Re: GG: Letter to Krastins (Jan. 3, 1963)

[Bradley P Lehman <bpl@umich.edu>]

On Tue, 2 Jun 1998, Bradley P Lehman wrote:

> I agree that this popular concept of "terraced dynamics" is probably what
> GG meant here.  But I should also point out that the mainstream
> "understanding" that the harpsichord can't do dynamics is a pound of
> bologna (yes, meat by-products fashioned into pseudo-food and foisted upon
> the unsuspecting public).  That is, GG was recycling a mistaken
> "common-knowledge" idea about the harpsichord.  (...)

I should add: Landowska herself was a good scholar and knew the treatises
that argue against any idea of "terraced dynamics."  But her choice of the
unhistoric Pleyel (rather than more responsive harpsichords with classic
design) made terracing into a norm that got picked up by other
keyboardists and instrumentalists and conductors, and became especially
widespread through recordings in the 1940's and after.  Landowska, whether
wittingly or unwittingly, helped create the bologna that became a
common-knowledge view of the harpsichord: her performances were popular,
and her instrument created basically terraced sounds.

Her own playing against her Pleyel, on the other hand, shows a sensitivity
to what the instrument *should* be able to do for her: a dynamic sweep in
her phrasing.  (She just does it as much through registration changes as a
good instrument would allow without them...her concept of the pieces has
treatise-inspired spirit to it, if not always her methods of getting those
effects.)  She did show great musical sensitivity in her command of rhythm
and note placement, which I think is what most makes her performances
sound convincing now.  Her playing transcended the limitations of the
Pleyel: it just took a lot more work and artifice than if she had had
better instruments to work with.

And at a historical position, she was of course reactionary against what
she saw as too much expressive willfulness by performers, at the expense
of the compositions...so the "terraced dynamics" idea is one quick
pedagogical way to tone all that down, making pianists think in a
different basic manner than they were accustomed to, and *then* letting
their expression grow from that baseline (instead of a free-for-all
baseline).  Meanwhile, her own playing didn't respect such pedagogical
restrictions.  Her musical side was too strong to let that happen.

(There's also a popular misconception that the Pleyel is louder than a
good historical harpsichord...quite the opposite.  Which is more resonant:
cast iron or wood?)

Bradley Lehman ~ Harrisonburg VA, USA ~ 38.45716N+78.94565W
bpl@umich.edu ~ http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bpl/