TS · YALE · U EN M
· INSTR CAL U SI U
of the Yale University Collection of Musical Instruments
Number 34
v William Purvis Appointed Director
ION · OF · M CT LE
N EW S L ETT E R
ITY · C OL ERS IV N
Fall 2011
the website, and, new this season, live Internet streaming of concerts at the museum. In these and other future initiatives he looks forward to the Robert Blocker, the Dean of the Yale School of Music announced in continued growth of the Collection and expansion of its unique contriMarch that William Purvis had been appointed as Director of the Yale bution to the musical life of the University and the community. Collection of Musical Instruments after serving as its Interim Director since the fall of 2008. Dean Blocker cited Purvis’s leadership, his broad v Forty-fourth Annual Concert Series musical interests, and his commitment to the Collection as compelling reasons for the appointment: “In the transitional period that Bill Purvis From its inception the Yale Collection has laid emphasis on instruments has served as Interim Director, the Collection has enhanced its artistic being heard as well as seen and studied. The many tours, gallery talks, offerings, and has taken measures to preserve and sustain its holdings, and demonstrations given provide unique opportunities for the public and to engage the Yale and professional comaurally to encounter preserved and restored munities in its activities.” instruments from the Collection. However, A native of Western Pennsylvania, Mr. Purvis it is the museum’s concert series emphasizing pursues a multifaceted career in the U.S. and the performance of music from earlier and exabroad as horn soloist, chamber musician, conotic repertories that provide perhaps the richductor, and educator. An advocate of new muest experiences of instruments heard in their sic, he has participated in numerous premieres historical and cultural contexts. as hornist and conductor, including horn conThis season the forty-fourth annual series certos by Peter Lieberson and Bayan Northcott; of concerts at the Collection will present an trios by Poul Ruders and Paul Lansky; and Steinternational roster of musicians specializing ven Stuckey’s Sonate en Forme des Préludes with in the performance of music from earlier periEmanuel Ax at Carnegie Hall. He is a member ods in a richly varied set of programs. Reperof the New York Woodwind Quintet, Orchestory will range from the late Medieval period tra of St. Luke’s, Yale Brass Trio, the Triton to the dawn of the 19th century. Horn Trio, and is a frequent guest artist with v Harpsichordist Jory Vinikour will open the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Centhe series on 16 October with a program of ter. His involvement with early horns includes solo harpsichord works to include music by performances and recordings as member of the Bach, Scarlatti, Handel, Louis Couperin and Amadeus Winds (London Decca), Mozzafiato Rameau. Chicago-born Vinikour studied (SONY Vivarte), Boston Early Music Festival, ex-tensively in Paris, including work with HuHandel and Haydn Society, Aston Magna, and guette Dreyfus and Kenneth Gilbert. Taking the Smithsonian Chamber Players, with whom first prizes in the International Harpsichord he recorded the Quintets for Piano and Winds Competition in Warsaw (1993) and the Prague of Mozart and Beethoven. Spring Festival (1994), he was launched into His extensive list of recordings ranges from a busy international career as a recital and original instrument performance to contempoconcerto soloist, partner to several of today’s William Purvis was appointed Director of the Collection rary solo and chamber music and includes the in March 2011. finest singers, and one of the most sought-afHorn Concerto of Peter Lieberson on Bridge ter continuo performers. He has appeared as (a disc that won a Grammy); works of Schumann; Paul Lansky’s Etudes soloist with leading orchestras including Rotterdam Philharmonic, Orand Parodies for violin, horn, and piano; Schoenberg’s Wind Quintet; chestre de la Suisse Romande, Philharmonic of Radio France, Ensemble and Richard Wernick’s Quintet for Horn and Strings with the Juilliard Orchestral de Paris, Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, and the Moscow Quartet. Previously on the faculties of The Juilliard School, SUNY StonyChamber Orchestra. brook, and the Hochschule für Musik, Karlsruhe, Mr. Purvis