disciplines would make freeing oneself truly difficult. My earliest musical impressions always had to do with freedom, with finding-out-for-yourself. And it is good playing Bach on the piano now and not 20 years ago, when the debate was less ‘mature’ than it is today. Incredibly, there is still the occasional critic who will find it necessary to say “If you do not like Bach played on the piano you will not like this”, or who would judge a performance on the piano according to how well it ‘imitates’ the harpsichord or clavichord. That is a regression. Still, there is the matter of taste: some people will want to listen to it on a harpsichord. And there were nice things at all stages of the authenticity movement. For example the Bach cantatas recorded by Leonhardt and Harnoncourt often convey a wonderful sense of naïveté, exploration and excitement – a sense of something new and astonishing that was being experienced, that was there and is no longer accessible in the same way. Now, with a more professional standard of technique on period instruments, with the practices being so clear in some ways, something of the ‘international generic’ has come into it – as much as in modern instrument playing. I would rather have some of that original roughness!

PH: You have a superb memory, playing the whole of the first book of the Well-Tempered Clavier by heart. Do you always play by heart in performance?

D-B.P: Yes. Last December in King’s Place (London), I played both books – one on the Thursday night and the second on the Friday night. It was such an amazing experience, to play the two books back-to-back! Well, they were written twenty years apart and they feel so different in one’s body. I think memory is a gift we all have but do not develop as interestingly as we can. Of course, if you are truly interested, even obsessed, by something you build such a wonderful web of associations around it that you remember things. Look at chess players and dancers; and singers who remember whole operas! But of course there are so many different kinds of ‘memories’, ways to visualize things; the whole matter of shunting short-term learning into longer-term memory – such a dense web of interactions and relationships.

PH: Does playing the WTC by heart allow you a lot of spontaneity and do you change your interpretations from concert to concert?

D-B.P: The question is what spontaneity is. Think of jazz players in their “improvised” styles: each has his bag of tricks up his sleeve no matter how on-the-spur-of-the-moment these are used and, in a way, the same goes for us. I have my voicings and pedalings, my ways of accenting things and certain musical gestures I can use in different ways; touch, varying volumes, tempi – all working together in a dynamic, sympathetic way, and these can all be ‘mixed up’ and altered considerably. But some elements are fixed and, in playing 24 preludes and fugues in one sitting; it is important how they stack up. The important value is variety, so taking care not to repeat oneself is the key. So, basic ideas of tempo (although I sometimes take them too fast in the sweep of the moment!) and character are the framework. Voicings and dynamics, building climaxes, driving accents etc. change from concert to concert and in different acoustics but there is a definite framework for each piece. Within that framework there are many things that can change. But I would say that I am at all times much more interested in musical diction and ‘syntax’ than in sound production per se – in other words, the sonority (which is very important of course) emanates out of the rhythm of the musical idea rather than vice versa. Perhaps that attitude of always inhabiting a musical idea in real-time-as-you-play is more likely to come across as spontaneous or fresh. There are repertoires where that would not work, but I do not play such works.

PH: What are your thoughts on the use of the sustaining pedal in this repertoire?

D-B.P: I think it has to do with color and often with building sonorities; it is not a tool in isolation and all depends on how you use it in conjunction with other tools. It can cause a certain loss of clarity but then you have to ask yourself what clarity is. A lot of teachers and critics have a simplistic notion of clarity and think that if you can hear every single note it means things are clear, whereas you have to ask yourself what you want to make clear – the idea or the mood or counterpoint or the motivic material? Some people play very clearly in terms of the notes, but you might not hear the counterpoint. You might hear the counterpoint but the playing may lack imagination or projection in characterization. And Bach’s counterpoint is too complex for one to understand it in one sitting in real time. You need to study it and look at it paradigmatically; so, for the counterpoint as such to be clear, that is a difficult question when it comes to the drama of live concerts.

PH: We are encountering a new idea when hearing one or other of the WTC collections in a concert.

D-B.P: Yes. In his preface, Bach wrote that these pieces were for instruction and private enjoyment. It is very different transferring them to the concert stage; nobody in Bach’s day would have played the whole of Book 1 in a concert! It is not an historical practice at all, but something quite modern and the artist has to ask himself what he wants the audience to get out of the concert. If it is a musician who is listening, what do you want him to get out of it? Or an enthusiastic amateur?

PH: What other composers are on your agenda at the moment?

