Baroque violinist Anton Steck (Germany) has much to say about the interpretation of Baroque music

On July 31st 2014, I met with German violinist Anton Steck at Dartington Hall, Devon (UK). Anton Steck

was born in Freudenstadt, south of Karlsruhe. Following studies in modern- and Baroque violin in Cologne, he served as concertmaster in “Musica Antiqua Köln” and in “Les Musiciens du Louvre” (France). He has performed and recorded widely with both ensembles. In 1996, Steck co-founded the Schuppenzigh Quartet, in which he plays first violin. From 2005 to 2008 he was concertmaster of “Concerto Köln”. Anton Steck made his conducting debut in 1997 with the Händel Festival Orchestra (Halle) and has been artistic director of this ensemble since 1999. He has received several international prizes for his recordings of Mozart Violin Sonatas KV 55-60 and sonatas of Johann Georg Pisendel. Anton Steck’s world premiere recording of works by violinist Wilhelm Bernhard Molique, with the “l’Arpa Festante” Orchestra and Christoph Spering, was released in January 2013. Since 2000, Steck has been professor of Baroque violin and conductor of the Baroque Orchestra at the National Academy of Music, Trossingen (Germany). He plays on a Jacob Stainer violin (1652) and an Alessandro Gagliano violin from 1701. Anton Steck presently resides in Cologne.

PH: Professor Anton Steck, are you from a musical family?

Anton Steck: Yes and no. My father, born in 1921, started out to become an actor. At that time, actors had to be able to sing and dance – to be entertainers. So my father did sing. He later gave up the idea of being an actor, moved from Munich to the Black Forest, where he met my mother and they started a family. So then he just sang at home.

PH: What are your earliest musical experiences?

AS: I was born in Freudenstadt, a town south of Karlsruhe, and not a big musical centre at all at the time. (Things have progressed there and the town now has some festivals.) I started playing the violin at age five and did my first real concerts together with my sister (on piano) when I was thirteen. My first solo was a Bach violin concerto. Then at 16, 17, 18 we formed a group playing early music, but on modern instruments. We had a very small poorly-sounding German Sperrhake harpsichord from the 1950s, the only one we could get our hands on, but it was convenient, being easy to transport. It stood in the living room of a friend of ours and every weekend we took it out and played some Telemann or Bach, chamber music with three or four people.

PH: When did you start playing Baroque violin?

AS: I began playing Baroque violin in Karlsruhe. In 1988 there was the bicentenary of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s death and that was my first year of playing Baroque violin. I was so surprised when I heard C.P.E.Bach’s music for the first time, a style of music I had never heard before. In 1989, I decided to completely stop playing the modern violin, taking studies in Baroque violin at the Sweelinck Conservatory (Amsterdam), which had a big early music department. That was where Gustav Leonhardt and other great Baroque musicians were teaching. My violin teacher was Reinhard Goebel, founder of “Musica Antiqua Köln”. He taught there only for two years, but they were the very two years I was a student there.

PH: And following your studies?

AS: At the age of 25 I became concertmaster of “Musica Antiqua Köln”. By then I was performing a lot of chamber music, orchestral music and soloing.

PH: Would you like to talk about your teaching?

AS: Yes. I love to teach. I have been teaching for almost 17 years. I first had a small position in Karlsruhe and I now have a professorship in Trossingen, a very small town on the southern edge of the Black Forest. The University of Music, Trossingen, has the biggest department of early music in Germany: they have 29 teachers and 22 harpsichords of different styles, for example. It is indeed a luxury position because the regional government (aware of the international success of the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra – Freiburg is situated at the foot of the Black Forest) saw the potential in having a school for early music there and, precisely 20 years ago, created more positions for early music teachers at the school and funded a new building.

PH: Trossingen is a very small town.

