REWIND
Great artists talk about their past recordings
This month: SOPHIE YATES harpsichordist MY FINEST MOMENT Il Cembalo Transalpino
Music from the Fitzwilliam Collection Sophie Yates (harpsichord)
Chandos CHAN 0819 (2019)
I’ve made it my business to play antiques all the way through my career and I always tell my students it’s important to play the originals, because they communicate directly to you. This recording gave me the opportunity to get to know the wonderful Italian 17th-century harpsichord at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. We recorded at Downing College because the then Master of the college is a keen
harpsichordist. It meant we could take the instrument out of the museum, but it was still at Cambridge University and didn’t have to be expensively reinsured. It was just one of those lucky combinations where you think it’s meant to be. I’m also delighted to have been able to learn more about Fitzwilliam and get him out there a bit. I think he’s a real unsung hero of British musical culture, especially from an early keyboard point of view. He collected the core repertoire
and, crucially, made it available; he didn’t just go on his grand tour and pick up these manuscripts, he had them published. It has also given me a new interest in Italian repertoire, so it has set me o on a new phase in my own work, which is exciting. It has been a real journey and I feel very lucky.
MY FONDEST MEMORY French Baroque Harpsichord
Sophie Yates (harpsichord)
Chandos CHAN 0545 (1993)
This was my first recording for
Chandos and there was a genuine saga to getting it made. It started as two radio programmes I recorded for a German radio station, which someone suggested would make a fantastic recital CD. Chandos was interested and it was all wonderful, but then it couldn’t be issued because there were legal complications. This amazing chance that I’d been working towards for all my student years was whisked away, so I had to raise funds and do the recording all over again. I had fantastic support from my friends and my brilliant harpsichord maker Andrew Garlick, and we got it made. Every time I listen to it I can hear this sense of relief. We recorded it at Ford Abbey, which was another seminal thing because we found our sound, and coined the style of subsequent recordings. It’s a wonderful acoustic there and such a fabulous place to record. When I made the original radio programmes I had a completely free choice of repertoire, which is so rare; there was no agenda and no trying to fulfil anyone’s brief. It was just full of the love I had for that repertoire at that time, which is such a luxury.
I’D LIKE ANOTHER GO AT… Romanesca
Italian Pieces for Harpsichord
Sophie Yates (harpsichord)
Chandos CHAN 0601 (2013)
In view of what I’ve just been doing on the Fitzwilliam instrument, I’d quite like to do this again on that instrument; also in terms of what I’ve learned about Italian repertoire. One of the great joys and di culties of being a musician is you’re always constantly learning; so, inevitably, you’re going to look back at some things and think ‘well, if I’d known this instrument then, or if I’d known of this, I would’ve included that’. Recordings are very much snapshots of where you are at that time in your career.
I did a lot of Neapolitan chromatic repertoire on this disc and in an ideal world I would like to re-do that on the Boni instrument from the Fitzwilliam, but also on a split-keyed Boni instrument. So in my fantasy re-doing of this disc I’d have two Bonis and I would also re-do it with my research into Italian fingering in mind; it’s a paired fingering, completely di erent to the one we use in England.
Sophie Yates’s album Il Cembalo Transalpino is out now on Chandos Records and will be reviewed next month