86 ❧ chapter five
By the time I arrived in England, all large Dolmetsch harpsichords had
the 16-foot, and the more recent a new action which carried the harpsichord
even further toward the reinvention of the piano, and which was subsequently
scrapped because it never worked. All of these instruments were much darker
in tone than the original Chickerings, but after the shrillness and unyielding-
ness of the Pleyel, I thought them a great comfort indeed. I was well on the
downward path.
On arriving in Germany in the autumn of 1932, I went reverently to pay
homage to the so-called “Bach harpsichord,” although I knew that this instru-
ment had not belonged to Bach (it was reputed to have come from the ambi-
ence of his son, Wilhelm Friedemann). But I had no idea that it owes its
present disposition, as has since been discovered, to a restoration and remod-
eling made in the mid-nineteenth century. In its altered state this instrument
offers what, with more universality than accuracy, has come to be known as the
“Bach disposition.” Actually, this arrangement of 8- and 16-foot on the lower
manual and 8- and 4-foot on the upper is no more suitable to the keyboard
works of Bach than it is to any other classical harpsichord music. But misled
by the pseudo-historicity of this absurd disposition, I took it seriously for many
years and even recommended it. Others did too, and by now the legend of the
“Bach harpsichord” has come to form a virtually ineradicable part of Germanic
tradition such as beer, featherbeds, lip service to “Dichter und Denker,”^1 after-
noon coffee, the Autobahn, and the “Wirtschaftswunder.”^2
Prior to 1932, German harpsichord building was dominated largely by
coarse imitations of the Pleyel harpsichord. Compared with these, the Bach
model seemed quite civilized. In the course of practicing on such an instru-
ment in Berlin in the winter of 1932–33, I created many unnecessary complica-
tions that I only came quite recently to discard.
On returning to the United States in the autumn of 1933, I found myself
without a harpsichord. I was able to practice only through the generosity
of Harvard and of Arthur Whiting, who allowed me to use their respective
Dolmetsch-Chickering instruments. But, in the autumn of 1934, I was able to
acquire my fi rst harpsichord, the Dolmetsch-Chickering that had belonged to
Busoni.
Since I was still without a domicile of my own, I was obliged to keep this
instrument wherever I could gain access to it for practicing. Then, and for
many years thereafter, there was no one on the Eastern seaboard who was com-
petent to help me with the necessary regulation and maintenance of my harp-
sichord. Although I have always hated every intervention in the function of
mechanical objects, be they bicycles, automobiles, or harpsichords themselves,
- Poets and Thinkers.
- Economic miracle.
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