AS: Yes. There is just one cinema there and it shows one movie a week! But our students are so busy with their studies that they do not really miss city attractions. They mostly arrive at the Academy latest at 8 o’clock in the morning and leave around 10 at night. We have some 80 students, from all over the world, who experience playing the whole gamut of early instruments – there is a trombone class, a trumpet class, flute, viol, violin, harpsichord, fortepiano, lute, oboe; you can study cornetto and dulcian…whatever you want. We have the biggest period clarinet class in Germany. What is most distinctive there is the new B.Mus. program students can take in Baroque Orchestra, the only degree of its kind in Europe. It began two years ago and is beginning to be known: in addition to their weekly 1½-hour individual instrumental lesson, students on the program have another six hours in which they are taken through the whole Baroque orchestra repertoire: we go through the St. Matthew Passion, the St. John Passion, the B minor Mass, instrumental music, we accompany the clarinet class, and more. I lead that course; the other two artists teaching it are Werner Matzke, first ‘cellist of “Concerto Köln”, and renowned British violinist John Holloway. We have just had some lovely concerts together and this has been an incentive to students not in that program to be more involved in early music.

PH: How do you see what is happening with the new generation of Baroque violinists?

AS: They are having it much easier than we did. At the end of the 1980s, we had a hard time finding music, books about early music and treatises. Not much was published. You had to wait for weeks till you got your hands on a certain book or it meant going to a specific library to get information. Nowadays information is basically on-line and can be downloaded. Sometimes I feel it has become too easy now. On the other hand, the practical level of today’s students is most outstandingly high compared to what it was when we were starting out. We also had other problems, like playing on really bad gut strings. The subject of gut strings has developed over the last 20 or 30 years; there are now much better strings available. And I have a very good feeling seeing more young Baroque players looking for orchestral positions. In our time, that was impossible: there simply were just a few Baroque orchestras. Playing ensemble music meant getting together with friends to play this repertoire. Nowadays, there are many Baroque orchestras. And another thing: in my time, we learned music of the 17th and 18th centuries, including Mozart. We just worked with one Baroque violin, and that was it. Nowadays, students have to play Mendelssohn and even Bruckner – technically much more demanding music – and very often they do not have the right instruments for that, especially when it comes to bows.

PH: How do you see trends of playing early music, now that the authentic movement has passed its peak?

AS: I must say that I have a very special way of looking at it. Regarding all the information we have collected over the last 40 or maybe 50 years, we have created a certain way of playing Baroque music. I do feel we have got somewhat stuck when it comes to interpretation, color and finding new ways of interpretation, as we have been repeating the things our teachers have been doing for the last 30-40 years. In my opinion, we now understand about 15% of what was written in the treatises of the time, when it comes to color and interpretation. There is still a lot more work to be done. In a way, people get very comfortable with “knowing how it should be done” and this is a dangerous rut I find because, as the treatises go for the “correct” way of doing things the player must find the differentiations, that detail which is not written down and lies between the notes. If I read the writings of Johann Mattheson, a very strict, boring German theorist with no sense of humor, he nonetheless says that every bar has to be taken at its own tempo and that every bar has to be in a different mood. If Mattheson in 1739 spoke of the maximum of emotion, and this was in the in the mid-Baroque, I cannot believe that this music should be dry. Daniel Speer was another musician, who in 1698 listed 50 elements, such as “low”, high”, “expressive”, “dry”, “short”, “long”, “1,2,3” (sequences), “effects”, “affects” etc., saying that all these 50 elements must appear in every piece we play. So today’s Baroque musicians and researchers could really also try for something very different. For me, playing this repertoire does not mean dry repetition or metronomic performance. Well, indeed, they did not have a metronome at that time but a pendulum and a pendulum gives you a swing. A swing has a beginning, a peak and a lowest point. This is what I try to do with Bach and the other Baroque composers. 18th century music, of a different emotional expression to that of the 19th century, finds emotion in every individual figuration, as each figuration is connected to a different harmony. Every tonality has its own color and its own mannerism. That is why Bach is so extremely colorful: he can change the atmosphere within a half bar! His music is compact and very loaded with energy.

Here is a story that illustrates this realization: Gustav Leonhardt was interviewed by an Amsterdam newspaper on his 80th birthday. “Well”, he said “very late in my life I discovered that Baroque music was actually the most expressive music ever written, but I am too old now to re-record the entire repertoire. That is for the next generation to do.” Leonhardt knew exactly what he was talking about and he has pushed the door open for the next generation.

PH: So, what do you see as the role of the performer?

