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Alan Curtis (harpsichordist)
American musician / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Alan Curtis (November 17, 1934 – July 15, 2015) was an American harpsichordist, musicologist, and conductor of baroque opera.
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Born in Mason, Michigan, Curtis graduated from studies at the University of Illinois, and received his PhD in 1960 with a dissertation on the keyboard music of Sweelinck. He then relocated to Amsterdam to work with Gustav Leonhardt,[1] with whom he subsequently recorded a number of Bach's concerti for harpsichord. In the 1960s and 1970s, he made a number of recordings of solo harpsichord music[2] including albums dedicated to the keyboard music of Rameau and the works of Johann Sebastian Bach, such as his recording of the Goldberg Variations made on a 1728 Christian Zell harpsichord.
Following an academic career divided between UC Berkeley and Europe, Curtis devoted his time to performing dramatic music from Monteverdi to Mozart. As a student in the 1950s, he was the first modern harpsichordist to examine problems surrounding Louis Couperin's unmeasured preludes for harpsichord, and to commission the first modern copy of a chitarrone and the first chromatic (split-key) harpsichord constructed in the 20th century. He also researched operas from the baroque and pre-baroque eras, using period instruments and authentic choreography.[3]
In the late 1970s, Curtis founded the European ensemble Il complesso barocco, with which he made a number of commercial recordings for such labels as Virgin Classics,[4][5] Deutsche Grammophon (Archiv),[6][7][8] and Deutsche Harmonia Mundi.[9]