When did people first conceive the idea of combining a plucked instrument with a keyboard? What kind of music was written for it then — and what is written for it today? How does the Italian harpsichord differ from the Flemish one, and why are two manuals needed?

Elena Khurgina explores all these questions and more in her lecture recital HPSCHD: From the Renaissance to the Present.

Program

Carlo Gesualdo (1566–1613) – Canzon francese del Principe

John Bull (1562/63–1628) – Chromatic Pavan and Chromatic Galliard

Giles Farnaby (?–1640) – Giles Farnaby’s Dreame from the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book

Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre (1665–1729) – Livre I

Prélude – Allemande – Courante – Chaconne (rondeau) – Menuet, 1707

Antoine Forqueray (1672–1745) / Jean-Baptiste-Antoine Forqueray (1699–1782) – Cinquième Suite in C minor: Jupiter, 1747

Ursula Mamlok (1923–2016) – Three Bagatelles, 1987

Tōru Takemitsu (1930–1996) – Rain Dreaming, 1986

György Ligeti (1923–2006) – Passacaglia ungherese, 1978

*Dominik Wills (1999) – New Composition, 2025