the equipment and education of a musician ❧ 109
In the spring of that year, I played the Goldberg Variations for the fi rst time for
the Bach class and the D-minor Concerto with the university orchestra. I had
decided to specialize in the harpsichord and clavichord and particularly in the
music of Bach. Although I was a nonconcentrator, the music department gave
me its traveling fellowship for the next two years. The Harvard A.B. marked the
end of my academic education and of any offi cial work toward a degree.
Ages 20–22: I arrived in Paris in September 1931, in roughly the following musi-
cal condition (I leave aside any mention of the enormous amount that I had
learned at Harvard in other fi elds, mainly visual arts and literature): an accu-
mulated knowledgeability and continuing curiosity concerning the literature
of music; the beginnings of some specialized knowledge of early keyboard
music; a fl uid command of the keyboard, by now with a certain discipline; fl u-
ent keyboard sight-reading (which I had always had, largely as a result of curi-
osity) but a shaky command of the vocal clefs; a reasonably good ear, probably
developed in the course of choral singing; a totally inadequate command of
harmony and part-writing; no counterpoint at all and no experience in fi gured
bass playing. I had reasonable French, but despite the previous year’s course,
had still to learn German and subsequently other languages. I began the usual
harmony and counterpoint lessons with Nadia Boulanger, with the usual trea-
tises of Dubois (which only recently I joyfully carted to the dump), and did
very poorly indeed. (When I threw away the Dubois, I kept the counterpoint
exercises because they were so spectacularly bad as to make one wonder how
I ever became a specialist in the performance of Bach fugues). Meanwhile, I
was studying harpsichord with Wanda Landowska, whom I cordially disliked,
but who launched me on a systematic approach to keyboard technique, even
though I soon undertook to develop it along other lines. I continued to seek
the acquaintance of music of all styles and periods, both in performance and
in studies of the scores. I also was pursuing the literature, both secondary and
original, that dealt with the performance of early music. It would be possible
to continue this educational autobiography down to the present day and pre-
sumably into the future, but it will perhaps suffi ce to say that I left Paris in July
1932 with more consciousness of inadequacies than competence in the materi-
als of my studies in harmony and counterpoint. Their sequel in a few lessons
with Heinz Tiessen in Berlin the following winter did little offi cially to add
very much. To those lessons can be added a few clavichord lessons with Arnold
Dolmetsch and some harpsichord lessons with Günther Ramin to represent
not only the end of academic study, but of offi cial lesson-taking. But I was work-
ing harder than ever. By the spring of 1933, I was taking lessons in the form of
giving performances and studying in the form of taking my fi rst teaching posi-
tion (by now in German) at the Salzburg Mozarteum in the summer of 1933.
The bulk of my educational experience was still to come.
Kirkpatrick.indd 109Kirkpatrick.indd 109 2/8/2017 9:57:58 AM 2 / 8 / 2017 9 : 57 : 58 AM
rick simeone
(Rick Simeone)
#1