Mary Potts, the forgotten harpsichord Teacher of Hogwood and Tilney. ww.semibrevitt.com

The forgotten harpsichord teacher of Christopher Hogwood & Colin Tilney [Traductor] Mary Potts and her beloved Shudi harpsichord in about 1950 © Estate of Mary Potts 2012 I didn’t really know that much about Mrs Mary Potts when she was my harpsichord teacher in Cambridge, so I googled her name (in 2005) expecting to find a complete biography. She had, after all, been a student of Arnold Dolmetsch, in Haslemere, back in the 1920s, and had bought this eighteenth-century harpsichord by Burkat Shudi from him in 1929. Dolmetsch had said that this would be all right for her until she could afford one of his own iron-framed instruments! F.J. Haydn – Sonata in F Hob. XVI: 29, Adagio To my surprise, I found very few references to Mary, each of them in the context of one or another of those former students, plus mentions of newly composed music that had been dedicated to her, and that was all. By comparison, Christopher Hogwood had many thousands on Google and the Polish harpsichordist, Wanda Landowska (1879–1959), currently scores 287,000. I then looked for Mary in several musical reference works, including the New Grove, and found nothing. I just couldn’t understand why someone so influential – or so I thought – was simply not remembered. How could she have vanished so completely? She seemed to have been so central to early music circles from the 1950s to the 1970s. At the centre of the Cambridge music world Throughout that period Mary gave countless concerts in and around Cambridge and beyond, played regularly with orchestras, sometimes as a soloist, and taught harpsichord, largely to undergraduates, but also to girls from the Perse School. Although she never made commercial recordings, she gave many broadcast recitals for the BBC. Sadly, however, little remains. Here’s an example: Radio announcement from 1966 Henry Purcell – Suite No. 2 in G minor, Corant (sic) This shows Mary’s typical swagger, a stylistic feature which some of her students inherited. It was only later that I unearthed her obituary in The Times and spoke to its author, the composer Professor Peter Dickinson, who had known Mary since he was organ scholar at Queens’ College in the 1950s. He told me there had been a memorial concert on 16 April 1983 (which would have been Mary’s 78th birthday). It was given by well-known former students, colleagues and friends, and had been attended by some 200 people. The late Trevor Beckerleg, a harpsichord builder who had started making instruments in the basement of Mary’s large house in Bateman Street, subsequently sent me the programme for that concert, which included viola da gamba works by Bach and Marais, a trio sonata by Corelli, Bach’s 2nd orchestral suite and the four-harpsichord concerto. So it sounded as though they had given Mary a good send-off. But I really couldn’t understand why something more lasting, apart from that concert, hadn’t been organized. I knew that Mary had played in many college chapels and during May Week and was well known in the University, particularly at Queens’. Her husband had been a don there, and she was much involved and had taught Elizabethan dance for productions of Shakespeare’s plays; some of these had been directed by her sometime lodger, Charles Parker, who was later to become famous, with Peggy Seeger, for his radio ballads. A good friend to many, and a great appreciator It was Peter Dickinson who described Mary as “a great appreciator” and mentioned a letter she had written to him following a particularly successful organ recital that he’d given. He is one of the composers who wrote harpsichord music specially for her. Often referred to as “the best harpsichord teacher in Cambridge”, Mary certainly helped along many careers, in subtle ways. For instance, she regularly lent out her harpsichords for concerts and recordings. Apart from the Shudi, she had an octavina spinet made by Arnold Dolmetsch and, periodically, other instruments. Radio announcement 1969 J.C. Bach – Sonata Opus 15 No. 6 for four hands (Listen out for the crescendo produced by the use of the Venetian swell.) When Mary wasn’t teaching, playing or entertaining, she always seemed to be going to concerts with the children’s book writer Lucy_Boston, ”both elegant in scarves and wraps, suitable for the season”. These concerts often featured recently exhumed Baroque masterpieces, freshly edited and performed by current or former students; she must have had dozens of such students, and many of them became professionals. During my lessons and practice sessions at Mary’s house, there always seemed to be (often unseen) people rehearsing in other rooms of the house. Mary would kindly leave the keys between bricks by the back door, so that students could come in to practise when she wasn’t there. The traffic at that house in Melbourne Place, a delightful little pedestrian street leading off Parker’s Piece, was much less, I’m told, than when she lived in the much larger house in Bateman Street, where Hogwood lived for 10 years and David Munrow was a regular lodger who would bring the whole Early Music Consort to practise. In fact, as I’ve discovered, Mary knew pretty much everyone in the early music world. For example, I had lunch at her house once with the famous baroque violinist Eduard Melkus, who was staying with her. I remember her speaking fondly of the Kuijkens as “the chicken brothers” (which is what their name means in Flemish). Gustav Leonhardt would come periodically to play her Shudi. Yet, widely loved and appreciated as she was during her lifetime, according to several people I spoke to, Mary was “just not famous enough” outside her own circle. This may well be true, but it doesn’t mean that her life was not well worth remembering. It also raises questions about the fickleness of fame and its relationship to actual achievements. Thanks are due to Mary’s daughter, Margaret, and Gerald Gifford for providing recordings and much information. Please share any memories of Mary [in Comments, below]. Please promote the blog on these social networking sites: Facebook Twitter Google Bookmarks StumbleUpon MySpace Digg del.icio.us Reddit Sphinn Mixx Blogplay Hyves Technorati Slashdot Netvibes Posterous RSS email

