Ode to a nightingale
Joyce Lindorff, harpsichord, Music Department, Chinese University, January 13.
MANY an artist has denounced his beastly teachers. But the noted harpsichordist Joyce Lindorff may be the only musician to have been reformed by a wild bird.
After playing variations on a nightingale call by the 17th-century composer Alessandro Poglietti during a concert in Rome, she was awakened by an Italian nightingale. ''We Americans,'' said the North Carolinian, ''don't have nightingales. When I realised how disciplined this bird was, and how literal the composer was, I changed my whole method of playing.'' Her first public concert here was played on a two-register harpsichord which sounded full and engaging in the intimate salon at Chinese University. Dr Lindorff's programme spanned from the Elizabethans to the contemporary Gyorgy Ligeti.
The only work written specifically for harpsichord was from Couperin, written in about 1708. It was here that she seemed most at home. The sound was liquid and full, the rhythmic pliability - half written without measure bars - gave a French lilt and suaveity.
The Poglietti is a bizarre work . The whole piece takes about six hours , so the last five dances, based on the song of a nightingale was quite enough. The real challenge was to make the harpsichord - with its very limited sonorities - catch the birds. DrLindorff made a splendid effort.
The greatest disappointment was the Bach Sixth English Suite, which seemed to run ahead of her usually nimble fingers. The gavottes were charming, the prelude nicely played, but the rest had few disconcerting aberrations. Most effective was Ligetti's Continuum. Exploding, imploding, it was played with non-stop transparent velocity by the artist.