AS: As a performer, you have to decide what kind of style and tone you want to produce on stage and this, for me, is absolutely connected with the performer’s character. With two artists presenting absolutely opposing interpretations of the same piece, there is no right or wrong in music. I, myself, go for a rather expressive style.

PH: Do you write music?

AS: Only in a very particular sense. I write cadenzas for violin concertos. I never play a cadenza that has been written by any other violinist. I do this kind of composing because there is material on which to base the cadenza. I did not study composition, a background needed for becoming a serious composer.

PH: Do you write about music?

AS: I do. I write for press, program notes and sometimes liner notes for CDs. But this is problematic because you write something and then, two years later, you would really want to rewrite it as you know much more about the subject.

PH: Do you edit?

AS: I do. Some years ago, I discovered half of a Biber chaconne and edited it. Of course, a few years later I had many new ideas and observations on it. I also wanted to edit one of the Geminiani solo sonatas for violin. The manuscript had suffered water damage in World War II. We have an old edition of it from 1911. I made an edition of the sonata and recorded it on my Geminiani CD.

PH: Has the edition been published?

AS: I could not decide to publish it as I am a musician who needs to change things daily in order to be satisfied with what I am doing. I think it was Goethe who said “You have to change in order to remain the same.” If you try to remain the same person and the same musician for ten or twenty years, the world around you changes, and, all of a sudden, nobody is interested in you anymore. But I admire people who put out reliable editions or books, such as David Boyden’s wonderful book “The History of Violin Playing from its Origins to 1761”, first published in 1965, still a good text despite new information we have found over the last 30/40 years.

PH: Would you like to talk about conducting?

AS: Conducting is a very interesting thing because it is very different to playing the violin or even to leading a group from the violin. Conducting from the podium, you stand a little more distant from the players, you do not have to cope with playing an instrument and you have a total view of the ensemble, giving you a nice way of being in contact with your musicians. Actually, for instrumental music with soloists and singers, I prefer conducting from the podium. For Concerti Grossi , I would rather lead from the violin. I also love conducting Baroque opera.

PH: Would you like to mention some of your present activities?

AS: Yes. Two years ago, in a library, I found two Romantic (1840s-1850s) violin concertos by violinist and composer Bernhard Molique, this style of music normally not my cup of tea because it is a very different technique from Baroque music. Molique was a German, working in Stuttgart. A brilliant violinist, he later taught composition in London. In these concertos, the composer had put in all the fingerings, those being completely different to fingerings used nowadays. I tried them out and found them so logical. Those mid-19th century fingerings are totally an integral part of the music: they are used to interpret the music, and not just technically, like fingerings we have learned in the Carl Flesch scale system, or whatever. I was so astonished by this. I worked on the pieces for two years and finally recorded them two years ago. This is a completely different style and, through these pieces, I saw that the 19th century has also to be reread. I am continuing on that subject also with my string quartet, the Schuppenzigh Quartet.

PH: Where does the name originate?

AS: Ignaz Schuppanzigh was the violinist who did the first performance of all the Beethoven quartets. He was a close friend of Beethoven. His quartet of performers was the first permanent quartet of players in Vienna.

PH: What repertoire does the Schuppenzigh Quartet play?

AS: Up to Schubert, maybe a little later, but not much later.

PH: On what instruments?

AS: On period instruments, but with different bridges and, of course, classical bows. Also the necks of the violins were different around 1800 as compared to 1700, with development and constant changes taking place up to the 20th century. There are still some very fine original bows from the Classical period, but there are not many left from the Baroque.

So there is a lot going on in my life – teaching and performing, also performing with my wife, harpsichordist Marieke Spaans.

PH: At what age do you think children should begin learning violin?

AS: This question has been much discussed. There are those people who say children should not start learning an instrument so early so as to be free to enjoy their childhood. But when it comes to violin playing, you have to start at an early age because the body can change and adapt up to the age of eight. After that, your body and your bones change less and it becomes increasingly more difficult because of the way the violin is held.

PH: When it is not music, what interests you?

AS: With 24 hours in a day, I have very little time for hobbies. I have played chess from age eight and I do play on quite a high level. I very much love playing chess but have no time to attend a club and comply with all the regulations of a chess club. But I play chess on my computer, sometimes when traveling on trains.

