My Research Papers -  The Harpsichord in the 20th Century

Paper 1:

Early 20th Century Compositions
Conservative Music for Harpsichord
Electroacoustic Compositions
Modernism
Minimalism
Postmodernism

Paper 2:

Harpsichord in Pre 1960’s in Popular Music
1960's Use for Psychedelia
1960's Use in Classic Rock
1960’s, Use for "Innocence"
Harpsichord in 1970’s in Popular Music
Harpsichord in 1980’s and beyond in Popular Music
Harpsichord in  Television & Film

The project completed in 2009 under the excellent guidance of Professor Hank Knox & Dr. Justin B. Mariner was a large venture I undertook in 2008 - 2009 to write two papers on the development of the harpsichord during and beyond the 20th century.

I will hopefully upload these on to the website for download at some point in the future

Samples

Passacaglia Ungherese however was even more traditional to classical music. This charming homage to the traditional Passacaglia form of music is based on a simple ostinato. The first three notes suggest a tonality of C Major, yet the 4th note is a surprising F#. Perhaps a more traditional theme would replace the F# with an F natural. Furthermore, the final note of the ostinato would probably be a G (instead of an F) to give scale degree 5.  This would then resolve to scale degree 1 when the ostinato begins again. Thus the ostinato can be understood as a distortion of a traditional passacaglia bass pattern. With the addition of the counter ostinato, it results in wild new harmonies. What is of particular interest is the use of the mean tone tuning requirements, specified by Ligeti for this piece. In this case we have notes such as Eb and G#. In traditional writing (and on a traditional equal tempered harpsichord) these notes would surely be written as Eb and Ab. However, in mean tone, the tuning of the Eb and G# produce very dissonant and unpleasant interval (known as the “wolf” as it sounds like it is howling). Composers would avoid writing these notes as much as possible (a reason why numerous pieces sound so unusual when played on a mean-tone; Bach’s’ Ab Major prelude from Book I of the Well Tempered Clavier comes to mind). Ligeti, on the other hand, has taken this interval and somewhat exploited it. During the cumulating fast section, in m.67, the left hand strikes the G# and Eb, with similar moments occurring in mm.63-65. While this is not too dissonant on an equally tuned instrument, considering aspects of traditional mean-tone tuning takes our understanding of the piece to a whole new level.  One can compare the version by Chojynacka on a mean tone instrument to a version which is not and the difference is astonishing.
The Eurovision Song Contest is a television event in Europe that historically has brought us some of the finest musicians and musical acts (although one might say that this is very less true in the past twenty years!!) The 1960s featured some big hits which used harpsichord, including the hit by Spanish singer Massiel ‘La La La’ (1968). This was when the contest was held in London and the BBC chose not to provide a harpsichord for the lively dance pop song. The release of the song however did feature a prominent harpsichord part. However in Eurovision 1969 after Massiel’s victory a harpsichord was indeed provided by the Spanish television company TVE. It appears to be a double manual instrument and is placed directly next to the conductor and is visible in many shots, alongside at least 3 other keyboard instruments. The Spanish were determined this Eurovision would be different, even the interval act featured 5 minutes of very modern video and atonal electroacoustic music (disappointingly featuring no harpsichord, but including synthesisers and organ). Songs within the contest that heavily used harpsichord included.‘Catherine’ by Romuald and also Simone de Oliveira – ‘Desfolhada’. The harpsichord had never been used in live Eurovision before and never would be again. The following year the contest would be held in Luxembourg with most of the entrants being introduced with a video containing a harpsichord backing track, but there would be no acoustic instrument present at the competition while the performers were actually singing. Many years later (2001) in the largest staging ever of Eurovision in Denmark, Russian group Мумий Тролль’s entry ‘Lady Alpine Blue’ features a heavily synthesised harpsichord sound which like many of the songs used that year, had a sound that was somewhat lost in the cavernous football stadium.

Electroacoustic music has had a surprisingly long history with the harpsichord, or at least harpsichord on tape. An example would be Pierre Henri’s Voile d’Orphée (1953) which is a very early example of this genre. This example of musique concrete with the use of reversed voices, organ and other processed sounds along with a modern harpsichord with increased reverb. The somewhat spasmodic sound of the harpsichord adds tremendous tension to the music. I find the fact that he uses the already monstrously large revival harpsichord particularly noteworthy. He continues to use the powerful 16’ stop. Also the instrument is given an echo overlay afterwards makes the harpsichord sound like a great thundering instrument. Given the very jazzy rhythms of the harpsichord part, it suggests how well jazz could work on the harpsichord.

Naturally, an experimental composer such as John Cage dabbled with the harpsichord. He did so in his composition - HPSCHD (1969). Written by Cage and physicist Lejaren Hiller, this massive performance called for 7 harpsichords (!) to play excerpts from Mozart with 51 tapes playing computer generated sounds. The music was accompanied by films and slides, usually based around space images. Cage however did specify that HPSCHD was not necessarily written for 7 harpsichords as he referred to the piece as a twenty minute solo”. Ideally the maximum effect would be achieved with this number of instruments. Indeed solo performances of this piece are not uncommon; Jukka Tienssu released a successful solo version of part of HPSCHD on the CD album “The Frivolous Harpsichord”