Christmas

Christmas is a wonderful mixture of memory and hope, and so I have made this recording a two-stage trip into Christmas past. The Victorians first. Their Christmas music is the sound of personal and familial reflection, of shadows and fairy dust, of the sweetness of children as seen by adults, of tender and crushing nostalgia, and of anthems sung with a lump in the throat. These sentiments were delivered perfectly by the velvety-toned Victorian piano. Its glowing sound—like an invocation of memory—was a musical hearth; and it must have been particularly inviting on this winter holiday as family and friends gathered around to sing the old and new carols. The second part of this recording moves deeper into the past to the brilliance, energy, and, I find, to the religious conviction of Renaissance and Baroque Christmas music played on the harpsichord. The clear, unfettered timbre of the harpsichord—with its action that plucks the delicate strings—has a compelling immediacy; the very nature of the plucked sound, the way it apprehends the moment, gives the listener the gift of the present. And it is with that sense of “now” that we are able to feel most keenly the joy, seriousness, and boundless hope of the first and every Christmas.

The parlor, or boudoir, grand piano heard in this recording was made by the Collard & Collard company of London sometime around 1850. In 1997, I rebuilt it using replica period wire (made by Malcom Rose) and period hammer felt (made by the Desfougères firm of Paris). The Flemish harpsichord, a replica made in 1999 by Norman Sheppard, is modeled after the 1679 Couchet in the Smithsonian collection. The compass is four octaves and the action is fitted entirely in crow quills.