PH: Professor Steck, it has been most interesting talking to you. Many thanks for giving of your time.

Richard Boothby talks of his career as a viol player and about Fretwork

On July 28th 2014 I met with Welsh-born viol player Richard Boothby in Devon, UK. Following studies in Salzburg with Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Richard Boothby founded the Purcell Quartet in 1984. He was a founding member of Fretwork in 1985. Since then, his career has been bound up with these two groups, with whom he has recorded and toured, performing the broadest range of repertoire for viols, from early to contemporary music. Performing solo recitals, he recorded the three Bach sonatas for viola da gamba with Shalev Ad-El for the Chandos label, enthusiastically received. Boothby has given many recitals of suites of Antoine Forquerey and is professor of viol at the Royal College of Music, London.

PH: Professor Boothby, what were your early musical experiences?

Richard Boothby: I suppose they were listening to records with my parents. I remember they had a recording of Toscanini conducting the NBC Symphony Orchestra in Beethoven’s 4th Symphony. My brother had recordings of “A Hard Day’s Night” and of Bob Dylan’s John Wesley Harding album and I became familiar with those. I started learning the ‘cello when I was at school in South Wales. In those days, the 1960s, there was free instrumental tuition for all school children. When I went to secondary school at age 11 we could choose between violin, clarinet and ‘cello. In my mind, I had confused the ‘cello with the oboe and was then too proud to say I was not expecting anything like that instrument when given a ‘cello! But I liked the ‘cello very much and carried on with it.

PH: When did you start playing the viol?

RB: When I was at Manchester University studying Music, a university course (Musicology) rather than a conservatoire course, I was given the chance to play the viol. We did a lot of playing there, all the same.

PH: Where did you go from there?

RB: I went to London and studied with Charles Medlam for a few years. He had strong connections with Salzburg and Nikolaus Harnoncourt. I applied to the Mozarteum and received a scholarship to go and study for a year with Harnoncourt in Salzburg. That was 1980-1981.

PH: And following your studies…

RB: I returned to the UK and started a career. Actually, it is very difficult to just start out just like that on an instrument as esoteric as the gamba. For many years I worked in the Early Music Shop in London. For a time I worked with harpsichord builder and restorer Mark Ransom. Learning about harpsichords and their tuning was useful as I was playing a lot of music with harpsichord. As performing demanded more of my time I worked less at these jobs, finally devoting my time solely to performing. I was doing a lot of solo recitals but my career really took off when I founded Fretwork and the Purcell Quartet. They both became successful groups.

PH: Do both groups still exist?

RB: The Purcell Quartet stopped a few years ago, but Fretwork is very much in existence.

PH: Where does Fretwork perform?

RB: Anywhere and everywhere. We have played all over the world.

PH: Does Fretwork join other ensembles?

RB: We have sometimes joined with vocal groups such as Stile Antico, Red Byrd and I Fagiolini and sometimes we have a solo singer, but mostly it is just the four of us – Asako Morikawa, Reiko Ichise, Richard Tunnicliffe and myself.

PH: In addition to the early music repertoire for viols, Fretwork seems to be interested in modern music.

RB: Yes. We started with just one contemporary piece…then a few more and, eventually, contemporary music became a bigger and bigger part of what we do. Nowadays it is unusual for us to do a program without some contemporary music in it. In fact, we sometimes do a whole concert of contemporary music. For example, we will be performing in the Vale of Glamorgan Festival, a festival focusing only on music of living composers.

PH: Has there been a changeover of players in Fretwork over the years?

RB: Yes. I am the only “surviving” founder member of the group.

PH: Do you research viol music?

RB: In the early days of Fretwork, with parts not so available, we had to copy out a lot of music we wanted to play from collective editions. But things have changed enourmously in 30 years. We do some research, but a lot of previously unknown music is now available to players. If we come across music in editions we do not like I will produce my own edition.

PH: Do you publish your editions or are they just for your own use?

RB: We started producing computer set parts and a former member of Fretwork Bill Hunt has carried on with Fretwork Editions, producing scholarly- and practical editions of a lot of viol consort music – Lawes, Jenkins, Dowland etc., a huge variety of works.

