Comparone plays Bach on the harpsichord with a palette of emotions

I must admit that I usually experience the "minor" key with poignant intensity, but when I heard Elaine Comparone's most recent performance of J.S.Bach's celebrated D minor concerto, I felt her inner smile radiate through ripples and waves of luscious phrases even as a tragic dimension blanketed the work. Comparone's tapestry of moods, feelings and…

Playing Bach on the piano: pedal or no pedal

Decisions, decisions about whether to pedal through Bach's ethereal Prelude no. 1 in C Major, BWV 846 (The Well-Tempered Clavier)

A Visit with Elaine Comparone at her Harpsichord Palace in New York City

The colors are splendid in a royal procession of well-maintained harpsichords. THREE reside in Elaine Comparone's West Side musical sanctuary. They are at the service of her Majesty, the Queen. (She leads a chamber group known as The Queen's Chamber Band which is Harpsichord Unlimited's featured attraction) The nonprofit organization keeps harpsichords in the limelight…

J.S. Bach and tempo in his Little Preludes

How do we make decisions about the time frame reference of Bach's music?

The Harpsichord has a new lease on life! Elaine Comparone is its biggest advocate!

Elaine Comparone is a champion of the harpsichord like no other. Not only does she play with "red-blooded" passion sweeping it off its mantle of obscurity, but her nonprofit organization Harpsichord Unlimited is dedicated to stimulating interest in the instrument as a living, breathing, contemporary musical communicator. Its museum portrait is a thing of the…

Mozart memories, reflections and revisits (Videos)

Andante: second movement, Mozart Sonata K. 545 played on my Steinway, 1917, M. http://youtu.be/PPYKK3hOjnk **** My relationship to Mozart and his music began with the violin. At the Merrywood Music Camp in Lenox, Massachusetts, only a stone's throw from Tanglewood, I encountered Eugene Lehner, first violist of the Boston Symphony when I played second violin…

Aglow with creative fire: My NYC visit with harpsichordist, Elaine Comparone

The centerpiece of my trip back East this past weekend was meeting up with Elaine Comparone in her acoustically magnificent West Side apartment. Two splendid harpsichords of incomparable beauty, a custom made Dowd and Hubbard, graced a divinely resonant space with a cathedral high ceiling. And with a snap of my fingers I ignited a…