D-B.P: I am just finishing recording all the Beethoven sonatas. I have two left. It was a huge project, taking almost two years; I have also edited it all myself…. In 2015, if all goes according to plan, I will be recording a Schubert cycle – works that I learnt more than ten years ago and performed as a cycle in 2008. Then, if all goes to plan, I want to make another recording of 17th-century keyboard music. One of my former projects was recording the complete keyboard works of Orlando Gibbons. I think I was the first person to record all of his keyboard music (to the chagrin of some harpsichordists I’m sure!) I would like to follow this up with an ‘international’, mixed 17th century project – some wondrous music by Spanish and Portuguese composers and, of course, there is all the Italian, Dutch and German music, some English. If only there were some Schütz to play I would be happy indeed!

PH: Do you compose?

D-B.P: No. I did when I was a child and all through high school. I do a bit of arranging now.

PH: Do you sing?

D-B.P: No. I was a quite good boy soprano and sang in choirs. Then my voice broke early – earlier than most of the other boys and I was so embarrassed about it that I just stopped singing!!

PH: What future plans do you have?

D-B.P: I am just starting to do more concerts and want to continue that… but I certainly do not want to do too many concerts. I quite like teaching and I really love recording.

PH: When it is not music, what are your interests?

D-B.P: I enjoy reading a lot and always have - mostly novels up to the mid-20th century. I visit galleries...but as an innocent: I do not have that much art knowledge, although it is very easy to make analogies from one art form to another. I have recently (like so many other people I think) also become interested in the politics around the collapse of 2008 and the aftermath that we are experiencing now. It is interesting to me to see how this is playing out. We seem to be at an interesting stage as to what capitalism and democracy mean. But, of course, musicians are hopelessly naïve when it comes to such things – my interest in it is that of a beginner! – nevertheless I guess we all need to try to make sense of what we do in the world, and often there is not a simplistic ‘market’ answer to what somebody like me does for a living…. And I enjoy watching TV series – the good television dramas. The standard of the scripts and acting in some of them is extraordinarily high, to say nothing of production values! It seems we are in the golden era for that genre – where it’s still possible to appeal to a very large audience while also doing things that are new and provocative and intelligent.

PH: Daniel-Ben Pienaar, many thanks for sharing so many interesting ideas.

Remembering soprano Judith Nelson. Talking to Gideon Meir and Miriam Meltzer

American soprano Judith Nelson (née Manes), born in 1939, was one of the 20th century’s most renowned singers of Baroque music and an important figure of the early music revival. She died May 28th 2012.

Singer and voice teacher of the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance Miriam Meltzer spoke of Judith Nelson as “a very pleasant and sympathetic person. As a teacher she was honest, generous and intelligent – qualities which I admire and respect.” Meltzer spoke of Judith’s “incisive advice and encouragement to keep moving forward”, thus challenging Miriam to learn new works that are “still in my repertoire of good teaching material.” Miriam Meltzer also mentioned Nelson’s top quality recordings of Händel works.

I recently met harpsichordist/organist Gideon Meir in a Tel Aviv café to hear more about Judith Nelson.

PH: Gidi, how did you meet Judith Nelson?

GM: The first time I heard about her was from British singer Deborah Roberts, who had studied performance of early music with Judith. Then, in 1984, I met harpsichordist Laurette Goldberg here in Israel at an early music workshop, a short while prior to my going to the Bay Area of USA to study with Laurette for three months. She and Judith Nelson were colleagues. Laurette called me up saying I should go to see Judy who was in Israel at the time, that I should attend her classes, go to her concert, present myself and tell her I would be staying in her home to house-sit (while she was still away on tour)! So after attending a fabulous concert in Jerusalem, I did just that. She was very sweet and matter-of-fact about it, told me someone would let me in and that the spare key would be next to the kitchen door! The idea was that I should stay in the house for three weeks and leave on her return, at which time she would find me lodgings with other friends or colleagues. But I ended up staying with the Nelsons for three months (and then again later when I was studying formally at the Conservatory in San Francisco in the Bay Area) becoming a “family fixture”. By this time, their son and daughter were out of the house, the Nelsons were missing their children and I was 22, and still at an age when you like to find make-believe parents. It worked out that way: Judy and Alan became close friends of mine, always very supportive.

PH: What was it like living in the house of this great singer?