joined the v The renowned Boston Museum Trio will make its debut at the ColYale School of Music faculty in 1999. His international distinction as an lection on 13 November. Comprised of Daniel Stepner, violin; Laura artist and artist-teacher of horn continues to draw a gifted class of horn Jeppesen, viola da gamba; and John Gibbons, harpsichord, the ensemble students to the School. In 2003, he became the Coordinator of Winds will perform a program of works by Stradella, Marais, Rameau, Buxteand Brass, and in the 2008-09 concert season he was the artistic director hude, and Bach. The Boston Museum Trio has toured internationally of the Messiaen Centenary Celebration at Yale. and has played a central role in the concert program at Boston’s Museum During his three years as Interim, Director Mr. Purvis has undertaken of Fine Arts since 1975. The ensemble performs an endowed annual seimportant initiatives aimed at enhancing the Collection’s support of the ries of concerts featuring music from the early Baroque through the late musical curricula and activities at Yale. He has launched the formation Classical eras. Guest vocalists and instrumentalists have included Frans of a collection of replica instruments for use in the early music program Brüggen, Anner Bylsma, Sanford Sylvan, and many others. The Trio of the School of Music and has directed the upgrading of the museum’s performs on examples from the Museum’s unique collection of musical storage and study facilities, both on the main campus and the future facilinstruments, as well as on their own period instruments. They have an ity in Yale’s West Campus in Orange. He has pursued the development extensive discography including recordings of music by Bach, Rameau, of the museum’s various media initiatives: the comprehensive database, Marais, Telemann and Vivaldi.
vFrom across the Atlantic, the London Haydn Quartet will come vFrom the Director’s Desk I was deeply honored to be appointed Director of the Collection after to the Collection on 5 February. The ensemble was conceived around having served as Interim Director. Although the challenges facing us its members interest in Haydn’s string quartets. The regular members of are somewhat dizzying, I see this as a time of great potential and opthe quartet, Catherine Manson, violin; Michael Gurevich, violin; James portunity for the Collection. I very much look forward to accomplishBoyd, viola; and Richard Lester, violoncello, will be joined by clarinetist ing what we can in the next years, both in enhancing and protecting Erich Hoeprich to perform a program that will include the Mozart clarithe treasures of the Collection, but also in net quintet and two quartets by Haydn. Playenhancing the presence and profile of the ing with Classical-style bows on instruments Collection. with gut strings, the London Haydn QuarIn other parts of the newsletter you will tet’s tours have taken the group throughout read about many of the projects with which Europe and North America, where they have we are currently engaged or are planning for received invitations to many of the most imthe future, but I would like to point out just portant concert series and international fesa couple of those. First, you will be receivtivals. They have also started their own coning regular email updates more often about cert series in which they have performed the ongoing events s uch as master classes, which complete Haydn cycle. Their recent collabowill be open to the public. Along with this, ration with period clarinetist Eric Hoeprich we are now at work on the website, porting has resulted in invitations to the Concertgeit to another programming language, which bouw in Amsterdam and several concerts in will make it much easier to update. Once this USA and Canada, including a recital at the is changed you will be able to find up-to-date Library of Congress. The group’s recordings information about events at the Collection of Haydn’s six quartets opus 9 and his six there, and eventually much more detailed inquartets op 17 on the Hyperion label have formation about the instruments, including met with enthusastic critical acclaim. more audio and video as well. vThe Swiss-based ensemble La Morra As part of the inclusion of more sophiswill peform the fourth concert on the series ticated technology we will be live streaming on 26 February. Named after a famous