Handel’s Attick: Music for Solo Clavichord
Julian Perkins, clavichords
Music by Arne, Ebner, Froberger, Handel, Kerll, D Scarlatti, Weckmann and Zachow
Deux-Elles DXL 1191. 75’33
This excellent recording from Julian Perkins is based on a story from Handel’s childhood, as told by John Mainwaring in his 1760 Memoirs of the Life of Handel. His father, suspicious of his musical interests, tried to stop him from playing any musical instruments at home. This led to Handel smuggling a tiny clavichord into the attic of their house so that he could practice at night, having “found means to get a little clavichord privately convey’d to a room at the top of the house“.
The programme notes explain the rational for recording these pieces on clavichord rather than harpsichord, with a convincing argument based on the four-octave compass of the pieces and the didactic nature of their composition, in this case, for his recent (and second) wife Anna Magdalena. This is private, domestic music for home performance or teaching purposes, rather than the more elaborate pieces Bach wrote for public performance, using the larger compass of the harpsichord, for example the three non-organ parts of the Clavierübung. It is also the case that the clavichord was the principal home practice instrument for organists, because the arm to finger weight transfer required is similar for both instruments.
Andrew Benson-Wilson : Early Music Reviews + 