GM: For three months, I would wake up to the wonderful sounds of Judy’s singing. Her daily practice consisted of a very free style of warming up; and she always had something to be studied for her next concert – at that time she was singing a Monteverdi opera, among other works. So I would hear her practice and she would hear mine. And, of course, we would have coffee in the kitchen and read newspapers, as in any family situation.

PH: Did you actually hear Judith perform at that time?

GM: Yes. She took me with her to a concert she was performing in the Green Room - a small, elegant and intimate venue in the civic center of San Francisco. (Judith was best in an intimate concert setting.) There she sang the most incredible Purcell songs. Actually, she warmed up for those songs in the car as we were driving over the bridge. Arriving at the center, she went to her dressing-room, put on a blue taffeta gown, came out on stage and sang these gripping Purcell songs from memory! (I heard her practice every day, but she never practiced these songs…)When she sang, there was never a dry eye in the house.

PH: What did you learn from listening to her?

GM: That Judy had the utmost mastery of her repertoire and a free livery of the wonderful texts. Well, she did rehearse with ensembles, but she herself could just wing it. For that reason, her performance was always very fresh, sounding as if she were discovering a work for the first time; you also felt as if you were hearing the songs for the first time. Thus, she was freer and more spontaneous in live performance than in recordings (which she sometimes did at short notice). That evening in the recital in the Green Room I heard her sing “Sweeter than roses”, “If music be the food of love”…all those standards.

PH: Standards?

GM: Well, back then in 1984 (and I had come from Israel) hearing this repertoire was actually a great rarity. There were few recordings of it but also very little expertise in performing them. It was even difficult to obtain scores. You could usually buy the Britten score, with whatever he had omitted and added; these scores had very little to do with Purcell’s original intentions. Her Purcell repertoire was amazing. Some years later, Judy performed Purcell’s masques with the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra.

PH: Would you like to talk about was behind Judith’s performing?

GM: Yes. Judy’s ability to take on different characters during the same performance was amazing – whether comic or tragic. In a comic masque duet she sung with Nancy Armstrong, they brought the house down – Judy could be totally funny! That character skill came through her knowledge of British theatre, enriched by the influence of her husband, Alan H. Nelson, Professor Emeritus in the Department of English at the University of California Berkeley. Alan is a world specialist on medieval theatre. Judy had incredible knowledge of what she was singing – of the history, drama, the history of music-making (not only performance practice). Any text she delivered was convincing, simple and virtuosic. With a difficult score that did not look like much on the page, she was the person who could figure it out. For example, Barbara Strozzi was a noble woman and a great singer, but she was not a “professional” composer; Judy managed to get into her mindset – that of the great singer – really doing justice to aspects of the text that otherwise would have been overlooked. Even today, when so much is happening in early music, it seems Judy was right on in those days, and her performance technique was beyond that of her colleagues at a time when performance of early instrumental music was still in flux. If you lived in the Bay Area at that time, you would never want to miss a concert of hers. Judy performed all over the world and very often in festivals – festivals in Malmö, England, the USA, in Latin America, Australia, New Zealand; she was very excited about singing at the Bamboo Organ Festival in the Philippines, where there was a 17th century bamboo organ. I heard her several times at the Boston Early Music Festival and at the Berkeley Early Music Festival. Although Judy’s first preference was performing with Baroque orchestras – and her voice was not very large – she nevertheless sang with the Oakland Symphony Orchestra, she sang the Mozart Requiem with the San Francisco Symphony and I remember hearing her singing Villa Lobos’ Bachianas Brasileiras no.6 with an ensemble of ‘cellists. She also sang contemporary music. Her diction was truly artful: her Italian diction was juicy – not clean and academic – she colored her vowels, her diphthongs were wonderful.

PH: How do you explain her personal charisma?

GM: First of all, she was very much at home on the stage. She looked out at her audience, having direct eye contact with many of her listeners. For performing she would wear contact lenses – one for close sight to read the score and one for distance – to see the audience! Even her occasional memory slip was dealt with intelligently…and she would come off stage laughing! That was the Judy experience.

PH: Where did Judith study and how did she enter the realm of early music in the early days of its revival?

