Reflections of an American Harpsichordist Unpublished Memoirs, Essays, and Lectures of Ralph Kirkpatrick

104 ❧ chapter eight
wife, and Margaret French, and in memory of Robert French. My last recital
there was given in the spring of 1980. In the last twenty or thirty years, other
colleges have developed so much musical activity that the monopoly on college
music-making once held by JE has been virtually forgotten. Indeed, it has been
to a certain extent submerged under the miraculous revolution that has over-
taken music at Yale, and indeed in the rest of the country. Now, one can hear
memorable performances by the Yale Symphony and its counterparts, fi ne per-
formances of chamber music by undergraduates, even of works which, a few
years ago without endless rehearsals, would have been considered beyond the
scope of most professional musicians. And how frequent has the experience
now become, alternating with the usual Common Room clatter, of hearing
someone play the piano in a manner that can only be characterized as divine.
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