Being passionately interested in the performance practice of old music, and spending considerable time playing with period instruments, I have developed an ear for the sound that these particular instruments add to the music of earlier eras. As a specialist in the performance of baroque music, I am accustomed to using harpsichords and pipe organs to accompany both a cappella as well as concerted music. So I was very keen on the idea of bringing a harpsichord to Shanghai for the our “Baroque Pearls” concert.
The need for such an instrument was borne out in that our November (2011) performance of F.J. Haydn’s great Oratorio, The Creation, where we substituted an electronic keyboard which so markedly changed the sound of the music that I really felt that if there were any way to get a harpsichord for the next performance (even if it meant shipping one from the US), we should do so. There are a few harpsichords in Shanghai, but we had no access to them, as they are owned by schools and professional ensembles.
Thus this experience drove home the need to find a way to get a harpsichord to Shanghai, especially since a large part of the Shanghai International Choral League’s repertoire would span the late 17th through the early 19th centuries. The instrument pictured here is the one that we ended up shipping to Shanghai, which was from the Zuckermann harpsichord workshop in Stonington, CT.