The festival “Eurasia” not only unites spaces but epochs as well. On 14th of October in the midst of the festival, the harpsichord, a must-have instrument came into the philharmonic’s collection.
The art of harpsichord is negligibly known in the city of Yekaterinburg, the main reason for that was the deficiency of the decent instrument.
The instrument that has arrived in the Sverdlovsk Academic Philharmonic is a perfect copy of the French harpsichord of 1730 by master Blanche. The new instrument makes to fine limits the details of the historical harpsichord of the XVIII century: it is decorated with painting and woodcarving, has two manuals, three registers and a lute. This very instrument is the best choice for introducing the wide variety of European harpsichord music and for developing of the genre of early music in the philharmonic in general as well. A special device allows retuning the instrument from the modern tuning into several old ones, and, in fact, it makes an effect of the three instruments.
People that participated in the press-conference:
- the initiator of the harpsichord purchase-the organist of Yekaterinburg’s Philharmonic society , art-director of Bach-Fest in Yekaterinburg Taras Baginets;
- the foreman that constructed the instrument – Jukka Ollika (Finland);
- our expert in choosing the harpsicord construction – the famous organist, harpsicordist and conductor, the professor of
the Hague’s conservatoire, the founder of Amsterdam’s baroque orchestra and choire Ton Koopman. He’s the one who’s going to present the new instrument to our audience on a concert at the 14 of octoberin within the framework of the second International music festival “Eurasia”
The harpsicord’s going to sound for the very first time on the the tenth of november at the concert of an outstanding russian harpsicordist and musicologist Alexander Mikapar.
We hope that the purchase of a harpsicord will initiate the appearance of new voices of the past epochs at the Yekaterinburg Philarmonic Society:the viola da gamba, the baroque violin and the lute.