GM: Judy studied at St Olaf College, Minnesota. This was a very important American choral centre. Around 1960, Alan and Judy moved to Berkeley, where she would participate in Musicology classes (the musicologist Alan Curtis was a member of faculty researching vocal music and Baroque opera) and take part in the Collegium Musicum. She displayed great ease in singing, read many clefs effortlessly and had no need of a vocal coach, doing much vocal training by herself. (Judy referred to the voice as an “authentic, original instrument”!) In Berkeley there was much activity in medieval and Renaissance music and it was there that she decided to specialize in early music. The Bay Area was also a hotbed of Baroque musical activity in the 1960s and 1970s, so there were people such as Laurette Goldberg, Susie Napper and Bruce Haynes to work with and try things out. I think Judy did some study with the early (especially medieval) music specialist mezzo-soprano Andrea von Ramm. Andrea von Ramm was convinced that there was no specific way of singing early music, that the context and cultural content were the basis of how it was to be sung. Also, Judy had gone to Europe on a Fulbright Scholarship. She had the ability to go to libraries and find music, familiar with what she was looking at and knowing what she wanted and there she would copy out works by hand. So her work was also musicological. Alan’s sabbatical in Cambridge (UK) brought Judy in contact with Christopher Hogwood and Emma Kirkby and the English early music scene. In Europe, she sang with members of the Kuijken family and Robert Kohnen. Judy was a pioneer in the early music revival, certainly a pioneer in the American early music revival.

PH: Post-war American training focused very much on singing with vibrato. Did Judith express an opinion on vibrato singing?

GM: Yes. She said that automatic vibrato was not a true basis for any style of singing. She knew where to relax the voice and when to exercise a controlled vibrato.

PH: Let’s go back to her recordings.

GM: Here Judy felt she must do the right thing, to please. She was an important artist in recordings of Harmonia Mundi when the company was opening up to the world of Baroque music. She would record duos with René Jacobs. In fact, they would fly her into Paris for a recording before she had even seen the music! Yet she would be superb in the three-day recording session. I particularly love Judy’s recordings of the music of Barbara Strozzi and Luigi Rossi. Listening to these LPs, I remember the gestures and texts that were so convincing in her performance. I believe Judith was the first to record works of Barbara Strozzi and also of Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre. And her recordings of Couperin’s “Leçons de Ténèbres” and music of Charpentier were indeed groundbreaking. Recording sessions were very exhausting and there was often a physical price to pay; when Joshua Rifkin made his historic recording of Bach’s B minor Mass, with the one-to-a-part choir in which the soloists sang both solos and choruses, (jokingly referred to as the “Piltdown” Mass), the singers tired their voices to the extent that they needed to use cortisone spray to relieve their vocal cords! Judy spoke of that recording experience as almost impossible! An important milestone was the recording she did as first soprano in Händel’s “Messiah” with Christopher Hogwood in London, the first with authentic instruments. Other highlights were her Philharmonia recordings with Baroque oboist Bruce Haynes, in which she actually matched her vocal timbre to the instrumental environment; also in recordings of Händel works with the magnificent Baroque flute-playing of Janet See.

PH: Who was Geneviève Thibault de Chambure?

GM: Madame de Chambure was Judy’s Parisian “angel”, a patroness of music. This lady had a chateau where she staged concerts; there she had some antique harpsichords. She was also the benefactor of William Christie; Judy worked a lot with William Christie in those days. I have the feeling that some of the texts Judy premiered came from Mme De Chambure’s library.

PH: Did Judith do much teaching?

GM: Judy did not like teaching people technique or how to sing, so she never had a regular teaching job, neither did she have private voice students. But, of course, she held master classes all over the world, working much on interpretation and how to use acoustics. She certainly passed on much knowledge through her copies of texts and translations, which are probably still circulating till today. She always made her library available to all and you knew she might have rare pieces there you could not find anywhere else. Judy joked that the early music revival was made possible by the Xerox machine. I still treasure copies of her music and text translations.

PH: Would you like to mention Judith and Alan Nelson’s community activities?

GM: Yes. They helped people a lot. In 1986, Judy was a founding member of the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra – the first Baroque orchestra in western USA (the Philharmonia office was a room in their house!), directed today by Nicholas McGegan. She was an important member of the San Francisco Early Music Society. She and Alan helped young musicians with the acquisition of instruments (they helped me with one of my harpsichords); Judy would supply them with texts or robes or invite them over for coaching. When I prepared concerts with fellow students, I would call her and, if she had time, we would go to her home and play the program to her. We were always keen to hear what she had to say; she made nothing of the fact that she was a great artist and that you might be just a first-year student. There was no snobbery about her. In Philharmonia rehearsals, if an artist was having a hard time, she was ready with a hug; and you could see Judy helping with members’ babies when she was not singing! Judy was a very caring citizen – she attended city council meetings and was on education boards, she always had a political opinion and was exceedingly humanistic.

