The Joys of the Harpsichord | Hacker News Reader

The Joys of the Harpsichord

firstthings.com

12 pointsgoodway4 comments

I would love to own a harpsichord but unlike pianos, which are available at all price points and easy to find, harpsichords seem to be very expensive (there is a builder in my town who charges 25k-35k for a new one, with years of lead time) not to mention very rare. Given this for now I just use VSTs with a normal midi keyboard, but that of course has a different touch and it’s not the same as having an “analog” instrument available.

Roland used to build some e-harpsichords years back (C30 etc) but from what I can find they weren’t incredibly well received and have been discontinued for some years now anyways.

In term of VSTs I enjoy most the physically modelled harpsichords in pianoteq, I do feel that Bach sounds a lot better on harpsichord than on piano, hence why I am hoping maybe some day I’ll find one for sale at a price I can justify given that after all I play (badly) just for fun.

Great article. My father has a full harpsichord in his living room. Growing up, he and my mother would have friends over every week to play string quartet and classical music. In fact, that's how they met. My mother went to a party where he was playing viola. On their second date, he baked her a cake shaped like the bust of Bach. Game over!

Good time to plug the Netherlands Bach Society’s “All of Bach” project.

https://www.bachvereniging.nl/en/allofbach

YouTube channel:

* https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2kF6qdHRTM_hDYfEmzkS9w

1-2 performances posted weekly. Mostly solo works lately given getting large groups together has been hard over the little while.

Concerto for three harpsichords in D minor BWV 1063 recorded in the Before Times:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdNjyzxqmWU

Concerto for three harpsichords in C major BWV 1064:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRfcGmVH5dI

Concerto in A minor BWV 1065 (four harpsichords):

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emkJ0A7IfkY

Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 has a harpsichord solo at about 6m30s:

> For this recording, we were guests at the Gallery of Honour at the Rijksmuseum, in Amsterdam. We were invited to come and perform Bach’s unusual ‘Brandenburg' Concerto no. 5 in order to celebrate the loan of an exceptional harpsichord to the museum. For the recording, the original instrument, built by Johannes Ruckers in 1640, was played by harpsichordist Richard Egarr.

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHjbRMIIhuM

Reply on news.ycombinator.com