Ralph Kirkpatrick: Letters of the American Harpsichordist and Scholar by Ralph Kirkpatrick

Abstract

AMERICAN MUSIC Ralph Kirkpatrick: Letters of the American Harpsichordist and Scholar. By Ralph Kirkpatrick, edited by Meredith Kirkpatrick. (Eastman Studies in Music, vol. 117.) Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2014. [xv, 186 p. ISBN 9781580465014. $60.] Photographs, appendices, bibliography, discography, index.Meredith Kirkpatrick, the niece of the renowned harpsichordist and musicologist Ralph Kirkpatrick, has compiled and published over one hundred and twenty letters between her uncle and numerous correspondents, including fellow musicians, patrons, instrument builders, teachers, students, and family members. Most of the letters date from between the early 1930s, when Kirkpatrick was traveling extensively in Europe, and the late 1970s, by which time Kirkpatrick had gone completely blind. These letters provide a fascinating glimpse into the personal life of a professional musician-one who, at times, enthused with pleasure about performances or particular works; and at others, demonstrated a testy impatience with builders, teachers, and collaborators. Kirkpatrick's complex relationships make this resource particularly useful for scholars interested in reconstructing the collaborative world of mid-twentieth-century classical music in the United States. While a number of issues in the book's layout, exposition, and organization hinder its ultimate utility, these flaws do not detract from its overall biographical significance.Kirkpatrick's letters provide an array of opinions, recommendations, and criticisms meant for two very different sets of eyes: his family on the one hand, and fellow musicians, patrons, and friends on the other. In the first section-selected letters to his family, most of which date from his early studies in Europe-Kirkpatrick demonstrates youthful enthusiasm, sometimes tinged with the brazenness of a man in his twenties. These letters reveal his admiration for Nadia Boulanger; his unhappiness with his primary harpsichord teacher, Wanda Landowska; and his interactions with other keyboardists such as Arnold Dolmetsch and Paul Brunold. Perhaps the most revealing aspect of these family letters is seeing how Kirkpatrick cultivated and shaped his musical tastes-regarding repertory and technique, especially-during the early part of his life. In a letter from 1931, Kirkpatrick remarks that his teacher, Paul Brunold, knows how to produce a most beautiful tone in a variety and subtlety that Landowska never dreamed of. . . . But on the other hand, he has not her clarity and precision. Oh, for the combination! (p. 18). Here, and elsewhere in his family letters, his fraught and complex relationship with Landowska comes to the fore: he often praises her interpretations of classicalperiod music (as in a letter dated 10 July 1932), and in others, expresses his frustrations with her teaching style, her preference for the Pleyel harpsichords, and her ego (see, for example, letters dated 9 February 1932 and 19 July 1932). These early letters not only reveal what or with whom Kirkpatrick was studying as a young harpsichordist, but also his learning process in developing his own style and approach to both historical and contemporary repertoire. Having been written in Paris, Berlin, and London, they also offer a snapshot of interwar Europe from the perspective of a young American abroad.As a renowned figure in America's early music revival, Ralph Kirkpatrick corresponded with many other established musicians throughout his life. The second section of the book is thus divided by correspondent, and includes letters to and from teachers (including Boulanger and Landowska), patrons (Alexander Mackay-Smith and Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge), instrument builders ( John Challis, William Dowd), conductors (Serge Koussevitzky), composers (notably Roger Sessions, Elliott Carter, Vincent Persichetti, and Henry Cowell), critics (Olin Downes), fellow scholar-performers (Kenneth Gilbert), and personal friends (Thornton Wilder). …