Conductor Martin Pearlman Remembers Gustav Leonhardt

Here’s something that got my attention this week.

Dutch master harpsichordist Gustav Leonhardt, died at his home in Amsterdam at the age of 83, on January 16.

Leonhardt was a pioneer of the Baroque music revival. He was a scholar, teacher and conductor. In the 1950s and 60s, at a time when musicians and classical music lovers paid rare attention to the Baroque repertoire of the 17th and early 18th century, Leonhardt made it his mission to bring it to life. He became a leader in the field of historical performance practice.

I got to know this music through my father’s own admiration for Leonhardt’s work. My father is an avid listener of Baroque music, and growing up in France, just a couple of borders away from the Netherlands, I would often hear Leonhardt’s recordings on the radio.

So—full disclosure here– the sound of recorders, harpsichords and viola da gambas are nothing foreign to me, on the contrary. I do love this music and I also perform it occasionally.

Leonhardt was a devoted teacher, and many of his students became prominent performers and conductors of Baroque music themselves. Martin Pearlman is one example.

Pearlman studied with Leonhardt in Amsterdam in the academic year 1967-1968 and called him “an extraordinary teacher” who would coach the performance style of this music, rather than teach technique.

Leonhardt’s influence led Pearlman to found ‘Boston Baroque’ in 1973. This was the first period instrument orchestra ever created in the United States.

I spoke with Pearlman about the many achievements of Gustav Leonhardt. Pearlman seemed very fond of his old teacher, and remembered one particular anecdote about him (after the jump).

This had to do with a time when Leonhardt was practicing for a harpsichord recital at the Palace of Versailles, on the outskirts of Paris. Versailles was the home of 17th century French King Louis XIV, the Sun King. He was a great patron of the arts, and under his rule, music flourished, and many extravagant musical and theatrical productions were presented under his very eyes at the Palace.

Sounds pretty grand to me, and so does this little anecdote about Leonhardt below.

Leonhardt recorded a lot of Johann Sebastian Bach’s music, all of his cantatas and many of his harpsichord and organ pieces.

Perhaps that lead some to see him as a kind of 20th century incarnation of Bach himself. In any case, Leonhardt got to be Bach in the 1968 costume docudrama “Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach” filmed in German by French directors Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub.

Click here to see all parts of the movie

Click here to see all parts of the movie

And I have to say, Leonhardt does look the part in this film, sitting at the harpsichord keyboard in wig and breaches.