Why did Rosalind Turek record Bach's keyboard works on the piano instead of the harpsichord?

Question

I recently learned that it was not the vogue to play baroque music on the harpsichord until Wanda Landowska blazed the trail.

So I think Scots Pines might be right.

Answer 1

Unless I am mistaken, the rebirth of the harpsichord as an acceptable concert / virtuoso instrument came about after Tureck was well-established as a musician........in other words, in her day, they played the piano and that is the instrument she learned and played, too .....the rebirth of 'early music' and all its dusting off of 'old instruments' was later development ...

Answer 2

Scots Pines is right. Interest in early music, and subsequently in the instruments used at the time, only became more widespread well into the 20th century. Scholarship and communications made it more obvious that performers were making very thin arguments about the composers' original intentions when they'd never even heard the original sounds. The learning curve for building 20th century harpsichords was not aided by any existing harpsichord builders. Someone had to figure it out from scholarship and drawings -- and trial and error. I'm stalling because I don't remember who built the first modern harpsichord (was it in Boston?), but a more precise history is probably as close as Wikipedia (or amazon).

Answer 3

If you meant the Well-Tempered Clavier or any other 'clavier' works, Bach did not really specify which keyboard instrument he meant such works to be played on - harpsichord, piano or clavichord. (He usually made a distinction between pieces for organ and for other keyboard instruments.)

It seemed like he preferred the clavichord for 'clavier' works as it had used a tangent to hit strings instead of plucking strings like the harpsichord, and this means a wider range of dynamics on the clavichord. However, the clavichord is not very loud and isn't suited for concert performances, only small performances in salons. Perhaps the piano was a good compromise between the two.

Personally, I have heard Kenneth Gilbert's harpsichord version of the Well-Tempered Clavier and I really prefer Andras Schiff's piano version.

Answer 4

I can only speculate a few things:

*Authentic harpsichords pre-date the piano. Accessibility to authentic harpsichords could be limited.
*Tuning.