When I was about ten years old, I went with my family and my piano teacher to visit a friend in Philadelphia who owned a harpsichord which he had built from a kit. The moment I sat down to play, I was completely in love with it. Nothing had ever felt as natural to me. I knew then and there that I wanted one of my own. A few years later, the organist of the church we attended brought his own instrument to the church, and I spent almost as much time playing it as I did playing the Casavant organ. Around the same time, my parents bought me a Zuckerman clavichord, which I played on daily. Once at a visit to the home of two local harpsichordists, I tried every instrument of their extensive collection. There was a Challis, a Hubbard & Dowd, and a Sperrhake. I remember playing a copy of the big black and gold Dulcken from the Smithsonian for a long, long time. In my college years I played on a number of fine instruments by William Dowd, Keith Hill, and Andy Dupree. Later I acquired two instruments: a Zuckerman "Z-box" from 1958 which had been retrofitted with a wooden keyboard and jacks, and a "King of Sweden" clavichord built from a Zuckerman kit by Steven Bartley.
In the summer of 2006, I asked Peter Redstone of Claremont, Virginia to build me a harpsichord. Peter was the logical choice because he is as enamoured of the native English school of harpsichord - making as I am. This instrument was delivered on August 12, 2008, and it is a pure joy to play.
the original:
Thomas Barton, 1709, in the Russell Collection, Edinburgh
my instrument:
Peter Redstone No. 95, 2008, after Barton
