14 ❧ chapter one
one thing well, I have focused most of my work on solo keyboard music.
But now I am anxious to study texts and treatises that will form the neces-
sary basis, not only for the coaching of singers and players of other instru-
ments and for the enlargement of my own musical culture, but also for the
formation of an instrumental ensemble when the proper conditions present
themselves.
Whenever choice was possible, I have always preferred to give solo con-
certs, because frankly I have felt most of my ensemble music performances
to be compromises, of varying levels, according to the adequacy of rehearsal
time or diplomacy. But, nevertheless, I look forward to the time when, sus-
tained by greater experience, age, and authority, I shall be able to see my
ideals more fully realized. Meanwhile I must do the necessary studying and
bide my time until I fi nd the proper occasion for a permanent organization,
either in a fortunate encounter with a violinist, a gambist, a fl utist already fi t-
ted for the work, or in the means of giving promising young musicians train-
ing and study parallel to that which I have had in relation to the keyboard
instruments.
On my activities as Guggenheim Fellow in the spring of 1938, I reported:
I began systematically to go through all music treatises, English, German,
French, Italian, Spanish, and Latin, from the beginning of printing to 1800,
which could possibly contain any information of value for the practical per-
formance of contemporary music.
I made little attempt to study or digest passages which were not in direct
connection with some musical problem I was facing or had faced, but noted
their nature and contents for future reference when necessary. Thus, much
of the information noted in this work will only become valuable to me after
several years of further practical experience. However, the greater part of the
purely mechanical, scholarly preparation for the practical assimilation of this
material is accomplished once and for all.
As I survey the past year, I feel very strongly that in most ways it has been
a year of preparation, that most of its importance lies in the future, in what
is done with the material and knowledge gathered during this time. I am
thoroughly content to be back in the old working milieu of playing, teach-
ing, recording, etc., where everything is put to practical tests, to resume
the healthy life of a busy musician, for it is now this kind of work which
succeeds the isolated study of last year in determining the developments of
the near future.
The plan I enunciated in my application and report to the Guggenheim
Foundation differed little from the one I had formulated in connection with
my Paine Fellowship from Harvard. But in the meantime I had gained con-
siderable experience as a performer and as a scholar. I had mastered several
skills that had then been lacking—for example, facility with thoroughbass
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rick simeone
(Rick Simeone)
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