inall concerts at the Collection this year. For stru-mental piece by Heinrich Isaac, La Morthose unable to attend, this means that you ra performs European music of the period will be able to listen to and see every Col1300 to 1500. The ensemble pays particular lection concert live on your computer. I will attention to secular art songs, sacred parawrite to you in advance of each streamed liturgical genres, and instrumental music. event with information and instructions. Soon after its formation in 2000, La Morra All of the exciting projects that are ongotook the stages of Europe’s most prestigious The acclaimed British ensemble London Haydn Quartet will make its ing are possible because we have been able Early Music festivals and concert series by New Haven debut at the Collection on 5 February. to hire a team of young interns from the storm. Concert tours have also taken the School of Music. Last year Scott Holben and Beth Wiese were extremely ensemble to Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, Poland, Spain and the United effective, and this year we have Ian O’Sullivan leading a group of about Kingdom. La Morra is based in Basel and enjoys close collaboration with six work-study YSM students. The most important aspect of this is that the famed Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. the curators are now no longer responsible for so many of the day-to-day Entitled “Lacrime di Leo: Secret Music for Pope Leo X,” La Morra’s tasks necessary for the Collection to function, and are now able to focus program will feature music written and performed for Giovanni de Medimore on their own projects. ci, who became Pope in 1513 and wrote one of the pieces on the proI very much look forward to the upcoming season as the beginning of gram. The performers will include Corina Marti, flute & harpsichord; an exciting future for the Collection. Please feel free to speak with me at Michal Gondko, viola da mano; Giovanni Cantarini, tenor; Elizabeth any time with your thoughts about the Collection. Rumsey, viola del arco; and Tore Eketorp, viola del arco. vThe Flanders Recorder Quartet will return to conclude the series on April 29. Founded in 1987, the Quartet is made up of four recorder virtuosi: Bart Spanhove, Tom Beets, Joris Van Goethem and Paul William Purvis, Director Van Loey. Winning first prize in 1990 in the prestigious Musica Antiqua competition in Bruges, Belgium, the group embarked on an ambitious performing career. After over 1,500 concerts on five continents, the envSpecial Concerts & Master Classes semble has become a prominent fixture in the world of early music. In addition to the five concerts on its annual series, the Collection will To spotlight the recorder as an instrument the Quartet chooses exhost several special concerts this season. On Wednesday April 18 at 8:00 amples carefully from its unique collection, thus making each and every pm, the Yale Baroque Ensemble under the direction of Robert Mealy concert an unforgettable event. Some of their most intriguing instruwill present “From Baroque to Galant: Chamber Music of Handel, Bocments are the Virdung (1511) copies crafted by recorder maker Adrian cherini and Mozart.” This concert is free to the public. Clive GreenBrown, ten recorders copied from the collection of Henry VIII, the 2.30house, ’cello, and Wei-yi Yang, piano, will perform music of Mendelsmetre-tall baroque sub-bass recorder made by von Huene in Boston and sohn on Thursday, April 19, at 8:00 pm (tickets $20; Yale staff and senior modern copies made by Coolsma of Utrecht. Such an array of unique citizens $15; students $10). Again this season a series of master classes and rare specimens provides a feast for the eyes as well as the ears. With for students in the School of Music will be presented at the Collection by contagious enthusiasm, the charismatic members of the FRQ display visiting artists. Some of these will be scheduled in conjunction with the their pedagogical skills during demonstrations and master-classes. Their concerts on the series, others separately. These classes are free and open teaching activities have resulted in the publication of a book, The Finto the public. Museum Associates will receive advance notice of each of ishing Touch of Ensemble Playing, written by Bart Spanhove (Alamire them, and they will be posted on the Collection’s website. Editions, 2000).
