Listening to Corina Marti was an amazing experience, specifically because I have never heard or seen a harpsichord before. For some reason, I was expecting a harp shaped instrument. I was pleasantly surprised to see a small piano like instrument instead. As she started playing her first piece, Preambulum in g, I immediately started comparing the enchanting instrument to the piano. The harpsichord seems quite a bit smaller, and creates more of a string, plucking sound. The longer I listened to the pieces, the more I noticed was the lack of dramatic range in the harpsichord. Each note didn’t quite fill the Barnett Hall as loud as a piano or any other instrument. I felt as if Corina’s piece could almost use more range in volume, but was restricted because of the instrument.
I may be wrong, but I feel the harpsichord lost it’s popularity for this exact reason. Because it cannot use volume to express different aspects of the piece, it cannot convey feeling. To make up for the limit in shape created with volume, the pieces play around with speed to create this effect instead. It made sense that such an instrument was used in Baroque music for simplistic pieces. However, as the music era grew to more complex pieces that were emotion focused, bringing in larger musical arrangements, the harpsichord faded out as an instrument of choice. The piano then became more popular as it could use the playful aspect of volume along with speed to fill the atmosphere with the appropriate feeling.
The first piece played allowed the harpsichord to create a lot of arpeggios with chords. The feel of the song was generally jumpy and abrupt. The next piece, Preambulum in e, was a nice contrast to this as the melody focused on a lot of ascending scales leading up to the note. The piece almost never had large interval jumps.
I was proud to note that her repertoire truly reflected Late Medieval and Early Renaissance times with the homophonic pieces. The left hand, which often played the bass accompaniment, created a moving and supporting line for the right hand’s melody, which gave an overall clear homophonic effect.
As we are touching upon themes and repeating ideas in class, I tried my best to picture a form or try to figure out the structure. I found this very difficult as I couldn’t even tell when one piece would move onto the next. However, I did find it helpful to have an active listening ear while I was trying to figure this out. I managed to hear the bass line repeat itself in some instances, which I could only assume means a repeating theme.
I am definitely glad I was able to enjoy and appreciate the harpsichord with Marti’s talent, as I don’t think I’d have the opportunity to hear and see one of these instruments in person. I’d be intrigued to hear the pieces played once again by Corina Marti, however on a piano. I wonder how the overall effect and musical environment would change.