PH: Do you find there are enough audiences in the UK interested in hearing all the viol music that has been unearthed as well as modern viol works?

RB: Yes. There is a good audience for the music we play. Different programs and different soloists attract people to come and hear us.

PH: Would you like to mention your teaching.

RB: Yes. I teach at the Royal College of Music, at Dartington Hall and every year I teach at the Marnaves Summer Baroque Course in France. The latter, run by Lucy Robinson and Andrew Wilson-Dickson, is a course focusing on solo- and consort viol playing.

PH: Is the UK producing a new generation of viol players?

RB: Yes. There are a great many very good players coming up. It is very encouraging. Jonathan Manson, a wonderful ‘cellist and viol player teaching at the Royal Academy of Music, is doing a very good job at encouraging his ‘cello pupils to take up the viol while they are at the Academy. Because of that, several good viol players have come from the Academy. What is surprising is that not more viol consorts have emerged in the UK. Even in Europe, where there are many, many viol players, there are very few viol consorts. It is a shame. There is a lot of room for more consorts.

PH: Do you compose?

RB: No, I don’t.

PH: When it is not music, what interests you?

RB: I am fairly interested in politics. I like food and cooking. My wife is Italian and I spend quite a lot of time in Italy, which is always very nice.

Talking to British conductor Jeffrey Skidmore

On June 16th 2014, I met with Jeffrey Skidmore in Monteconero, Sirolo (Italy). Jeffrey Skidmore is one of England’s most highly regarded conductors, known for exciting programming that is both challenging and accessible. Skidmore read music at Magdalen College, Oxford, then returning to his native Birmingham to lead “Ex Cathedra”, an internationally acclaimed choir and early music ensemble, which he continues to lead today.

PH: Maestro Skidmore, what are your early musical memories?

Jeffrey Skidmore: When I was perhaps eight years, a pupil at our local Birmingham primary school, I remember the teacher calling me out to the front of the class at the end of a lesson and requesting I sing a song. Another memory: we had a radio at home – one of those big boxes; I remember tuning in and hearing King’s College Choir (Cambridge) and being mesmerized by that sort of sound.

PH: Are you from a musical family?

JS: There were no trained- or professional musicians in the family. But I think all my family is very musical. Both my parents sang beautifully. They had an ear for music, as did my brothers. I had the fortune of meeting the right people and having some training. But it was not quite as easy as that.

PH: Can you explain that?

JS: The family immigrated to America in the late 1960s. My younger brother, now a scientist working in a hospital there, would have loved to have become a professional musician; he is very musical and plays the classical guitar, but he just did not have the right opportunities. My wife is a musician. We met at Oxford. Our children are very musical. My son is a professional ‘cellist on the London music scene.

PH: Let’s go to your early musical training.

JS: In those days, school children received free music lessons in England. Many of those teaching us were members of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. I was supplied with a violin and started having violin lessons at school. I did not like it very much. I then started having trumpet lessons with a fantastic teacher who was a trombonist in the CBSO. I also had recorder lessons.

PH: Was it to be the piano for you?

JS: No. But I was considered a musical child and it was a physics teacher from school who decided to give me some keyboard lessons. A local organist gave me free piano- and organ lessons. The school music teacher, Walter Jennings, approached my parents to say I needed to have a piano at home. My family, including two brothers and a sister, had to put up with my practicing. I still use the piano today for reading scores.

When I went to grammar (secondary) school, all the class sang in music lessons. We were also each requested to sing on our own. We did not know we were being auditioned; Walter Jennings, the teacher, was the local parish church choir master. I think I was the only pupil interested when he talked about the Reformation and counterpoint, the concerto, Venice and cori spezzati. In fact, I was all ears. Understanding all that background was becoming very important to me. He asked me if I would like to be a chorister. There were both boys and girls in the choir, so, in addition to the music and the music teacher, there was that extra attraction of the girls! Now retired, Jennings is still a friend. He and his wife come to our Ex Cathedra concerts.

PH: So was singing what attracted you in all these musical activities?

