Search - Girolamo Frescobaldi, Richard [1] Edwards, William Mundy :: When They Had Pedals, Vol. 1 - The Pleyel

"If it SOUNDS Right, it IS Right"

Mikey | Santa Fe, New Mexico | 09/07/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"These works were recorded in the late 1950's on a 1907 striped zebra wood double manual Pleyel Harpsichord with six pedals, exactly like the one Wanda Landowska played(This Pleyel however, I believe, did not have a 16')The brilliant Paul Wolfe was himself a student of Wanda Landowska in Lakeville,CT,and had an illustrious recording career, which incudes, amongst others, The Complete Handel Suites.

What I love so much about this recording, as well as all of Mr. Wolfe's recordings, is that the music LIVES. Until hearing these recordings, I had only heard Frescoboldi and early English viriginalist music on "historical" instruments, and was bored to tears. But here, because of the MEDIUM and the creative, imaginitive and liberated artist playing them , this music sounds electrifying!

The early music movement has become a boring box of rules. If you can't defend the way your're playing something with historical data(treatises,accounts of composers and their contemporaries) then you're wrong and uninformed and undisciplined. Well that's a lot of crap and that's why early music is dying. Noone really cares if you're playing a harpsichord Bach would have played or playing Bach or Frescobaldi that thunders in a manner like Beethoven! All an audience really cares about is that you did something beautiful and moving with the music-something that this young writer feels that 99% of harpsichordists today DON'T DO. O yes, today's harpsichordists do a great job of playing out of time all over the place, playing Bach as though it's Couperin because, "Historically,The French infuence on the Germans was so acute," sitting on the downbeats,breaking the line constantly so they can "speak" the music rather than play it, as they put it. But there's very little moving,beautiful harpsichord playing going on.

I myself am a young(19 years old), studying harpsichordist and have had it with the dusty old early music movement and their treatises and their historical performance practice.I am out readying to buy myself a harpsichord complete with a 16' stop and pedals!

And a word on those kinds of instrumnets: It IS arrogant to be of the opinion,"O well we know better today than to play those kinds of instruments and in THAT manner." Do you really know better, those of you who say that, hm? If you knew better, then early music departments in colleges all over the world wouldn't be closing down. If you knew better, the harpsichord would still be readily known by most people. If you knew better, the harpsichord would still be thought of as a hot-fired,hot-blooded, romantic SOLO instrument, the way it was when Landowska was running the show and calling the shots.

But not anymore, thanks to you boring,dusty, musicological-"truth"-seekers. Nope, now the harpsichord is this NICE instrument, that NICE people play NICE music on. It's the instrument you sit in the back of the orchestra and strum! It is now a "proper" instrument.Landowska would spit upon such an idea and is probably rolling over in her grave, poor girl, to see the damage the purist twits running things now, have done.

I am so thankful then for recordings like Paul Wolfe's, who abides by something Landowska once told him in a lesson: "...If it SOUNDS right, then it IS right!" This is a recording this young listener is time and time again floored by, looks up to and aspires to! The Old School Shall Live Again! If you want to help it do so, you may email me at UUguy16@aol.com"

Foot-Notes

Ken W. List | Wooster, Ohio, USA | 01/18/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"In our modern day of historical accuracy (such as it is) in harpsichord playing, we are taught to despise the instrument built with pedals to control the registers; yet in the very time period we venerate harpsichord makers were looking at alternatives to hand-stops to make register changes easier and more convenient for the player. This fine recording surely demonstrates that the presence of pedals does not have to spoil in any way the musicality of the playing, and more than looking at a Bach manuscript in good light makes it less remarkable than if peered at in dim candlelight. A terrific recording!"

PAUL WOLFE IS BRILLIANT

John J. Schauer | Chicago, IL USA | 03/04/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The Pleyel harpsichord Paul Wolfe plays in these recordings predates the innovations Wanda Landowska introduced to that legendary Parisian instrument-building company, which is why it has no 16-foot stop. The first "Landowska" Pleyel wasn't built and unveiled until 1912, and this one dates from 1907, I believe. I'm not certain what other changes she made that are not on this instrument, but if anything, that makes it even more historically interesting to hear this particular Pleyel. Wolfe was a Landowska student, and his musicianship is impeccable. (For an even more exhilarating demonstration of what "revival" harpsichords are capable of, don't miss the other "When They Had Pedals" volume of selected suites by Handel performed on an even larger and more elaborate harpsichord built by Rutkowski; for some reason, that volume won't come up at Amazon if you search for "When They Had Pedals," so look for Handel Suites or Paul Wolfe's name in your search.) I agree with the other reviewers that the differences between this harpsichord and "authentic" harpsichords from the 17th and 18th century in no way compromise the musicality of Wolfe's brilliant playing. And if you're an ultra-purist, you shouldn't be buying harpsichord recordings at all--they didn't have CDs in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries!"