The Plectra Pluckers

There are many who play stickily, as if they had glue between their fingers. Their touch is lethargic; they hold notes too long. Others leave the keys too soon, as if they burned.

So Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (third son of Johann Sebastian) described the pitfalls of harpsichord playing, adding that a good harpsichord performer must have "das Schnellen" (the snap), achieved by imitating with one's fingers the leg action of a chicken scratching the ground. Despite such difficulties (experts figure that not one harpsichord player in a hundred had his Schnellen properly under control), the U.S. is in the grip of a major harpsichord boom, fostered by such players as Ralph Kirkpatrick, Sylvia Marlowe, Fernando Valenti and the late great Wanda Landowska.

Although prices are stiff (as much as $6,000 for a good modern instrument), there are several thousand harpsichords scattered about the country today, where there were only 500 or so a decade ago. Until 1949, there was only one noted harpsichord maker in the U.S.; now there are half a dozen. The do-it-yourself trend has taken hold, too; in the Boston area alone, during the past two years, a dozen harpsichords have been built by amateurs. At least 50 colleges and music schools offer special harpsichord courses.

Hollywood Chic. The harpsichord boom is concentrated in college towns and big cities. Los Angeles had two 20 years ago (one of them was Sigmund Romberg's), now there are more than 30. Jose Ferrer and Edie Adams each have one as the newest thing in Hollywood chic. Pomona's retired English Professor Harlan Smedley, 53, who plays a harpsichord as "a countermeasure to all the tensions and noisiness of the day," thinks that "you can't be a pest on a harpsichord." Most harpsichord buffs are piano players who discovered baroque music on LPs; once accustomed to the sweet, incisive, brilliant tone of the harpsichord (its metal strings are plucked by leather plectra or picks, instead of being struck by hammers), they find its sound mystically satisfying. West Coast Psychologist Bob Johnson, 39, heard his first harpsichord on a recording by Yella Pessl, found, while living in Portland, that he felt "sad and in limbo because there was no harpsichord in 1,000 miles." He bought two, now holds frequent meetings for fellow harpsichordists at evening sessions in his home.

Professional people are especially harpsichord-prone. Doctors, psychiatrists, teachers and ministers are among the most active amateurs in the New York area. In New Orleans, Attorney Thomas B. Lemann finds himself hard put to explain his own harpsichordia ("Why do you prefer bourbon to Scotch?"), but admits that "there is a simplicity about it" that appeals strongly to his children, who are being raised without any knowledge of the upstart piano. Most harpsichord buffs have a strong proprietary sense. When a New Orleans amateur, Charles Hazlett, lent his harpsichord to touring Virtuoso Fernando Valenti, the visitor was amazed. Said Valenti: "It's almost like lending somebody your wife."

Do-It-Yourself. A number of small U.S. makers, working in lofts, studios and stables, lovingly turn out instruments finer than anything Europe has to offer. They are split into two mildly hostile factions: those who stick to wooden frames and those who experiment with metal. William Dowd and Frank Hubbard, both of Boston, who are wood men, plead that metal introduces a historically inaccurate effect. Nevertheless, both are admirers of Manhattan's Frank Rutkowski, 27, who uses aluminum for his frames on the grounds that metal contracts and expands less (a wooden-frame harpsichord must be tuned virtually every time it is played and whenever it is moved).

Leader of the metal faction is John Challis, pioneer U.S. manufacturer of harpsichords, who learned his trade back in the '20s from the late famed English Instrument Maker Arnold Dolmetsch. In a shop at the rear of his huge, century-old brick house in Detroit, Challis constructs about twelve harpsichords a year (last week he was working on his 230th), grosses $30,000. A Challis harpsichord costs anywhere from $900 to $5,800, is made of walnut and modern materials like Bakelite, aluminum and plastic.

In a run-down loft in Manhattan's Greenwich Village, an ex-child psychologist named Wallace Zuckermann turns out the U.S.'s only mass-produced harpsichord, an instrument that sells briskly for $750, but is derided by professionals. Last spring, Zuckermann went a step further: for a mere $150, his clients can now buy the Zuckermann Do-It-Yourself Harpsichord Kit, complete with diagrams, strings, jacks and Ivaloid plastic keys.

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