Early Keyboard Instruments

Extract

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen, I deeply appreciate the honour you have conferred on me by asking me to speak to you about early keyboard instruments, and I feel sure that you will agree that, as a very interested amateur speaking to a body of experts, I am entitled to a full measure of tolerance. May I ask you at the outset to believe that I am not here to initiate a Scrap-Your-Grand-Piano campaign or to advocate a programme of “Clavichords for All”? I come to suggest that, after an examination of the construction of these instruments, of their beauties and their limitations, we shall agree that for the proper appreciation of the music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it is essential both to recognise them and to use them. As far as I can discover from the Proceedings of this Association the last occasion on which these instruments were the subject of a paper was in 1885 when the late A. J. Hipkins spoke about them. Every musical historian gratefully recognises Mr. Hipkins's pioneer work, but a good deal of fresh material has come to light since those days.