| Trevor Pinnock |
Trevor Pinnock in December 2006
|
| Background information |
| Born |
December 16 1946 (1946--) (age 60) |
| Origin |
London |
| Genre(s) |
Baroque music, classical music |
| Occupation(s) |
Harpsichordist, conductor |
| Instrument(s) |
Harpsichord, organ, fortepiano |
| Years active |
1966 - present |
| Label(s) |
CRD, Archiv Produktion, CBS Masterworks, Channel Classics, Hänssler, Avie |
Associated
acts |
The English Concert, The European Brandenburg Ensemble |
| Notable instrument(s) |
| Double manual harpsichord by David Jacques
Way, Stonington, Connecticut, 1982, after Hemsch and others, c.1755[1] |
Trevor David Pinnock CBE (born December 16, 1946) is
an English conductor and harpsichordist. He is best known for directing period-performance orchestra The English
Concert from the harpsichord for over 30 years in baroque and early
classical music.
Biography and career
Early life
Trevor Pinnock was born in Canterbury, where his grandfather had run a Salvation Army band. His father was Kenneth Alfred Thomas Pinnock, a publisher, his mother, Joyce Edith, née Muggleton, was an amateur singer.[2][3] He became a chorister at Canterbury Cathedral
when he was 7, attending the choir school from 1956 to 1961 and later Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys.[4][2] After receiving instruction in piano and organ, he served as a church organist; by the time he
was 15, he had begun to play the harpsichord.[5] At 19, he entered the Royal College of Music
in London, where he held a Foundation Scholarship for organ and later studied
harpsichord, winning the major prizes for performance on both instruments.[6][2] His teachers were Ralph Downes and
Millicent Silver.[7] A strong early influence was Gustav Leonhardt, though he
did not study with him.[6]
Directing from the harpsichord
As a harpsichordist, he toured Europe with the Academy of St. Martin in
the Fields.[8] While a student
at the RCM, he was told by the registrar, John Stainer, that it would be impossible to make a living as a harpsichordist.[6] To maximise his possibilities for work early on in his career, he included in his repertoire
not only the regular baroque repertoire, but also modern harpsichord concertos
including Roberto Gerhard's concerto for harpsichord, percussion and strings,
Manuel de Falla's concerto for harpsichord, Frank
Martin's Petite symphonie concertante for harp, harpsichord,
piano and double string orchestra and Francis Poulenc's Concert Champêtre.[7][9]
He made his London debut at the Royal
Festival Hall in 1966 with the Galliard Harpsichord Trio, which he co-founded with Stephen Preston, flute, and Anthony Pleeth, cello. At this
stage, they were playing baroque music on modern instruments.[6] His solo harpsichord debut was in 1968 at the Purcell
Room in London.[10] In November 1972 the
Galliard Trio expanded to become The English Concert, an orchestra specialising in
performances of baroque and early classical music on period
instruments.[6][11] They initially started with seven people but soon grew in
size. The decision to move to period performance was taken for a
number of reasons:[12]
| “ |
What I really had in mind was a journey of discovery into the unknown. Although I felt
there were excellent interpretations of baroque music performed on modern instruments, I sensed that we'd come to the end of the
road - and yet I knew that there were still discoveries to be made. I was thinking about the interesting experiments made by
Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Gustav Leonhardt, although I knew we'd have to experiment
in our own way. It was a huge challenge; playing period instruments wasn't as easy as it is today, and finding out their secrets
was a difficult process. Nowadays an extraordinarily high technical level has been achieved and the upcoming generations don't
have any of the problems we pioneers faced. We cleared the way. |
” |
|
—Trevor Pinnock
|
Trevor Pinnock at the harpsichord
Trevor Pinnock was at the forefront of the period performance movement and the revitalisation of the baroque repertoire; the
reaction of Leonard Bernstein to his performances is typical: "In my opinion, the work
of the conductor Trevor Pinnock in this area is particularly exciting - his performances of Bach and Handel make me jump out of
my seat!"[13]
The English Concert's London debut was at the English Bach Festival in 1973.[14] In 1975, Pinnock played the harpsichord in the first ever performance of
Rameau's last opera, Les Boréades,
under John Eliot Gardiner.[15] He toured North America with The English Concert for the
first time in 1983; he had earlier spent two periods as Artist in Residence at Washington University, St.