PH: What brought Judith to Israel?

GM: Judy gave workshops and master classes all over the world, and came to do just that in Israel in 1984. This was new to many people here. She returned twice after that. She was a guest of the Jerusalem Music Centre, Mishkenot Sha’ananim. Judy worked a lot on text, on finding your understanding of the text, on encouraging you to make a personal connection with the text, first delivering it in speech voice, being convincing and only then placing it in the singing voice. What was important for her in Baroque performance practice was that singing should not be separated from speech. I remember her explaining about word painting and advocating aesthetic choice. As a teacher she was modest…even humble. And an important point: back in the 1980s, Judy picked up on the fact that there was enthusiasm and hunger for knowledge of early music performance here in Israel and she predicted that Israel, in time, would develop into an important centre of early music.
On her second visit she was joined by Laurette Goldberg; they gave some courses together. I was Laurette’s assistant, so I slept on the floor in one of their rooms at the guesthouse and help with whatever was needed in the classes. On her second visit to Israel – Alan had joined her –I showed them around the Old City of Jerusalem. I still remember how moved she was seeing Mary’s Tomb in all its austerity; walking down those steep stairs to it, she became so aware of going far back in time.

PH: What impressions did Judith’s musicianship leave on you?

GM: A lasting impression. I remember her performances as if they had been yesterday. As a younger musician – I was a student at the time and still inexperienced - my friends became her friends. From her we learned the 17th century vocal gestures and how to recognize them in instrumental music. She, herself, was so clear on this that she never faked a song. She had so much knowledge of the styles of late-medieval music, early- and late Renaissance and also of Baroque music; she had engaged in much dialogue on these styles with top people in the field. She was the model of how all music should be performed – in a fresh, personal way and her aim was to share her enjoyment of it. Many of today’s early musicians sing with very fine technique and interesting ornamentation, but the freshness Judy brought to music is something I will never forget.

PH: And as a person?

GM: Judy was good with people; she was curious and compassionate. She was supportive of young musicians and wanted to share her knowledge with others. Five minutes’ of Judy’s support and a hug was something you would keep for your entire life. Judy was a wonderful friend and would call people up spontaneously, arrange a spontaneous meeting. In working on performance, she would sometimes place her hands on the accompanist’s shoulders and, her way of communicating what she wanted – tempo, rhythm, small changes to make a phrase soar, etc. I was present at the various holidays celebrated at the Nelson home, and, of course, Judy would always sing for us - anything from Guillaume de Machaut to Tom Lehrer, to the Beatles!

PH: Gidi, you have heard so much performance by Judith Nelson. What works remain highlights for you?

GM: The Italian songs and Purcell’s songs. When she sang “Sweeter than Roses” she was so very convincing…as if she herself had just been kissed for the first time!

PH: And now that Judy is gone….

GM: Since her passing, I have spent much time thinking and remembering. I would say she is the most evolved person I have ever met. There was some perfection about the way everything came together in her: commitment to her work, to her family, to the musical community around her and to the community at large (to homeless people, to the issue of AIDS, etc.) and she had a wonderfully cheerful personality.

British early brass specialist Richard Thomas talks about his career and about early brass instruments on today's concert platform

On September 19th 2013, I spoke to brass player Richard Thomas at his London home. Richard Thomas studied at the University of Wales, the Royal Academy of Music (London) and the Schola Cantorum (Basel, Switzerland). As part of his Master of Arts degree, he undertook research into the William Shaw Silver State Trumpets in the Jewel House at the Tower of London. Richard Thomas’ interest in the performance practice of historical brass instruments (including the natural trumpet, the keyed bugle, the slide trumpet and cornett) has meant that he has worked with many of the most prestigious early music ensembles. Richard is a founder member and director of the acclaimed sackbut and cornett ensemble QuintEssential, he teaches cornett at Trinity College (London) and at the Birmingham Conservatoire.

PH: Richard, where were you born and do you come from a musical family?

Richard Thomas: I was born in London. All my family is from Wales and we returned to Wales when I was two years of age. I do not come from a musical family. My mother did once have piano lessons but she was the only one who had anything to do with music. I think I am the only person in the family to be musical.

PH: What are your earliest musical memories?