JS: Yes. I did come to realize that singing was the thing I loved and wanted to do. When I was 16, my parents emigrated to America. I went there too, but came back the UK and lived with friends. This was the end of the ‘60s, the time of “flower power” and “freedom”, a great t time for an adolescent male to be on his own, with no parental rules or regulations, and it suited me to be an independent spirit. By then I knew I wanted to become a singer.

PH: What were your first steps into the singing profession?

JS: I was 17 and went to audition as a professional singer in the Birmingham Cathedral Choir. The organist and choir master was Roy Massey, at the time certainly one of the best organists in the country. He accepted me and inspired me to go even further with choral training and discipline. From there, I got a choral scholarship to Magdalen College, Oxford.

PH: Who were the people who influenced you most in Oxford?

JS: I trained under Bernard Rose, one of the giants of English choral music - a great musician and teacher and a very interesting man. And then there was David Wulstan, who started a group called “The Clerkes of Oxenford”. That one group started the whole business really: all the singers passing through the Oxford tradition have sung in this ensemble. From that one group “The Tallis Scholars”, “The Hilliard Ensemble”, “The Sixteen” and others emerged.

PH: Who else has been an influence on your musical life?

JS: There have been lots and lots of other people…in all sorts of personal ways: I have learned much from people I sang with as a young singer in Birmingham Cathedral, from people I sang with in Oxford, and from everyone who has sung in Ex Cathedra.

PH: Did “Ex Cathedra” originate on your return to Birmingham?

JS: No. We had started before that, in my gap year. When I was accepted at Oxford, I remember writing to David Wulstan there. I had heard recordings of his group. Wulstan wrote back asking if I would like to sing with them. I told him I had my own group (Ex Cathedra) but that I would like to sing with his ensemble. “The Clerkes of Oxenford” was one of the most influential early music groups in England at that time.

PH: Did you run any groups of your own in Oxford?

JS: Yes. As a male alto, I have also sung and soloed in many groups and consorts, but I also started a consort of singers in my first year at Oxford. Emma Kirkby was a soprano in it, Paul Elliott was the tenor; countertenor David James was also a member – all big stars of the future.

I graduated from Oxford University 1973-1974.

PH: And then you returned to Birmingham.

JS: Yes. I went back to Birmingham and took a job as a professional singer at Lichfield Cathedral, which is in a very beautiful Gothic town just outside Birmingham, and I was happy to go back and continue developing “Ex Cathedra”.

PH: Why Birmingham?

JS: It is my home town, a wonderful city, but not a very “popular” town in a sort of way. Birmingham is a young city, only 100 years old as a city, but very vibrant, with a focus on learning and education and it has a wealth of wonderful venues. There are many beautiful churches and the council has invested a lot of money in regenerating the city. There is Birmingham Cathedral (built in 1715), a very small, beautiful cathedral and the only Baroque cathedral in England. There is St. Paul’s Church in the Jewellery Quarter and the Oratory, the latter founded by Cardinal Newman and built in the 19th century. It is a beautiful marble box with absolutely perfect acoustics. And then we have the Town Hall, which was built for the Birmingham Triennial Music Festival, a major choral festival which existed from 1784 to 1912; this venue was a choral centre in the 19th- and early 20th centuries. Some major works were written to be performed at the Birmingham Town Hall, including Mendelssohn’s “Elijah”, Dvorak’s “Stabat Mater” and Elgar’s “The Dream of Gerontius”. Then, in the ‘80s and ‘90s, the council built Symphony Hall, a modern concert hall, considered by some as having the best acoustic in the world. It was built for Sir Simon Rattle, who came to conduct the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.

PH: Let’s get back to Ex Cathedra and how it has developed over the years.