Louis.[7] His debut at The Proms was in 1980; he later directed Handel's Solomon in
1986 and many other large-scale works with his orchestra.[8] They toured worldwide and made numerous recordings, Pinnock directing "with a characteristic
energy and enthusiasm which are readily communicated to audiences."[14] The Choir of the English Concert was at first an ad-hoc group of singers assembled as needed,
originally in 1983 for the first performance this century of Rameau's
Acante et Céphise; it became a standing choir in the mid-1990s at the time they
were performing Bach's Mass in B minor. This allowed the ensemble to regularly
perform baroque operas, oratorios and other vocal works; a
series of Bach's major choral works followed.[16][17]
He directed The English Concert, usually from the harpsichord or chamber organ,[18] for over 30 years, deciding, with the other orchestra members,
to hand over to violinist Andrew Manze in 2003.[12][19] He explained the decision as follows:[20]
| “ |
There are other things I want to develop — or rather come back to. Having done The
English Concert for 18–20 weeks per year, and guest conducting the rest of the time, I'd sacrificed playing the harpsichord
rather more than I wanted to. I had to make a decision to move forward: there were certain solo projects I wanted to do, and I
wanted to make the decision now rather than wait until after I am 60 and it's too late to do half of them. [...] There's a wealth
of keyboard repertoire I want to revisit. I especially want to go back to the rich English repertoire such as Tomkins, Byrd, Bull
and Gibbons. |
” |
|
—Trevor Pinnock
|
New conducting projects
He made his Metropolitan Opera debut in 1988 conducting Handel's opera Giulio Cesare, the same year he made his debut at
the Salzburg Festival with Handel's Messiah.[2][8] In
1989 he founded The Classical Band in New York, signing an 18-disc recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon before the ensemble's first rehearsal.[21] He led the group in performances of the classical repertoire from Haydn to Mendelssohn on period instruments,
including playing as fortepiano soloist.[22] After a disappointing series of concerts, he resigned in 1990 and was succeeded by Bruno
Weil.[23]
From 1991-1996 he was artistic director and principal conductor of the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, a group he had
first directed in 1985.[24] He subsequently
served as its artistic advisor during the 1996-1997 and 1997-1998 seasons, including a tour of the USA with the performance and
recording of Beethoven's 1st and 5th piano concertos
with Grigory Sokolov as soloist.[25]
He conducted Opera Australia and Michael
Chance in Handel's Rinaldo at the
Sydney Opera House in 2005.[26] He also played William Babell's virtuoso harpsichord
transcriptions with some of the arias (which Babell claimed were of Handel's actual improvisations).[27] He is to return to conduct Handel's Orlando.[28]
With the European Brandenburg Ensemble, a baroque orchestra founded by him to mark
his 60th birthday, he is touring Europe, Asia and America in 2007. Founded to perform Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, they are playing a wide variety of the core baroque repertoire.[29][30][31][32]
Guest conducting
He has appeared frequently as a guest conductor with many of the world's leading orchestras, including the Boston, Birmingham,
San Francisco and Detroit
symphony orchestras, the Saint Paul, Los
Angeles and Mito[33] chamber
orchestras, the Freiburger Barockorchester, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra,[34] Mozarteum Orchestra of Salzburg,
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra, and at the
Tanglewood, Mostly Mozart and Salzburg festivals.[14] He is a
regular guest conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and
Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie, and principal guest conductor of the
Royal Academy of Music's Baroque Orchestra and Chorus.[35][28]
Recent years
Trevor Pinnock directs the European Brandenburg Ensemble
In 2004 he commissioned modern harpsichord music by English composer
John Webb: Surge (2004), "is built up over an implacable rhythmic
repeat-figure. Though neither is explicitly tonal, each skilfully avoids the merely percussive effect that the harpsichord's
complex overtones can all too easily impart to more densely dissonant music." He has also played the same composer's Ebb
(2000), which "comprises a spasmodic discourse against a manic background of descending scale patterns like a kind of
out-of-kilter change-ringing."[36]
Trevor Pinnock and Maxim Vengerov toured together in 2000, with Vengerov taking up the
baroque violin for the first time and Pinnock taking up the modern grand piano. These concerts consisted of a first half of harpsichord and baroque violin, followed by a 2nd half of
piano and modern violin.[37][38]
Today he divides his time between performing as a harpsichordist and conducting both modern- and period-instrument
orchestras.[39]
Degrees and honours
From the Royal College of Music: ARCM Hons (organ) 1965, FRCM 1996. From the
Royal Academy of Music: Hon. FRAM 1988.[10]
He has received honorary doctorates from the University of Ottawa (D.
University) in 1993,[40] The University of Kent (DMus) in 1995,[41] and the University of Sheffield (DMus) in
2005.[42] He was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the Queen's Birthday Honours in 1992 and an Officier of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1998.[2]
Recordings
Each original release is listed. Years are those of recording.[43]
Solo harpsichord
- J. S. Bach: toccatas BWV 910-916, fantasia in C
minor BWV 906, chromatic fantasia and fugue BWV 903, prelude and fugue in A minor BWV 894 (1977-1978)[44]
- J. S. Bach: Partitas for harpsichord BWV 825-830 (1985)
- J. S. Bach: Partitas for harpsichord BWV 825-830, Hänssler Classics (1998-1999)
- J. S. Bach: Goldberg Variations BWV 988 (1980)
- J. S. Bach: Italian Concerto BWV 971, concerto after Vivaldi (op.3
no.9) BWV 972 and French Overture BWV 831 (1979)
- J. S. Bach: French suite no.5 BWV 816, English suite no.3 BWV 808, chromatic fantasia and fugue BWV 903 and preludes and fugues
BWV 846, 876, 881 from The Well-Tempered Clavier (1992)
- Handel: harpsichord suites and chaconne HWV 434, 441, 436, 438, 435
- Rameau: Complete harpsichord
works, CRD records
- Rameau: Les Cyclopes (Suites in A minor and E minor), Avie records (2005)
- Scarlatti: Sonatas Kk. 46, 87, 95, 99, 124, 201, 204a, 490, 491, 492, 513, 520,
521; CRD
- Scarlatti: Sonatas Kk. 460, 461, 478, 479, 502, 516, 517, 518, 519, 529, 544, 545, 546, 547 (1986)
- Gibbons: The Woods so Wild (Vanguard 72021)
Harpsichord concertos