vNew Acquisitions
The Director is pleased to announce the accession of twenty instruments this season presented by three distiguished Yale alumni. Leading the list are two interesting French string instruments presented to the Collection by Mr. Andrew Petryn: a quinton made by Nicolas Augustin Chappuy in Paris, ca. 1770, and a pochette by an early 19th-century anonymous maker. Sometimes identified as “pardessus de viole,” the quinton was a fivestringed hybrid of the viol and violin family. It has a violin body save for viol-like sloping shoulders. Like the viol it had tied gut frets and was played upright on the lap with an underhand grip of the bow. This manner of playing made it fashionable among women of the day, by whom the posture assumed for violin playing was regarded as ungainly. N.A.Chappuy (ca.1730-1784) was a prominent French mid-18th-century luthier some of whose instruments have been prized for their craftsmanship and tone. The pochette dates from the early 19th century and Two fine French string instruments were presented is probably the work of a last season to the Collection by Mr. Andrew Petryn. French maker in imitation of an older instrument. It is a handsome and richly decorated example: the ebony fingerboard is elaborately inlaid with ivory arabesques, and ribs that comprise the back of the body are veneered with mother of pearl engraved with arabesque tracery. The donor, Mr. Andrew Petryn, BFA ’43, is a long-standing friend of the Collection and an Honorary Life Member of the museum’s Associates. He retired as chief conservator of the Yale Art Gallery in 1985. Not only a fine violinist, who often played informally in ensemble with members of the Yale School of Music faculty, he is also a connoisseur of string instruments. Mr. Petryn lent his expertise to the thorough restoration of the charming early 19th-century painting from the Skinner Collection dubbed “The Little Flute Player” that currently hangs in the Director’s office. vMr. Ralph P. D’Mello, Mus.M., 1962, presented his collection of historical clarinets to the museum last October. The collection is comprised of seventeen boxwood and ivory clarinets produced by European and American makers of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Two of the American instruments—a clarinet in C by Asa Hopkins, Litchfield, Connecticut, and a clarinet in E-flat by Edward Riley, New York—will be featured in a forthcoming exhibit (see below). Of the European instruments, one in particular is noteworthy because of its rarity: a clarinet in C by Roustagneq, who flourished in Toulon, France. Mr. D’Mello studied clarinet with Keith Wilson at the Yale School of Music from 1960 to 1962. In the mid-Sixties, he returned to his native India to serve as Assistant Director of Music for the Indian Army. In 1967, he This Newsletter is published annually by the YALE UNIVERSITY COLLECTION OF MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS 15 Hillhouse Avenue, P.O. Box 208278 New Haven, CT 06520-8278 Telephone (203) 432-0822; FAX (203) 432-8342 e-mail: musinst@pantheon.yale.edu On the Internet: www.yale.edu/musicalinstruments
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was offered a position as Instructor of Clarinet and Saxophone at Syracuse University, an appointment he held until his retirement in 1997. He and his wife, Milburge, live in Dewitt, New York. v Mr. T. Herman Keahey, B.Mus. ’59, donated an antique boxwood oboe with twelve nickel-silver keys by Wilhelm Christian Beck, a builder of woodwind and brass instruments who flourished in Weimar, 18531866. Dr. Keahey is a noted musicologist who served on the music faculty of the University of Manitoba from 1983 to 2005.
vExhibits Planned
Two exhibits will open this season at the Collection. The first, entitled “Whirring Lathes, Dulcet Tones: Woodwind Making in Early 19th-century Connecticut and New York,” features a selection of fifes, flutes, flageolets, and clarinets drawn from the museum’s holdings and supplemented by instruments lent by private collectors and other Connecticut museums. Conceived by Curator Susan Thompson, and mounted with the aid of Museum Interns Bethany Wiese, Scott Holben, and Ian Petruzzi, this exhibit presents instruments in the context of printed music, drawings, prints, maps, contemporary advertisements, and other documentation giving testimony to a thriving musical industry in Federal period New England. This exhibit will open in early December, and Associates will receive an invitation to a private opening and reception. A spring opening is planned for the renovated gallery of keyboard instruments. Over the summer the gallery was painted and the exhibit platforms were rebuilt, and a new lighting system will be installed in the fall. Organized by Associate Curator Nicholas Renouf, the new permanent exhibit of the Collection’s renowned holdings of keyboard instruments will be presented with greatly extended supporting information. New detailed exhibit labels and explanatory diagrams will be mounted, and a supplementary audio tour will allow visitors to hear samples of music performed on the instruments that have been restored to playing condition.
