I was very pleasantly surprised this morning to see that a performance of Bach’s Concerto in A minor for four harpsichords was featured in CNN’s 5 Things to know for today for April 9, 2021.

When I played the YouTube video by the Netherlands Bach Society, I was immediately transported to the nights of October 26-27, 2007, when my dear husband Carl Crosier programmed an all Bach-Vivaldi harpsichord concerto concert for one, two, three, and four harpsichords.

I already wrote a post about it, called “Insane harpsichord madness,” which includes the whole of Steven Mark’s excellent article in the local newspaper about the concert series and our memories of it with Mark Russell, with whom I had dinner along with Jieun Kim Newland and her husband, Ben, when they first arrived in Hawaii.

… we reminisced about the four harpsichord concert that was held at the Lutheran Church of Honolulu—one of the craziest and most insane ideas Carl Crosier ever dreamed up! Even Carl called it “Absolutely insane!”

“Absolutely insane!” is not the way one would typically describe a concert of Bach’s music.

But that’s how Carl Crosier, conductor of the Bach Chamber Orchestra, describes this weekend’s concert at the Lutheran Church of Honolulu

The concert will feature, for the first time in Hawaii, four of Bach’s harpsichord concertos: one each for solo, duo, triple and quadruple harpsichords. The accumulation of so many of the keyboard instruments, which date back to 17th- and 18th-century Europe, was no mean feat.

“It was difficult to find not only four instruments that are reasonably compatible with each other, but also harpsichordists who can play all this stuff,” he said.

The program was:

Bach, Concerto in A major, BWV 1055
for one harpsichord, strings and continuo
Vivaldi, Concerto in B minor, op. 3, no. 10
for four violins, strings and continuo
Bach, Concerto in C major, BWV 1061
for two harpsichords, strings and continuo
intermission
Bach, Concerto in D minor, BWV 1063,
for three harpsichords, strings and continuo
Bach, Concerto in D major, BWV 1064
for three violins, strings and continuo
Bach, Concerto in A minor, BWV 1065
for four harpsichords, strings and continuo

Performers were Carl Crosier, Grant Mack, Evelyn Lance, Evelyn Zuckerman and Mark Russell. As you may recall, Carl never got a break—he played in five of the concertos, conducted the sixth, and along with Mark Russell, TRIED to tune all those harpsichords before the concert and during intermission. But under the hot lights and with all those bodies in the room, it was nigh impossible.

Insane is the only word for it!

In case you want to download a PDF of the program, you can do so here:

I just now discovered that the photos were missing from the post, so I’m posting them here.

The line to get into the concerts went well out the door and up the ramp!

Ah, those were the days!