Word: landowska
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Instrumental Solo: Bach's Goldberg Variations, by Harpsichordist Wanda Landowska (Victor...
...comeback-thanks largely to one woman. There has probably been more harpsichord-playing in New York in the past year than any time since the days of George Washington. Last week Manhattan harpsichord fans, a serious-minded lot, could hear either the master herself, stately, 67-year-old Wanda Landowska, or her most successful ex-pupil, Ralph Kirkpatrick...
...unschooled ear, the harpsichord jangles like a regiment of mice scurrying through a pile of coins. But its connoisseurs find in the harpsichord rarefied and rustling harmonies, comparable to a choir of flutes and mandolins. When Landowska began, nobody was writing harpsichord music; it was a dead art. Composers like Francis Poulenc (her student for a year) and the late Manuel De Falla wrote harpsichord music for her. Said she: "It was a battle, you have no idea what a battle it was, to impose the harpsichord upon the musical world. When I started before 1900, the tradition...
Most of the topflight harpsich rdists are Landowska-trained: Switzerland's Isabel Nef, Italy's Ruggero Gerlin, London's Lucille Wallace, Los Angeles' Alice Ehlers, Manhattan's Sylvia Marlowe (who sometimes swings it) and Ralph Kirkpatrick...
Collectors & Cranks. Kirkpatrick, who is now 35, was a sophomore at Harvard when he saw his first harpsichord-a museum piece. When he was graduated (he majored in art history) he went to France, studied at Landowska's academy at Saint-Leu-le-Forêt, gave his first public recital in Berlin in 1933. Today he plays about 70 recitals a season, and is glad to see his audiences spreading beyond the earnest, humorless cultists he once played to. Says he: "Audiences used to be largely record collectors and cranks who also liked folk dancing because...