v18th-century English Violoncello Restored
An extensive restoration project will be concluded this fall on a fine English ’cello made by Barak Norman in London in 1708. The project is being carried out by the Collection’s string intrument conservator, Mr. Andrew Dipper. The work entailed the replacement of a corner and structural consolidation of the body of the instrument which was open at its back seam and much in need of repair. The ’cello is being set up as a transitional instrument (between “baroque” and “modern” style), with gut strings, which will make it useful for use in performance in the Collection in a wide range of repertory. London luthier Barak Nor- The label inside the ’cello by Barak Norman was man (1651-1754) is widely photographed during Andrew Dipper’s restoration of regarded as one of the great the instrument. masters of his time. He is known for the rich ornamentation of his viols and violins. With its double purfling and carved ornamention of its table and back, this ’cello is no exception.
vReplica Instruments Purchased
In recent seasons a number of replica instruments have been purchased by the Collection in support of the Yale Baroque Ensemble and the early music program of the School of Music. This past season the Collection acquired a guitar made by the California Luthier John Sanders after the model of an instrument made by the 19th-century Viennese maker Johann Georg Stauffer. This fall two baroque period oboes will arrive from the New York shop of Joel Robinson, who will also furnish two classic period oboes in the spring, as the School’s early music program extends in scope to include the Classical period. All of these instruments are regularly made available for use by students on the Yale campus.
vHonorary Life Memberships
Director William Purvis is pleased to announce this season the nomination of two long-term friends of the Collection to Honorary Life Membership in the Associates’ Program of the museum: Yves Albert Feder and Lawrence S. Wilkinson. Both men have been Associate members and have also served on the Collection’s Board of Advisors for many years. YVES FEDER is familiar to our concert audiences as the engineer who regularly records the concerts for the Collection’s now substantial audio archive. Born into a musical family in Paris, Yves graduated from Columbia with a B.A. degree in 1958. A man of many talents, he has an interest in radio that led to positions as programming director, classical music host, and recording engineer at WSHU-FM, Fairfield (1984-1986) and at Connecticut Public Radio (1986-1991). Thereafter, he returned to always active careers as a harpsichord maker and as a freelance recording engineer and producer, working on behalf of many outstanding musicians and ensembles in the area. Yves has also been active in support of an array of community musical, dramatic, and artistic initiatives that enrich the lives of people throughout the region, and he was appointed in 2009 to the Visiting Committee of the Yale School of Music. Yves is married to the harpsichordist Linda Skernick, who has appeared in solo and ensemble performances at the Collection. Lawrence Scripps Wilkinson is a native of Detroit. After graduating from Yale College in 1950, he was able to turn his childhood passion
for toys into a career. He applied for a job as a buyer for the well-known toy retailer F.A.O. Schwartz and ended up as a vice-president in the firm. Over the years he formed an extensive private collection of antique toys with a special interest in electric trains. In 1979 he entered into an agreement with the Detroit Antique Toy Museum to exhibit parts of his collection there and to send other representative selections to venues all over the world. In 2002 Larry donated seven scale model trains to Union Station in New Haven, where they can be seen today on top of benches and in cases in the station’s main lobby. Larry’s interest in the Yale Collection dates from 1992, when he presented a selection of mechanical instruments to the museum that included music boxes and mechanical organs. A special exhibit of these entitled “Of Their Own Accord” was mounted in 1993. In addition to endowing a scholarship fund for a deserving Yale undergraduate, Larry established for the Collection the Lawrence S. Wilkinson Endowment for Educational Enhancement in 1995. Larry has served on the Collection’s Board of Advisors since 1991 He is also a long-standing member of the Executive Council of the Friends of Music at Yale. Both Yves Feder and Larry Wilkinson have also made huge contributions to the Collection over many seasons in the advice and support they have so generously offered to four directors. We salute these two gentlemen and offer them our deepest gratitude as we welcome them as Honorary Life Members.
