Celebrating Leopold Widhalm (1722 – 1786)

Celebrating a violin by Leopold Widhalm (1722 – 1786) of Nuremberg, Bavaria. This violin, which is the property of a renowned collector, will be used by Peter Sheppard Skaerved, to record Schubert Sonatas (1816), in December 2015 The violin has an elegant, almost alarmingly precisely cut fruit-wood scroll.  

From the Old Notebooks: Summer 2003

From the Old Notebooks: Spring 2005

From the Old Notebooks. Denmark Summer 1992

Bassano, Maggini, British Museum 26 11 15

Bassano, Maggini, British Museum 26 11 15 Giovanni Bassano-Ricercata 2 (1585) Peter Sheppard Skaerved (Maggini) Outtake from film made in the Kunstkabinet of the Waddesdon Room, British Museum, London 16 11 15 An astonishing morning. Filming a ricercar from Venice (1585), next to a cabinet from Milan (ca 1580), on a wondrous Maggini (Brescia). An […]

Review: Telemann Fantasies (Fanfare)

A note: All that I ask is that people listen. When they listen carefully, the response will be complex, and I like that! Two more things. I chose 416 A, because, I like it, and ahem, I did record the Telemann Fantasies, for Meridian, in July 1992. Enjoy-then buy the disc! http://www.divine-art.co.uk/CD/23203info.htm Fanfare Magazine-Review December 2015 […]

From the Old Notebooks. March 2002

The challenge of the virtuosi/improvisers

There’s a challenge for us all. The 19th century was the highwater mark of the improvising virtuosi. It was their bread and butter, the very stuff of what we now call ‘classical music’. By 1836 Pierre Baillot noted (in l’Art du Violon) that young players did not know how to improvise any more. So here’s […]

Watching. Listening. November 2015

Birds of my Childhood

A new project began to emerge this week: the musical element is on the way.