J.S. BACH, Sonatas de Violin y Clave. HUGGETT/ KOOPMAN. 1983

Sonata Nº 1 en Si menor, BWV 1014 00:01
1. Adagio
2. Allegro
3. Andante
4. Allegro

Sonata Nº 2 en La mayor, BWV 1015 12:49
5. (sin indicación de tempo)
6. Allegro
7. Andante un poco
8. Presto

Sonata Nº 3 en Mi mayor, BWV 1016 26:11
9. Adagio
10. Allegro
11. Adagio ma non tanto
12. Allegro

Sonata Nº 4 en Do menor, BWV 1017 41:52
13. Largo
14. Allegro
15. Adagio
16. Allegro

Sonata Nº 5 en FA menor, BWV 1018 59:07
17. (sin indicación de tempo)
18. Allegro
19. Adagio
20. Vivace

*Sonata Nº 6 en Sol Mayor, BWV 1019 1:16:34
21. Allegro
22. Largo
23. Allegro
24. Adagio
25. Allegro


Pistas alternativas:
26. Adagio, BWV 1019/a 2 1:32:46
27. Cantabile, ma un poco adagio, BWV 1019/a 1 1:34:37

Versión con instrumentos de época
Violín barroco. Rowland Ross, según Amati
Clavecín. Willem Kroesbergen (Utrecht), según Andreas Ruckers

Grabación: Old Catholic Church, Utrecht, 6 / 1983

*Información sobre la sonata BWV 1019

La Sonata nº 6 nos ha llegado en tres versiones.
En la primera aparecen dos movimientos lentos (BWV 1019a) grabados aquí por primera vez: un Cantabile en 6/8 de una gran envergadura melódica y de una extensión de no menos de 88 compases, y un Adagio singularmente breve con motivos de obertura muy característicos, que aparecen una sola vez al final de la pieza, en el violín.
Como el Cantabile forma igualmente parte de la Cantata para la elección del Consejo BWV 120 ("Gott, man lobet dich in der Stille"), del cual nosotros no poseemos más que dos fragmentos y que A.Durr pudo fechar hacia 1728-29, estamos tentados a concluir que es igualmente antes de 1730 cuando Bach escribió esta versión, donde la sonata se termina con la repetición del primer movimiento.
Sin embargo, Bach no estaba manifiestamente satisfecho con esta solución. Después de transcribir de sus partidas unas piezas de clavecín (segunda versión), él podría haber escrito la última versión en 1749. Una nota debida a una mano desconocida, que se encuentra en otra copia, precisa que "él compuso este trío justo al final", y hace alusión a este hecho sin equívocos.
Para esta tercera versión, Bach reemplazó los dos movimientos lentos que encuadraban un solo de clavecín en la primera por nuevas composiciones y añadió un finale.
En las versiones nº 1 y nº 3, el orden de los movimientos difiere del de las cinco primeras sonatas, las cuales adoptan el esquema lento-vivo-lento-vivo. En efecto, dos Allegros encuadran dos movimientos lentos (Largo y Adagio) entre los cuales se inserta un episodio para clavecín solo.
(del libreto del cd)

Gustav Leonhardt, A personal Tribute by Davitt Moroney

Castrati in Versailles.Philippe Jaroussky. Ensemble Artaserse. Concierto en la Sala de los Espejos de Versalles.

Jean-Philippe Rameau: La Orquesta de Luis XV - Concierto de Jordi Savall.

[Concierto realizado el 16-01-2011 en La Ópera Real de Versalles].



OBRAS:

Naïs (1748)
Suite d'orchestre

1. Ouverture
2. Musette tendre
3. Rigaudons I /II
4. Sarabande
5. Gavotte pour les Zéphirs
6. Loure
7. Musette
8. Tambourins I/II
9. Entrée des Luteurs
10. Chaconne
11. Air de Triomphe

"París, Biblioteca Nacional de Francia, A-165 (1-4)".