YALE UNIVERSITY COLLECTION OF MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS ASSOCIATE MEMBERS: 2010-2011 HONORARY LIFE MEMBER Mr. Yves Albert Feder Mr. Elias N. Kulukundis Mr. George P. O’Leary Mr. Andrew Petryn Mr. Hans H. Schambach Mr. Timothy A. Steinert Mr. Lawrence S. Wilkinson SKINNER FELLOW Ms. Victoria Keator DePalma Mr. David G. Powrie BENEFACTOR Mr. and Mrs. Elias N. Kulukundis Mr. Thomas G. MacCracken Mr. Miles O. Steinert PATRON Dr. and Mrs. Emile L. Boulpaep Ms. Ute Brinkmann Dr. and Mrs. Robert W. Lyons George and Reba O’Leary Ms. Elizabeth C. Yen SPONSOR Mr. A. Chance Anderson Mr. and Mrs. Robert P. Anderson, Jr. Dr. James K. and Peggy F. Baird
SPONSOR (continued) Mr. Ronald Bell Robert and Serena Blocker Ms. Claudine Britton Prof. Ki and Juliet Chon Mrs. Grace A. Clark Ms. Constance Clement Mrs. Phoebe Coleman Dr. Philip J. Conforti Mr. and Mrs. R. Raleigh D’Adamo Mr. John N. Ellyson Dr. and Mrs. Gerhard H. Giebisch Dr. and Mrs. Gilbert H. Glaser Joseph F. Hoffman and Eleanor Cirkowitz Mrs. Susan Howard Prof. Francesco Iachello Prof. Boyd M. Jones II Yuliya Kaspler & Eschrat Rahimi-Laridjani Ms. Elizabeth Keitel Dr. Cornelia Leavitt-Scudder Carleton and Barbara Loucks Elizabeth D. C. Meyer Mrs. Frances L. Miller Prof. Craig A. Monson Ms Kathleen Moretto Spencer Peter and Kathryn Patrikis Mr. Andrew Petryn Prof. Leon Plantinga Mr. and Mrs. William Purvis Gary and Diane Ransom
SPONSOR (continued) Mr. Hans H. Schambach Marlowe and Elise Sigal Kerala and Richard Snyder Drs. Kurt and Judit Stenn Shepard and Marlene Stone Hannah and Herbert Winer Mrs. Avril Winks Earl and Constance Young Dr. Hugh H. Young FAMILY John and Rebecca Arkenberg Mr. and Mrs. Donald Baerman Francis Braunlich and Elizabeth Neuse Anne and Guido Calabresi Ms. Margaret Grimes Mr. Bruce Larkin Dr. and Mrs. Jerry Lasser Ms. Lori Lebas Lynda E. Rosenfeld and Richard M. Weiss Daniel and Susan Rosner Prof. Koichi Shinohara Drs. Lorraine Siggins & Braxton McKee Dr. J. W. Streett and Family John and Dorothy Sutton
REGULAR (continued) Mrs. Sally B. Brown Walter Cahn & Brenda Danet Edith H. Evangeliste Grace A. Feldman Dr. Lee Goebel Ms. Joyce V. Goldberg Dr. Mary Jewett Greer Ms. Alexandra Isles Susan Rees Jones Mr. Philip Kass Jeane Lind & David Berger Mr. Carleton Loucks Prof. George H. Lucktenberg Prof. Susan Marchant Dr. E. Anthony Petrelli Ms. Barbara E. Smith Mr. John R. Stieper Ms. Sally A. Taylor Ms. Erica Warnock Ms. Sarah Jessica Whitson STUDENT Ms. Tiffany Ng Mr. Jason Stockmann
REGULAR Mr. F. Vining Bigelow Mrs. Ann Bliss
The Yale University Collection of Musical Instruments, one of the oldest institutions of it kind in the United States, was established in 1900, when New Haven Symphony co-founder Morris Steinert presented the core of his extensive private collection to the University. One of four museums on campus, the Collection preserves, documents, exhibits, and interprets musical instruments as works of art and artifacts of music history. Its holdings of nearly 1000 instruments, including a collection of keyboard instruments unsurpassed in the world, are particularly strong in the area of European art music between 1550 and 1950. Housed in an 1894 Romanesque revival building designed by William H. Allen, the Collection has presented an annual series of concerts since 1967 and contributes in many other ways to the Yale music curriculum and to the cultural life of the University and to the larger community.