Reflections of an American Harpsichordist: Unpublished Memoirs, Essays and Lectures of Ralph Kirkpatrick ed. by Meredith Kirkpatrick

Abstract

Reviewed by: Reflections of an American Harpsichordist: Unpublished Memoirs, Essays and Lectures of Ralph Kirkpatrick ed. by Meredith Kirkpatrick Bridget Cunningham Reflections of an American Harpsichordist: Unpublished Memoirs, Essays and Lectures of Ralph Kirkpatrick. Edited by Meredith Kirkpatrick. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2017. (Eastman Studies in Music, 140.) [211 p. ISBN 978-1-58046-591-5. $99] ’the musical miracles that take place in Scarlatti’…. Prior to this new release, Ralph Kirkpatrick’s autobiography, Early Years (New York: Peter Lang, 1985), which focuses on his early years up to the end of his studies in Paris in 1932, and a compilation of letters Ralph Kirkpatrick: Letters of an American Harpsichordist (edited by Meredith Kirkpatrick [Rochester NY: University of Rochester Press, 2014]) have already been published. Reflections of an American Harpsichordist contains Kirkpatrick’s remaining memoirs from 1933–1977 and previously unpublished material, shedding more light on his life and work, revealing more about where Kirkpatrick’s passion for Scarlatti’s music comes from. This special book is well made, beautiful to hold and captures this later period in the lifetime and place in history of this very eminent American musician and scholar, Ralph Kirkpatrick (1911–1984). The volume discusses his musical explorations through an interesting collection of memoirs, very personal essays, and Kirkpatrick’s lectures given at Yale University, which, together, give a fascinating glimpse into the social, political, and historical context behind professional music making in a war-torn Europe in the first half of the twentieth century. Kirkpatrick’s own Memoirs in this book have an elegant and engaging style of writing, displaying his erudite intelligence and charisma and begin with his teaching career at the Salzburg Mozarteum in 1933–1934. He writes of the Guggenheim Fellowship he received in 1937 for research as he began to gather material for his in-depth study of Domenico Scarlatti. Despite many concerts and feeling more at home in Europe, he soon realised that New York would be the centre of his operations due to the difficulties arising from the emergent National Socialism in Europe. In 1940, he was appointed to the faculty of the Yale School of Music where he enjoyed teaching, performing, and having access to libraries and a stimulating community, which he had craved in New York. His love of jazz is also clear as he compares pianist Art Tatum’s embellishments to manifestations in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book. We learn of the various wide-ranging interests and friendships he had with some of the prominent leading literary and artistic figures of the day such as the jazz singer Billie Holiday, composer Francis Poulenc, and poets Stephen Spender and James Laughlin. He performed with violinist and conductor Alexander Schneider, pianist Charles Rosen, mezzo-soprano Jennie Tourel, and [End Page 32] among his conductor colleagues were Thomas Beecham and Igor Stravinsky. Kirkpatrick reveals a compelling insight into his performances as he continued to travel and perform extensively in Germany, including in a war-torn Berlin (1948) and a bombed-out Munich. He toured extensively in North America, Europe, and South Africa and first performed in Britain in 1947. His repertoire included all of Bach’s keyboard music, a great many sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti, the eighteenth-century French school, and some virginal music. As well as being an interpreter of much late eighteenth-century keyboard music, particularly Mozart on the fortepiano, he was also at the forefront of contemporary music-making, performing Manuel de Falla’s harpsichord concerto, and commissioning new works by luminaries of the future such as Darius Milhaud, Walter Piston, and the Set of Four for harpsichord (or piano) by Henry Cowell. While researching his book on Domenico Scarlatti, he writes of his visits to Rome and to Spain, where he encountered a real depth of spirit especially after some major cities had suffered devastating destruction during the Spanish Civil War. We learn that after all the many years of research and contact with the Scarlatti family, his book was nearly shelved due to publication issues and he had to find another publisher. Fortunately, it was taken up and published unchanged by Princeton University Press on the anniversary of Scarlatti’s birthday, 26 October...