JS: A lot of years of development! It has been going for the last 45 years. Ex Cathedra was sort-of amateur to start with, with friends taking part because we loved doing this music. Then there came the point where I was so busy I had to decide whether to give up teaching and do full-time freelance conducting. That’s what I eventually did in the early ‘90s and I have been doing it ever since. Ex Cathedra consists mostly of singers; we have cooperated with such groups as Fretwork, His Majesty’s Sagbutts and Cornetts, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, The Hanover Band, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Ballet Sinfonia, etc. At one stage we also formed our own period instrument orchestra – the Ex Cathedra Baroque Orchestra - the first period instrument orchestra in England outside of London. All the leading players of the time have played with- or led this orchestra at some stage – John Holloway, Simon Standage, Catherine Mackintosh and eventually Micaela ‘Mica’ Comberti, who became our leader. Mica was a wonderful artist. After playing second violin in “English Concert” and second violin in the Salomon Quartet, this was her opportunity to be leader and she accepted the role happily. For 20 years, we did some wonderful work together, with lots of recordings, and we explored much repertoire that nobody else was doing, in particular, French Baroque music. We were the first group in England to really tackle that style. Nobody was trained to do French Baroque and, even today, people are slightly intimidated by French Baroque style: there is so much to learn, with so many stylistic elements. (My son plays ‘cello in the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Last year, they performed Rameau’s “Hippolyte et Aricie” at Glyndebourne, conducted by William Christie. I went to a lot of the rehearsals and to the performance and observed how even an orchestra of that sort of level had to learn how to play French Baroque music in style.) One of the high points for Ex Cathedra and myself was the ensemble’s 40th anniversary in 2010. For that we performed Mendelssohn’s “Elijah” and Elgar’s “Dream of Gerontius”, all with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. We were defining our Birmingham heritage.

PH: Where does Ex Cathedra mostly perform?

JS: We are based in Birmingham and also do concerts outside of the town. The Midlands has some excellent venues. This is the heart of England. People just do not know the depth and wealth of what is going on there.

PH: You have mentioned the fact that you love consort work.

JS: Yes. In Ex Cathedra, we also started a small consort of our own called “Le Nuove Musiche” to perform works like Monteverdi madrigals with two violins and continuo, etc. – all that kind of early 17th century repertoire. I used to sing and direct it from the alto voice.

PH: And as time went on?

JS: I did more and more conducting and worked with other groups…and then stopped performing. I was teaching and my voice was not in very good shape.

PH: And on the subject of teaching…

JS: Teaching is what I do. Everything I do is teaching. I suppose because I had some inspirational teachers I feel it is my role to pass on what I know to other people. When I left Oxford University I wanted to be a teacher. So I taught music in various schools in Birmingham, in the Midlands and Staffordshire…real cutting edge, hard core secondary school teaching, dealing with all sorts of children. Some were very interested, some were not. But I was a “missionary”: I wanted to convert them, to show them what I was taught to see. It was very, very hard work, but I had some great times. It was a tough job, but I am glad I did it and it changed the way I see the music business. I enjoy working with the best musicians and also with amateurs, the challenge being to give each what they need. In fact, it is the same process as teaching children at school: you take them on a journey and try to make things better or more interesting. So I am quite happy to work at any level with any people, as long as there is a “journey”. I have been very lucky to accompany singers on lots of journeys.

PH: Talking of journeys, you mentioned having spent time in South America.

JS: Yes. I have had several trips to Mexico, Bolivia and Brazil to research music there.

PH: What kind of music?

JS: Colonial music. Some of it is Baroque, some late Renaissance and some early Classical. Brazil’s music is largely early Classical repertoire and early Romantic, whereas there is late Renaissance and early Baroque music to be found in Bolivia and also in Mexico. There is some marvellous music in South America and I have had the pleasure of meeting some wonderful people there. There is so much material to discover there but there are also a lot of very talented people working on that repertoire. Because of all the political upheaval in South America, and with Europe dominating, people have denigrated colonial music, but now, with time, they are realizing that together with some really bad things going on in the region – slavery and exploitation – there were also a lot of good things and, most importantly, that these good things also form a part of their history. There is some excellent music from South America which we are beginning to appreciate.

PH: Do you see yourself as a musicologist?

JS: I’d like to think I do those “musicological things”. I am not just a musicologist. I know a lot of very distinguished musicologists. My musicological enquiry helps me understand performance issues. And because I know something about musicology I know the right questions to ask, what the issues are, what instruments and temperaments to use, etc. So musicology is a very important part of what I do. I am a “performing musicologist” if you like.

PH: How does this work tie in with your work with Ex Cathedra?

