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Fantasia on Dummy Keys The harpsichord sounds like two skeletons copulating. —Sir Thomas Beecham The practice keyboard teaches only fingering. Interpretation is beyond it. Lacking sound, It will forgive wrong notes, not know an exercise From Bach, if there indeed is some distinction. Mute, It is the ideal medium for twelve-tone works, If not the Chopin repertoire. Without response, How judge of touch? Too firm? Too light? One must assume Seducers learn and necrophiliacs do not, Else why do spinet’s key and quill go at it so? Is Czerny a perversion? And if harpsichords Seem musical cadavers, are the fringe who play “Authentic instruments” grave robbers? They, in proof Of scholarship as folly, preach that out-of-tune Is what is called for. Vocal exercises—scales— Employ an instrument whose authenticity No one can doubt. A vocalise may have no words, But is expression in a way dexterity, Viewed, cannot ever be, although Franz Liszt might say “My fingering could surely semaphore the deaf, Who at recitals should be charged full ticket price.” To speak of heartstrings being plucked is retrograde, As to both time and mechanism. Live hearts hammer. 1 You are reading copyrighted material published by Ohio University Press/Swallow Press. Unauthorized posting, copying, or distributing of this work except as permitted under U.S. copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. ...

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