------------------------------

Les Indes Galantes (1735)
Suite d'orchestre

1. Ouverture
2. Musette en Rondeau
3. Air vif
4. Air des Incas pour la dévotion du Soleil
5. Air pour les amants qui suivent Bellone
6. Air pour les guerriers
7. Menuets pour les Guerriers et Amazones I & II
8. Orage
9. Air pour les esclaves africains
10. Air pour Borée et la Rose
11. 2ème Air pour les Zephirs
12. Tambourins I/II
13. Chaconne

"París, Biblioteca Nacional de Francia, A-132 (A,2)".

------------------------------

Zoroastre (1749)

1. Ouverture
2. Passepieds I/II
3. Loure
4. Air des Esprits Infernaux II
5. Air tendre en Rondeau
6. Air Grave
7. Gavotte en Rondeau
8. Sarabande
9. Contredanse

"París, Biblioteca Nacional de Francia, Vm2. 376".

------------------------------

Les Boréades (1764)
Suite d'orchestre

1. Ouverture
2. Entrée
3. Entrée des Peuples
4. Contredanse en rondeau
5. Les Vents
6. Gavotte I & II pour les heures et les Zephirs
7. Menuets I- II
8. Contredanse très vive

"París, Biblioteca Nacional de Francia, Rés Vmb Ms4".

Johann Sebastian Bach Well Tempered Klavier Book I,Gustav Leonhardt

G. Leonhardt (1928-2012). Video/Documento.

Gracias a Jordan puedo compartir este documento. Ël me ha proporcionado el enlace.

Gustav Leonhardt: J.S. Bach, Chaconne BWV1004. Original para violín

An Interview with Gustav Leonhardt. Goldberg Early Music Magazine.

En esta entrevista, publicada hace unos años, Leonhardt hablaba de su visión sobre la Interpretación Histórica de la música.

Gustav Leonhardt is a living legend. Now in his late 70s, the great Dutch harpsichordist and conductor shows few, if any, signs of declining powers, as only a few minutes with either of the two recordings he has recently made for Alpha quickly reveals. Yet Leonhardt’s distinction as both man and musician lies not with the longevity of a career that spans more than 50 years – extraordinary though that is – but with his unique place in the history of the revival of the historic harpsichord and the technique appropriate to the instrument. Remarkably, Leonhardt’s position of eminence has been achieved not by being a great proselytiser or communicator. On the concert platform he can indeed appear distant, even austere, an image that some, quite wrongly in my view, have identified as a characteristic of his playing.

For many years Leonhardt has occupied a beautiful seventeenth-century house fronting one of Amsterdam’s most attractive old canals. Once the property of a immensely wealthy and influential family of Italian bankers, on entry the visitor is immediately aware of an atmosphere of tranquillity, an oasis of calm dignity only a short distance from the noise and bustle of the city. Leonhardt greeted me with an old-world courtesy rarely encountered today. There is about the man an air of both the aesthete and the aristocrat that nevertheless precludes neither warmth nor humanity. We settled down to talk in a large, elegant room housing several keyboards, one a harpsichord built by Martin Skowroneck, a maker for whom Leonhardt has a special regard.

G. LEONHARDT

G. LEONHARDT

G. LEONHARDT

16-Enero-2012

LEONHARDT, G. : Último recital 12-XII-2011. Bach J. S. Suite en mi mineur pour luth. BWV 996 .

Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord à Paris. Clavecin Rückers/Hemsch d'Anthony Sidey et Frédéric Bal.
El recital completo se puede ver fragmentado en la siguiente dirección:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWhdTRI_-e8&list=PLB368EB6F012CBC7B

TIC TOC CHOC, Tharaud joue Couperin

ANDERS DANMAN: "Hey Jude" al modo de Couperin.

L. TOLSTOI Y W. LANDOWSKA

Landowska toca ante Tolstoi en  Yasnaya Polyana, en 1907

En el enlace siguiente de la British Library hay información sobre la afición de Tolstoi a la música.
http://www.bl.uk/reshelp/findhelplang/russian/tolstoycentenary/tolstoyandmusic/tolstoyandmusic.html
Él mismo compuso alguna pequeña obra como este vals para piano, también cogido de la página anterior.

TOLSTOI, L. Vals. Bristish Library by rosaclave

Wanda Landowska, en su gira musical por Rusia, tocó para él en su casa. Landowska cuenta en sus memorias cómo León Tolstoi estaba enfermo y las inclemencias del tiempo le impidieron acudir a los conciertos públicos. Ella, deseando conocer al escritor, consiguió un trineo al que enganchó su clave  utilizándolo como transporte. Tras alguna dificultad (caidas, nuevas nevadas, etc.), consiguió llegar a  Yasnaya Polyana, donde está tomada la foto.

Sigiswald Kuijken - Suite nr 1 BWV 1007 courante. Viola da Spalla

THE KING'S CONSORT Concierto en Wigmore Hall

Arnold Dolmetsch ("Dolmetsch Online")

http://www.dolmetsch.com/historypage.htm