RT: I remember being in primary school, with all my friends having instruments to learn. The trumpet teacher came along at the start of the school year, in September, and asked who was already nine years old…mainly to make sure pupils had top- and bottom second teeth. As I was not yet nine, I was not in that first selection process. All my friends had instruments and I was probably envious of what they were doing. But I do have a clear memory of my friends turning up to deliver an instrument to me on the very day of my ninth birthday. Other than that, my early memories are of singing at school, either in English or Welsh.

PH: So you started with the trumpet.

RT: I played the brass band cornet to begin with and then the trumpet from about 17. I picked up the early instruments when I was about 21 or 22.

PH: Did you have private lessons?

RT: Yes, but all of the state schools had free tuition for pupils. So, all of my early lessons were free. It was only when I went to secondary school that I had a private half-hour paid lesson with my teacher. Although thinking about it, I remember we still had free lessons at school as well, but they were supplementary.

PH: Did you do much ensemble playing?

RT: When I was at home, in Wales, I played in the local brass band. That is where I learned my trade, as it were. I stopped doing that after leaving university. Here in the UK, a lot of the brass band tradition is entertaining in parks and concerts; playing outdoors to the public is great fun and very light-hearted.

PH: Where did you take higher music studies?

RT: I did a B.Mus degree at the University of Wales at University College in Bangor, North Wales and then started post-graduate studies at the Royal Academy of Music in 1991, for a while, commuting between Wales and London. The Master’s degree had a performance element, also involving a written dissertation and a recital, with the course at the Royal Academy designed for people who were studying elsewhere and also attending the RAM.

PH: How did your interest in period brass instruments begin?

RT: I was involved in a group called “The National Youth Brass Band of Great Britain”. The director of music in that group managed to get us concerts in all the big churches in Venice. Our rehearsal venue was the Frari Church, where Monteverdi is buried; so there we were rehearsing daily next to Monteverdi! We played music by Gabrieli on trumpets, trombones, French horns and tubas. That is probably where I got the bug for that sort of music, but I did not yet realize how complex and interesting it was. We went there in 1988 and 1989 with two different-sized groups. The second year we were there, we were four trumpeters, all of whom have gone into the business, one of them being the now renowned conductor Daniel Harding. Then, when at the Royal Academy, I was exposed to some of the period instruments that the Academy had bought. We were encouraged to take them up. That is when I started dabbling with copies of period instruments. They handed out some cornettos and sackbuts for the trombones. But I had already started looking into the natural trumpet because of the subject of my Master’s written work. So I was already interested in the 17th- and 18th century trumpet by the time I started at the Academy. There, at the Academy, I was introduced to 16th century instruments as well.

PH: Where did this lead you?

RT: It led to forming my group, which is called the QuintEssential Sackbut and Cornett Ensemble. It is still going 20 years later and we are busy. The group kept us incredibly busy when we were students and just after we left the Royal Academy. The group really sustained part of our playing careers. We got involved with an organization called “Live Music Now”, which sends musicians into hospitals, prisons, special needs schools and old age homes – places where live music would not ordinarily be heard. This work trained us in how to deal with a wide variety of audiences and how to speak to the public as well. That was a big training ground for us. On the other side of the fence, I am now on the auditioning panels of “Live Music Now”, where I help to find new young groups. It is quite nice to give something back to them now.

PH: What performing are you currently doing on modern instruments?

RT: At the moment, I am at the Globe Theatre. It is slightly unusual to be playing modern instruments at the Globe, because I usually play period instruments there. But the play that I am involved in at the moment is set in the late 1890s and is about the graduation rights for women at Cambridge University. Tomorrow I will be doing a matinee at the Globe and then jumping into a cab to get to Trafalgar Square, where I will be playing Mozart and Haydn (Händel?) at a concert at St. Martin in the Fields. Here, I will be playing the kind of music on modern instruments which I frequently play on period instruments.

PH: And on period instruments?

RT: Last Sunday, there was a performance at Knole House, an English Heritage Elizabethan stately home in Sevenoaks. Our group “The City Musick” played. William Lyons is the director. This is a group exploring music of the “waits” tradition. The waits were professional musicians employed in towns or cities throughout Renaissance Europe. Our group focuses on music performed in London from 1500 to 1700. The next thing we are doing might be the Swan Feast, the Vintners’ Company annual dinner, in November. The Vintners’ is one of the livery companies that are allowed to keep or own swans. In December, we will be playing 18th – and 19th century music, influenced by Thomas Hardy, some Victorian music as well…played on offaclydes, serpents and keyed bugles.

PH: How would you classify those instruments?

