Nicholas Parle | A Golden Age of Keyboard Music
August 25, 2024, St Brigid’s Marrickville, NSW
On an overcast afternoon in inner west Sydney, I had the pleasure of attending a rather unique concert titled A Golden Age of Keyboard Music, given by harpsichordist Nicholas Parle. He attained his undergraduate degree in music at Sydney University but has since spent his career overseas in the UK and Europe, both teaching and working with many early music orchestras. As a result, he has somewhat been forgotten as an Australian musician of world renown.
The program featured Italian, English, and Spanish composers from the Renaissance and early Baroque periods. The audience, including several current and retired professional musicians, were treated to Parle playing not just the harpsichord but also the virginal, a smaller rectangular instrument in the same family and very rarely played in concerts these days.
The concert started brightly with Bernado Storace’s Partite sopra il cinque passi. It was played on the virginal which, as Parle explained, had the smaller keyboard “child” above the larger keyboard “mother” like 2 manuals on a harpsichord. He later showed how the movable “child” keyboard could slip neatly into the left sided opening of its immovable “mother” keyboard in the virginal itself. Parle proceeded to play pieces by lesser known Italian composers Cavazzoni and Claudio Merulo, along with works by better known composers, Frescobaldi and Andrea Gabrieli. In so doing, just the “mother” itself was played, both “mother” and “child” were played with each keyboard sitting next to each other, and just the “child” itself was played with Parle down on one knee!
It was interesting to note the different timbres of the “mother” and “child” keyboards in the virginal, apart from the obvious higher pitch and softer tone of the “child”. Furthermore, this “mother” and “child” combination took on greater significance with the venue being a suburban Catholic Church. The intermittent sound of birds outside twittering in the background added to the aural experience.
The program then featured the works of English composers including Tomkins’ Ground, Byrd’s The Bells, Bull’s Pavan and Galliard “Lord Lumley”, in addition to lesser known composer Giles Farnaby’s Rosasolis. Parle demonstrated what he had earlier stated about English composers being “different”, in that they could “take the tiniest musical figure to create something amazing”. A most satisfying hour or so of mostly new discoveries finished with two works by Spanish composers, Antonio de Cabezon and Francisco Correa de Arauxo.
Parle displayed impressive finger dexterity and lovely phrasing in all the works, commensurate with his standing in the world of early keyboard music.
I would recommend the Early Music Collective Sydney concert series, curated by Karen Carey of Mrs Carey’s Concert fame, to all lovers of early music!
