Harpsichordist

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A harpsichordists is a keyboard player who plays the harpsichord.

Many Baroque composers played the harpsichord, including Johann Sebastian Bach, Domenico Scarlatti, François Couperin and Jean-Philippe Rameau.

Modern harpsichord playing can be roughly divided into three eras, beginning with the career of the influential reviver of the instrument, Wanda Landowska (1879–1959). Landowska used a harpsichord made by Pleyel of the heavy, piano-influenced type discussed above. Such instruments, though now considered inappropriate for earlier music, retain some historical importance for the works that were specifically composed for them (concertos by Falla and Poulenc, for example). An influential later group of English players using post-Pleyel instruments by Thomas Goff and the Goble family included George Malcolm and Thurston Dart.

The next generation of harpsichordists were the pioneers of modern performance on instruments built according to the authentic practices of the earlier period, following the research of such scholar-builders as Frank Hubbard and William Dowd. This generation of performers included such players as Ralph Kirkpatrick, Igor Kipnis, and Gustav Leonhardt, Zuzana Růžičková. More recently, many other outstanding harpsichordists have appeared, including Trevor Pinnock, Kenneth Gilbert, Christopher Hogwood, Ton Koopman, Hendrik Bouman, Iakovos Pappas, Jory Vinikour, Arthur Haas, Christophe Rousset, Andreas Staier, Colin Tilney, Mitzi Meyerson, and Temple Painter. Session musician Larry Knechtel played harpsichord on several popular recordings of the late 20th Century. George Martin played harpsichord in some of The Beatles songs like Piggies and In My Life.