JS: In clarity of style. I think one of the things that Ex Cathedra is good at is getting style right. Our Renaissance music does not sound like our Baroque music and not like our Classical music. We really get inside style. I hear a lot of groups for which everything sounds the same. Style is important.

PH: Does contemporary music play a role in your professional life?

JS: A massive role. Ex Cathedra has made several CDs of contemporary music and actually commissions one or two new works every year! For next year, a leading Scottish composer, James McMillan, is composing an oratorio for us. And in 2016, Sally Beamish, a famous British composer, is writing us a new setting to a Shakespeare ode for the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. So we perform a lot of modern music.

PH: Can you pick out one of your CDs of modern music?

JS: Yes. We made a CD of music by Alec Roth (UK). He wrote a 40-part motet for us (based on that of Tallis) about moon landings – a sensational piece of music. When you are singing it or listening to it, it sounds as if you are floating in space.

PH: Let’s go to Ex Cathedra’s recent live performances of contemporary music.

JS: In 2013 we did Stockhausen at the BBC Proms (an eight-week London summer festival), which surprised everybody; we received world coverage, and it was glowing! The previous year, we joined the Birmingham Opera to perform Stockhausen’s “Mittwoch aus Licht” (Wednesday from Light), as part of the Olympic Games cultural celebrations. Stockhausen wrote an opera for each day of the week. This one has five acts. Our scene “Welt Parlament” (World Parliament), written for 36 singers, consisted of 45 minutes of a cappella singing. It is phenomenally difficult but the project was well funded, so we had a lot of rehearsals. When we began working on it, all of us hated Stockhausen. We found it unbearable. By the end of the process we absolutely loved it. It ended up being one of those life-changing musical experiences!

PH: It must be very different working with living composers and their music.

JS: Yes. For me, working with living composers gives one understanding of how they themselves think and work. You can then apply that to composers who are dead, even to the music of a composer like William Byrd, about whom we do not know much. We try to work out what the composer intended and then we endeavor to recreate that.

PH: What is most important for you when performing modern music?

JS: Beauty of sound. Modern music must be performed beautifully, not just correctly. People sometimes learn the notes of these works (a task difficult in itself) and, especially when it comes to singing, the performers may not necessarily have beautiful voices. If you do it with beautiful voices, the music becomes much more accessible.

PH: Do you compose?

JS: I used to compose a lot when I was 17 and 18 and still have those early pieces at home. Then I stopped because it took too much time but also because it was very personal. I do arranging and quite a lot of editing of French Baroque music and Renaissance repertoire. But something in my mind thinks that when I start to slow down, I might well start doing some composing again. I have things going on in my head but I need time – composing takes me a long time to do.

PH: What are your future performance plans?

JS: What I really want to do is return to English music. You really need to do your own music. You can only really get inside it if you are of that nationality. I think there is still a lot to discover about Purcell. His music has been performed and recorded a lot. For me, he brings together English Renaissance polyphony and Italian music. So I am hoping to “say something new” about Purcell. That is one of my aims. I also want to do a lot more French Baroque music. Lalande, for example, Louis XIV’s favorite composer, wrote some 60 “grands motets” that have not all yet been performed. This is strange, wonderful music and it suits Ex Cathedra. And the other thing is that I am planning a kind of succession: I want to have an influence on young conductors, to give them an opportunity and hopefully, over the next years, to find the right person to take over from me. I am not looking for a clone, but for someone who can take us in new directions yet still maintain Ex Cathedra’s range of educational work and interest in contemporary- and old music; we have amateur- and professional singers and we work with students. It should be someone – a very special person - who will keep all of that going.

PH: When it is not music, what interests you?

JS: I like lots of things: travel, food, wine, cooking, sport. I play less sport nowadays but still enjoy cycling and swimming. I like gardening and I read as much as I can.

PH: What do you think you will write in your memoirs one day?

JS: Something like… “I am my own man”. It is very important to me to do what I want to do and I need to be free to do that. I have been fortunate to be able to have control over what I want to do. Being in Birmingham has given me that freedom: I have been able to experiment and do repertoire that other people could not really afford to do. We are quite well funded in Birmingham, so I have been able to “carve out” a musical life there due to that freedom.

PH: Jeffrey, this has been very interesting. Many thanks for giving of your time.

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.