introduction ❧ 5
also candidly describes his experiences as advisor and principal performer at
the festival of Baroque music that he inaugurated at Williamsburg, VA, in 1938.
He taught at Bennington College in the early 1940s and worked with leading
dancers and choreographers such as Martha Graham and Doris Humphrey.
He writes in a very personal way about his relationships with these artists and
his attitudes about their work. As would be expected, these memoirs also cover
his research on Domenico Scarlatti in various countries in Europe, which cul-
minated in the publication of his defi nitive biography of Scarlatti in 1953.
Considering how much time RK spent in Paris over the years, it was very sur-
prising to read that he did not play his fi rst public concert in France until
1963, some thirty years after the beginning of his concert career. He was very
pleased with the reception of that concert, particularly by young people, and
he describes the change in the musical life in France from that which he had
seen thirty years before.
In addition to the chronological memoirs written and revised between 1974
and 1977, RK also wrote during this time period four refl ective essays related
to specifi c aspects of his career that are included in this volume. His essay on
performing provides insights into changes in his style of performance over the
years, the composition of his programs, and his views on concert halls through-
out the world. The essay on recording makes it clear how diffi cult it was to fi nd
appropriate venues for recordings of the harpsichord and clavichord and to
provide inspired playing in spite of poor recording conditions and multiple
“takes.” In the essay on chamber music, RK describes his experiences working
with the violinist and conductor Alexander Schneider, with whom he made
a number of recordings and with whom he collaborated in performances
throughout this country and Europe. He played in other chamber music
ensembles as well, but he eventually gave up chamber music to concentrate on
solo performances. The essay on harpsichords and their transport makes one
aware of how diffi cult it was and probably still is to move harpsichords around
the country and the world and how profi cient harpsichordists have to be in
taking care of their own instruments.
RK often was dissatisfi ed with the instruments on which he had to perform
and record. He frequently performed in his earlier years on instruments built
by John Challis, and one can read in his letters to Challis (published in the vol-
ume of letters mentioned earlier), that, among other things, he was often look-
ing for instruments that could project sound in a concert hall and that could
travel well without constantly going out of tune. Challis’s instruments were not
built strictly upon historical principles, however, and RK’s ideas about what was
possible in performance and recording changed when he began using instru-
ments built on historical principles by Frank Hubbard and William Dowd in
- From then on, whenever possible, he used these instruments for per-
forming and recording. As he says in his essay “On Harpsichords and Their
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