Further to recent clavichord discussions, what are people’s opinions/reviews of this book?
I don’t own this book, but I borrowed a library copy years ago. I read the chapters on clavichord touch; “musica poetica”, i.e. rhetorical musical figures and their relation to touch; and the relation between the organ and the pedal clavichord from the player’s point of view. I think that Griepenkerl’s introduction to his edition of Bach’s Chromatic Fantasia is mentioned too; that introduction is essential reading for clavichordists.
I found Speerstra’s book very interesting and helpful; a most imaginative discussion of the act of playing notes on the keyboard.
I went to his Bach recital on his pedal-clavichord in Edinburgh, quite a few years ago, and enjoyed it very much. I think that the paired fingering (such as 3 4 3 4) helped a lot to bring the musical lines to life. Particularly on the highly touch-sensitive clavichord. Paired fingering is discussed in Speerstra’s book (and in others of course).
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Same - the book, especially in the hardcover edition, is stupidly expensive. Well, cynically expensive. The publisher’s term is “library pricing.”
I like the book a lot. It documents how common these instruments were. The most usually kind had pull-down pedals attached to a regular clavichord [no, mail program, I don’t want to add an attachment to this message], and it goes into some details about the implications for fingering, phrasing and touch. Considering that these were the instruments that German keyboard players trained and practiced on, this is very important stuff.
There are some lecture-demos of Joel Speerstra on YouTube, well worth checking out.