Donemus Record released a great collection of recordings on Harpsichord by many well-known performers. Read the story of Joop Klinkhamer, the initiator of the project…
Joop Klinkhamer and Petra van Niftrik regularly organise classical concerts on their 19th-century Erard grand pianos in Edam, later in Zaandam. All appointments with musicians and the church had to be cancelled because of Covid. And that applied to everyone, of course! So opportunities also lay ahead. To get musicians together who would otherwise never be available.
But it had to be small-scale and manageable. In Oud Edam is a small church, ‘the Vermaning’, perfectly suited for smaller productions. The idea then came to them to put together a tribute to the harpsichordist Gustav Leonhardt by having musicians of three generations, regardless of nationality, who could identify with his artistic principles, play harpsichord music. The ‘school’ of Gustav Leonhardt.
The musicians could choose their program and their type of instrument. The approach was ‘top down’, i.e. the oldest living generation who had all been pupils of Leonhardt. Ton Koopman, Bob van Asperen and Jacques Ogg. Ton Koopman didn’t want to do this for health reasons, Bob van Asperen remained silent, but Jacques Ogg gladly agreed to cooperate. Of a slightly different generation was Thérèse de Goede, continuo specialist, who had both lessons from Leonhardt but graduated with Ton Koopman.
The next generation consisted of Menno van Delft, Siebe Henstra and Pieter Jan Belder. They were enthusiastic about the idea. The subsequent generation is represented by Andrea Friggi, Artem Belogurov and Cvetanka Sozowska, who all live in the Netherlands. But we felt it was essential also to include the even younger generation: Emmanuel Franken and Mimo Todo. So we have a sampling across all ages and nationalities.
Several harpsichordists found it interesting to play the instrument as an accompaniment as well. Thérèse de Goede recorded her piece with the singer Sergio Foresti and Artem Belogurov recorded work with the cellist Octavia Dostaller-Lalonde as well as solo. Early music keyboardist Olga Pashchenko participated ex aequo in this project and can be seen and heard on Youtube with unknown work by Pratsch.
Musically, there is everything from the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book to decadent Suites by Armand Louis Couperin, who died in the year of the French Revolution: 1789. After that, the harpsichord went downhill fast. In short, a pretty comprehensive sampling of harpsichord literature on different types of harpsichords from different periods, with J.S., of course, represented. All this can be listened to on Spotify, Apple Music and 40+ other platforms.
Composers in the crosshairs of our attention