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Dr. Joyce Lindorff was one of the first to play Nelly’s New Harpsichord.
Below is a transcript of only part of Dr. Joyce Lindorff’s interview with librarian Samantha Snyder. You can hear the full interview in this episode of Conversations at the Washington Library.
Learn More About the Harpsichord
I came to Mount Vernon specifically to work with the new reproduction of Nelly Custis's harpsichord, which is so special and which is so unique, not only for itself but also because her music resides here in the Library. It's very exciting to be here. The way it started for me was John Watson, who is the recently retired Conservator and Curator of Musical Instruments at Colonial Williamsburg and built this new harpsichord, is a very long-standing colleague of mine. We've had a chance to work together before and recently I had a similar fellowship at Williamsburg, which allowed me to work in their library with items that matched some of the instruments that are there.
This [Washington Library Fellowship] offered another opportunity to do something similar but maybe even more specifically related, of course, because it was Nelly Custis's harpsichord, and Nelly Custis's music. The way I found out about the fellowship was John alerted me that there was such a thing available. I was so thrilled and excited about it. I immediately looked it up and learned that I could apply for the Library fellowship, which I did. It was just really thrilling to be admitted for this very special month, which is just, unfortunately, coming to an end.
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Nelly Custis's music books, part of the Washington Library special's collection.
The interior of one of Nelly Custis's music books.
I found that there were some very interesting markings in the books. I did not know that. I did know the titles of the collections that were here. I knew that there were bound volumes. I pretty much had done the work of finding out what was here, of course. But what I did not know and what was I think the most exciting thing about going into the vault and actually studying her original music was that she made markings in her music, which really was fascinating because it helped us to understand what her musical life was in a very real way.
When I teach music to my own students, I put in fingering. I'll occasionally put in a tempo marking or a metronome marking and Nelly did that or her teacher did that. When I opened up these volumes there were some pieces that were heavily marked up. That tells us that she absolutely worked with these particular pieces, so that's very exciting.
When people ask, "Could an amateur player, a young woman in the parlor in those days, could she have really played this very virtuosic music?" I can now answer, "Absolutely, yes." One of the reasons I can answer so definitively is because I've seen the exercises that were given to her, and it seems her teacher wrote at the top, "To be practiced in every key."
We have several volumes of Nelly's hand-copied musical exercises, popular songs, and technical notes in the Mount Vernon collection. Dr. Joyce Lindorff studied these documents as part of her fellowship project.
Notation inside one of Nelly Custis's music books, MVLA.
The most interesting thing that I found from looking at the original books was the fact that Nelly was a very detailed artist. I can learn from her fingering. I've actually been practicing her fingerings and it's almost like getting inside the mind of somebody who lived 200 years ago. As a keyboard player, it's my decision on how the phrases go, how the music will sound, what the articulations will be, so for me, as a performer to be able to have access to another performer's fingering and markings in the music, makes me feel very close to this player. It's as though I know her in this very musical way. That's very powerful for me.
A selection of George Frideric Handel's Water Music, as performed by Dr. Joyce Lindorff on a unique reproduction harpsichord at George Washington's Mount Vernon.
