Obituary, Alan Curtis (1934-2015)

We heard last night of the death of Alan Curtis, a distinguished harpsichordist and musicologist who was at the forefront of the early music revival from the 1970s onward.

Among his most enduring legacies must surely be the rich treasure-trove of recordings committed to disc by Il Complesso Barocco, the ensemble he founded towards the end of that decade and through which he was able to bring his meticulous research to fruition in performance. Indeed, he went so far as to commission the reconstruction of several early instruments in pursuit of an authentic sound, including the first chitarrone to be built for several hundred years.

Initially a keyboard specialist, having studied the keyboard works of Sweelinck in depth for his PhD and counting the venerable Gustav Leonhardt among his teachers, he increasingly turned towards conducting later in his career - a natural enough move, given the somewhat blurred distinction between conductor and keyboardist in early music.

Within the period-performance movement as a whole, his energies were primarily devoted to Handel and Monteverdi, with a Handel series that is to this day regarded as trailblazing (released partly on DG Archiv and partly on Virgin, plus a Giulio Cesare on Naive).

He was also an early champion of the mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, who has been closely involved with Il Complesso Barocco for over a decade – some of the results of this long and affectionate collaboration are listed below.

As a researcher, musician and advocate of authentic performance practice, his legacy has been immeasurable over the course of a career characterised equally by passion, enthusiasm and academic rigour.

His complete available discography can be viewed here.