The Harpsichord Owner’s Guide: A Manual for Buyers & Owners
Kottick
1992
Submitter: Zero circs in about 9 years. Why on earth does this need to belong in a rural medium-sized library?
Holly: This was published in 1992?? Was there some sort of harpsichord revival that I missed?
Is there anyone who has played the harpsichord by choice, rather than have it forced upon them in middle school music class?
There was something of a revival not long before this was published. The Academy of Ancient Music and others interested in using period instruments made the harpsichord hot again. And I remember Wanda Landowska, the great harpsichordist, popping up as a plot device in an Elizabeth Peters mystery. Couldn’t tell you which pen name it was published under.
And a friend at California who majored in harpsichord. The music is wonderful. But you’re right, this book does not belong in anything other than a large library with A dynamic music collection.
I would have loved to have a harpsichord at right around this time. My son was interested in playing, and we even had a loaner lined up… but it turns out, good ones have to be kept in a specially humidified room, and that supposes you have a room you can devote to a harpsichord, and that supposes an income level totally beyond us.
Still love harpsichord music, though. As the boy (now man) said at the time, “It sounds like the music a happy spider would make.”
I knew more than one person who built their own harpsichord in the 1980s, and had a friend in college in majored in harpsichord performance. Music on period instruments was quite the thing. Might still be for a certain segment of the population. I do know of some local recorder groups.
My father made one of these things!!
Don’t hesitate to sell it; someone out there is a struggling musician who really needs it but can’t afford to buy it new, that being the nature of the beast. There is a flourishing harpsichord revival that has been going on since at least the 1960s. You can even get academic degrees in it. I will admit that the harpsichord is a rare enough instrument that a public library probably doesn’t need one unless it’s in a reasonably large city; my mid-sized university town public library does not own that book, although the university library does. I personally swear by it; goose-quill plectra maintenance aside, it hasn’t failed me yet. But then again, I have my own copy.
.
First glimpse of the cover? Looked like men’s briefs!
“Holly: This was published in 1992?? Was there some sort of harpsichord revival that I missed?”
Well, The Addams Family Movie came out in 1991.