RT: They form an 18th -19th set of instruments. Of them I play the keyed bugle, the English slide trumpet and the cornet. I always play the soprano line in this group on whatever instrument is on the top line.

PH: And with other groups?

RT: I will be doing a number of performances of Monteverdi “Vespers” next year – one in Malta, in a project to encourage more players of period instruments there, and three performances of it with John Eliot Gardiner. Those are the headline dates for next year.

PH: What about solo playing?

RT: I played concertos when I was at university, but now I do very little solo playing. Most of my work is in ensembles or orchestral. I have never really explored the solo repertoire as am usually too busy with other things. I am very comfortable being part of an ensemble. However, I did perform the Vivaldi double trumpet concert a number of times this year with a friend of mine. Anyway, as a trumpet player, you are always playing one to a part, so it does feel like solo-playing. There is one piece I am itching to play- and I keep dropping hints left, right and centre – and that is Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto no.1, the one with the trumpet and piano. I would love to play that. I just need to drop the right hints to the right people.

PH: How are orchestras and conductors relating to the subject of early brass instruments?

RT: There has been a recent shift of late, mainly with conductors asking brass players to use period instruments. A colleague of mine, who plays in the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, said that they have been using natural trumpets for some of their repertoire, as have other orchestras. This shift is either player-led or conductor-led; it is not something that has been dictated by orchestral committees. There seems to be a lot of interest in having the different timbres of period instruments in the smaller orchestras or in smaller sections of bigger groups, probably because less volume creates a better balance with period instruments. So there is some exploration of period instruments in modern orchestras. Otherwise, period instruments are played in amongst other early music instruments.

PH: Do you play with any Renaissance- or Baroque orchestras?

RT: I play for The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment when they do Renaissance music – Gabrieli or Monteverdi - and with a Baroque group called “Florilegium”, which is run by Ashley Solomon. I have a period orchestra myself called the “Meridian Sinfonia” (called thus because I am in the Greenwich area) and I also do a lot of “orchestral fixing”.

PH: What is that?

RT: It’s a slang term for orchestral management. A conductor will ring me and say that he wants an orchestra for a concert that their choir is doing. I will tell them how much it will cost; if they agree to the price, I will put all the players together. Orchestral fixing involves booking the orchestra, making sure everyone is there, getting the right players, checking orchestrations, checking budgets and then paying everybody. It is all freelance, but the artists I ask do tend to mostly be the same people. The early music freelance world is quite small, so the pool of players is not very large and then, within that, you kind-of know who likes playing with whom or who plays best in certain repertoire. We are quite busy this year, with concerts in Worcester and London and occasionally out in Essex.

PH: So that is a period orchestra.

RT: Not just. I will also offer it as a modern band. We have concerts of Respighi and Britten coming up and also the Verdi Requiem next year. It is the same umbrella. I am the constant and know the players who perform different styles well, with a few of them playing both period- and modern instruments.

PH: You are seeing a lot of early music played in Britain.

RT: Yes. But the same music has been played here for decades; pieces like “Messiah” and the Mozart “Requiem” etc. have been performed by amateur choirs up and down the country every weekend for decades. The change now is that they are more confident that they can get a period orchestra if they so wish. So the period instrument movement here has got more outlets, more places where these players can earn a living. Much of the music they are playing has been performed a lot, but formerly on modern instruments.

PH: Would you like to talk about amateur performers and attitudes to new repertoire?

RT: That is the tricky thing. The difficult thing is to get new composers and unusual repertoire performed. If one is being booked by a choral society – amateur music-making, and especially singing, is very prolific in Britain – it will tend to do pieces that we will have seen a number of times. If my group is booked for a festival, we can take a bit more of a risk with different repertoire, because that is what festivals often expect; festivals tend to present a mix of the familiar and the unusual. Regarding early music, very occasionally you get a conductor of a choral society who wants to try unfamiliar repertoire of a known composer or the double whammy of an unknown composer and something unusual to perform. Those are the times when it is interesting for us from an exploratory point of view.

PH: So who is open to performing unusual works?

RT: It is the period orchestras such as “The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment” who push the boundaries of unusual repertoire. It is normally orchestras which have funding that can take those risks.

PH: Would you like to talk about your teaching?

RT: Yes. I teach the modern trumpet in two places local to me, I teach cornetto at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance (London) and I have been teaching at the Birmingham Conservatoire as well. This year I will be giving classes in Birmingham on editing, performance practice and ornamentation – a general early music course.

