Reflections of an American Harpsichordist Unpublished Memoirs, Essays, and Lectures of Ralph Kirkpatrick

foreword ❧ ix
home base. But it is in his accounts of his return to Europe after the war—in
his description of the war’s ravages, the destruction of its major cities and its
devastating effects upon the morale of its survivors—that his writing attains par-
ticular vividness. That vividness extends to his accounts of his travels to Spain,
as well; his accounts of his visits to Madrid and Aranjuez are masterpieces of
observation of the commonplace by someone for whom the commonplace can
strike to the depths of the spirit.
In the lecture “The Performer’s Pilgrimage to the Sources” we get observa-
tions of a different kind. Here Kirkpatrick considers the concept of (musical)
source as a springboard for a critical discussion of principles of editorial prac-
tice, particularly the practice of editing keyboard music. It is striking that some
of the major concerns he raises have been addressed by changes in editorial
practice since the essay was fi rst written. His views regarding the responsibility
of the performer-as-editor continue to be timely, as well.
Of the remaining materials, the lecture on style continues particularly
to resonate, raising issues in the performance of early keyboard music that
are no less matters of discussion today than they were when the lecture was
written. The lecture “Private Vice and Public Virtue” may in some ways be
considered a companion piece to the lecture on style, and it is valuable for
its discussion of the early music movement in the fi rst part of the twentieth
century, before the next wave of the movement—performance on original
instruments—had been established. The particular perspective from which
Kirkpatrick writes provides a clearer understanding of the history of harpsi-
chord performance during his lifetime—and of his role in shaping that his-
tory—than has heretofore been possible.
The “tidal wave” of the early music movement that happened during the
last two decades of Kirkpatrick’s life—performance on original instruments
and the surge of interest in the new ways of performing and hearing early
music—served to eclipse to some degree the prominence he had attained.
Kirkpatrick’s career was formed in part by his experience with what was
then called the “modern harpsichord,” which bore little resemblance to the
old instruments. Although from the late 1950s onward, he enthusiastically
embraced the development of harpsichord making based upon historical mod-
els, which resulted in a considerable change in his manner of playing in his
later years, he remained in the public imagination essentially a harpsichordist
of the “prerevolutionary” period, a view that is supported by the majority of his
earlier recorded performances (of which he himself was highly critical). The
result is that it is all too easy to forget the immense contribution that he made
to the musical culture of his time, and to forget the stature he attained in the
making. When Kirkpatrick played in ensembles, he played with such musicians
as violinist and conductor Alexander Schneider, pianist Charles Rosen, and
mezzo-soprano Jennie Tourel, and his conductor-colleagues were the likes of
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