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Monika Knoblochova: "there are lots of pieces still waiting for me".

Article Excerpt
The harpsichord player Monika Knoblochova is one of the most striking representatives of the young generation of Czech musicians. Her field of active professional interests is unusually broad; in addition to the traditional harpsichord repertoire of early music she includes an admirable number of pieces from the 20th- and even 21st century in her programmes, appears in a number of chamber ensembles specialising in both Baroque and modern music, and has started performing on the hammerklavier (fortepiano) as well in recent years.

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Monika, the first musical instrument that you studied was the piano, and we know that for a long time you had ambitions to study percussion as well. What ultimately led you to the harpsichord?

When I was studying piano at the Prague Conservatory I already had a special fondness for Baroque music, which for me meant above all J. S. Bach. And at the same time I liked the sound of the harpsichord. I actually started playing harpsichord only in the last two years at the conservatory, where it was a compulsory subject for pianists. But what provided the decisive impulse for me were the courses taught by the American harpsichordist Lucy Hallman-Rusell; after those I decided to devote myself entirely to harpsichord. My first steps--even before I joined Prof. Giedre Luksaite-Mrazkova's class at the Prague Academy of Performing arts--were to study in consultation form with John Toll in Dresden and at the same time studies with Prof. Hallman-Rusell in Wurzburg.

The harpsichord repertoire, orientated mainly to 17th- and 18th-century music, can seem much narrower than the piano repertoire, which has the whole Romantic period (not to mention 20th-century music) as well. Don't you sometimes miss the modern piano and the music that can't be played on the harpsichord?

The harpsichord repertoire actually includes music of the 20th and 21st centuries, although I didn't get it until later. Romantic pieces never appealed to me very much, not even at the time when I was playing modern piano. As I said, my favourite composer was Bach, and then nothing much until the impressionists. Once I really did miss the piano, and that was at the very beginning when because of the difference in touch and musical thinking Professor Toll recommended I stop playing the piano entirely for a year. Back then I would sometimes escape back to the piano, to Ravel, into another class for at least ten minutes. In that phase I missed the piano, but later I didn't.

After beginning in Dresden and Wurzburg you continued with harpsichord as your main instrument at the Music Faculty of the Prague Academy of Performing Arts (HAMU). The hammerklavier, which has recently become another professional interest of yours, isn't taught at any of the Prague music schools. How and where did you first get interested in the instrument?

When you put the question in that way, the answer is rather surprising. In fact I first encountered the instrument here in the Czech Republic, at the Academy. In the nineties the school had a...

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