Labyrinthus: noviembre 2014

Jane Chapman is one of Britain's most distinguished classical harpsichordists, with a repertoire that stretches from early music to contemporary avant-garde. Her work is rapidly bringing the harpsichord into the 21st century and establishing her reputation as a rule-breaker.

In her performances Ms. Chapman uses electronic effects and techniques that make the harpsichord sound like a synthesizer by connecting the keyboard to a computer. She also places objects inside the instrument and plucks the strings or uses an EBow, a handheld device normally used by rock guitarists that makes the strings vibrate continuously. At times she uses distortion, sounding more like Jimi Hendrix than J.S. Bach. She has also performed with video projections on the harpsichord's lid.

Jane Chapman's repertoire ranges from Baroque to avant-garde. Ilpo Musto

Ms. Chapman's new CD of contemporary British harpsichord music, "Wired," features a number of young composers -- including Roger Redgate, Paul Whitty and James Dillon -- and showcases her use of unusual techniques and electronics.

As a more traditional performer, she studied early music (a category that covers the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and Baroque periods) with Ton Koopman in Amsterdam. She has recorded with jazz groups, including electric guitarist Mark Wingfield and saxophonist Iain Ballamy. She also teaches harpsichord performance at London's prestigious Royal College of Music.

In her study, books on classical music theory are stacked side-by side with others on bebop jazz and Charlie Parker; an Indian sitar sits alongside a framed facsimile of the original hand-written score of György Ligeti's "Continuum," one of the most famous contemporary harpsichord pieces.

We spoke to Ms. Chapman at her home in Ealing, West London, in the living room near a harpsichord and a 1920s square piano.

Q: The harpsichord is seen as antiquated and quaint, and is normally heard playing early music. How have you managed to make it cutting-edge?

The harpsichord has always been an instrument where I've enjoyed the quality of the sound and the physicality and the sheer rawness of it. But I've also enjoyed the beautiful nature of the sound. I'm always keen to look at the energy behind the sound and the potential for it to go a number of different ways. So it's not just using the plucked sound of the strings but also using the instrument as a kind of physical being and an actual object.

Q: You started as an early music and Baroque harpsichordist and then expanded your repertoire to include contemporary, avant-garde music. But at the beginning of the early music revival in the 1960s and 1970s, wasn't there also a bit of a stigma among traditional classical musicians against playing early music?

As a musician my own background was a diverse one. I came from a family of musicians in Cambridge, England, as my father and grandfather were professional clarinetists. When I did early music in the first place it was kind of pushing the boundaries at that time, even though I didn't realize it. At the same time I was very interested in jazz as I was singing and playing the cello as well. But for me really it was playing Bach on the harpsichord and particularly the Goldberg Variations with [early music harpsichord specialist] Mary Potts that I really enjoyed. Coming to contemporary music wasn't a big deal really after that.

Q: Many people think of the classical and romantic period as the strange music sandwiched between early music and today's contemporary classical music.

Yes, that's very true. Many early music people are interested in contemporary music, too, and many composers are also interested in early music instruments because they don't have the baggage of the [classical and romantic periods]. Increasingly, younger generation composers are finding that the whole weight of the past just isn't there and look at it afresh, and I'm really interested in how they use the instrument. I like composers to know how Bach uses the instrument but not the tonal language. My ideal, if I'm teaching or performing, is to do some Baroque and some contemporary music because I see it as one continuum. Many of the same techniques [in early music] are employed in contemporary music.

Q: You stretch the sound of the instrument, not just with electronics but also by using objects on the strings and plucking them.

I love that way of extending the sound and using the physicality of not just plucking the strings by putting the keys down, but actually getting inside the instrument. At the Royal College of Music I'm involved in a project called "Intimate Handling" where we're exploring the innards of the harpsichord. We can get in there, stroke the strings and pluck the inside of the instrument as well as playing the keyboard -- which is wonderful.

Q: Describe your use of the EBow, a tool for sustaining notes indefinitely. It's normally associated with rock guitarists.

With the EBow we have to find the best place to put it and we used that as a sound we could detune to other notes. During performance we've made a theatrical moment by getting the composer to place the EBows on the strings, with artwork and video clips running that made it look like there was a surgical operation going on inside the instrument. On the sleeve notes to the CD "Wired" I talk about the harpsichord being this kind of magic box, which, when opened up, has all these things come out of it.

Q: Are you not worried about damaging the harpsichord by doing things to it that were never thought of when it was designed in the late Middle Ages?

I've made a wonderful short film with Ian Winters ["Rendition," with music by Evelyn Ficarra] where we actually filmed little objects inside the instrument, including small dolls with little ladies at the harpsichord, and ran little mechanical trains up and down inside. We could move the dolls very exactly so we could create a film out of it. I've had a whole microcosm inside the harpsichord.

Q: Video projections and images are adding a multimedia experience to performing modern classical music. How does that square with your early music roots?

I'm really keen to develop the whole visual aspect. I see that as a continuation of the whole baroque thing where people would have beautiful, decorated harpsichords, which would say something about the society and culture where they were from and their aspirations and the things that they liked. I thought, why not have a moving version of this and have videos or some kind of live manipulation of images on the lid and the wall behind. Again, a magic box of tricks.