PH: Do you compose music?

RT: No, but I do edit repertoire from original sources for my group to perform or for anybody who commissions me to do editing; of course, editing ties in with the many years of my interest in finding “new old” repertoire.

PH: I am interested to hear about your use of flatt trumpets in the Purcell performance at Dartington Hall, Devon, this last summer.

RT: The Purcell Funeral Music is scored for four flatt trumpets. The origin of the word “flatt” is a little obscure, but we think it means they could play in minor keys. The harmonic series of the natural trumpet – in the “a”-fixed length of tubing – according to the principles of physics, gives you a major triad in the second octave and then a major scale in the third. The flatt trumpets are fitted with a slide, meaning you can lengthen the tubing to enable the player to lower the major third to become a minor third. Ordinarily, you would have needed to change the length of the whole instrument to change key but you would still have only been able to play the harmonic series notes. So the flatt trumpet means you can have modulations and the funeral march of Purcell’s Funeral Music, although not modulating in a wildly adventurous way, does go into keys in which normal natural trumpets could not play. The invention of the slide trumpet at the end of the 17th century was quite ground-breaking and innovative.

PH: Were there many works played on flatt trumpets in England at the time?

RT: We think we know that the trumpet-playing Shore brothers – John and William - played them; Talbot’s description of a flatt trumpet is based on an instrument he borrowed from John Shaw. We know you need four of them but we do not know who else owned them at the time. The music we today know as the Purcell Funeral Music was originally composed for a play called “The Libertine”. It was then re-scored for the funeral of Queen Mary and played again at Purcell’s own funeral. However, the repertoire for the flatt trumpet is very, very limited and sources are a little ambiguous about in what other works the trumpets may have been played. Interestingly, the development of trumpets took a step backwards after these flatt trumpets: it then went back to the fixed length, closed instrument until we get to the 19th century, with the invention of the piston, the cylinder and valves.

PH: Are flatt trumpets difficult to play?

RT: Yes. They are notoriously difficult to play because they are slide trumpets. It is a real challenge and an accomplishment to get players to play them well.

PH: They must be hard to come by nowadays.

RT: Definitely. The person who was commissioned by Andrew Pinnock in 1994 to make some flatt trumpets for the 1995 400th anniversary concert of Purcell’s death only made 11 of them. Those instruments are now scattered all over the world. Two of them are in Switzerland at the Schola Cantorum and there may be one or two others in France. The one bass instrument is in Spain. For the Purcell concert in the summer, I borrowed a couple from another maker; the two from Switzerland were brought over to Britain, as was the one from Spain and I picked up two in London. It is probably an unusual occurrence to have five flatt trumpets in one place today! There is someone in Switzerland who is making some, but because the repertoire for the flatt trumpet is so tiny, you need to know that you have enough work on the instrument to justify buying them.

PH: Do you play jazz?

RT: No, but I have a friend who is a superb jazz player and I go to listen to his group a lot and enjoy it very much. However, I am teaching all my trumpet students how to play jazz at a very elementary level so that if they do choose to play jazz later on they will have the tools to do so.

PH: Do you play instruments other than brass instruments?

RT: Well, since having worked at places like Hampton Court and the Tower of London, and having known some of my City Musick colleagues for 20 years, I have now taken up some of the instruments that they have been playing – I play some recorder in ensemble with them, the hurdy gurdy, the bagpipes, I will do a bit of percussion if needed and the crumhorn, just to augment the ensemble or give myself a break. Because City Musick focuses on music of the waits, we all play a number of instruments in concerts. In my cornett and sackbut group, we each only play the one instrument.

PH: Richard, when it is not music, what interests you?

RT: Silence…I love silence. When I am at home, I tend not to have music playing. Peace and quiet is great. I have an allotment and, although I am not an accomplished gardener, I will go and sit at the allotment with a flask of tea to just enjoy the peace and quiet and the unusual wildlife there. Having said that, there is never peace and quiet there because, as soon as you get rid of all the traffic noise, you hear the all the birds, the wind in the trees and all the other sounds that living in the city cancels out. I enjoy the lack of industrial noise. This must hark back to the fact that I grew up in the country, where the noisiest thing in the world is countryside silence.

And I have a taste for the usual brass-players’ delights - food and drink and being in and around others who enjoy the same thing. I also like cycling and have done some long cycling trips. Ideally I would like to also cycle to work, but that is not feasible.