Overview

The Benton Fletcher collection, housed at Fenton House in London, contains an outstanding selection of early keyboard instruments including harpsichords, spinets, virginals, clavichords and pianos. Considering its small size, this collection includes a remarkable selection of extremely rare sixteenth-or early seventeenth-century Italian examples, along with rare seventeenth-century English virginals. The instruments range from the elegantly simple to the exquisitely extravagant. Collectively the provide a fascinating history of the craft of early keyboard-making. Each of the 19 instruments in the collection is carefully described in terms of manufacture, content, musical components, history and technical data, and each is illustrated; often by specially commissioned photographs. Hear the beautiful sounds of early keyboard instruments in a specially recorded CD that comes free with this book. The CD contains 30 individual pieces of music played on many of the instruments in the collection by early keyboard specialist Terence Charleston.

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9781905400188

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Mimi Waitzman has been curator of the Benton Fletcher Collection since 1984, she also makes, repairs and conserves early keyboard instruments and teaches at the Royal College of Music. Born in New York City, she pursued studies in harpsichord performance and musicology at McGill University in Montreal and at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor). She has written numerous articles and reviews and was a major contributor to The Care of Historic Musical Instruments. Terence Charleston is a specialist performer on early keyboard instruments. He enjoys a varied career as a solo harpsichordist and chamber musician and has toured extensively within Europe, as well as to Japan and the USA. Since 1995 he has been a member of the ensemble London Baroque. He has recorded for many labels including Naxos, Harmonia Mundi, Bis, Channel Classics, ASV and Deux-Elles.

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