Hapsichord Music of the Baroque and early Classic Periods

Welcome

Klaus-Aymar de la Beaujardière was born in 1960 of a German- French family. At the age of 8 years he began to play the piano. After completing his secondary education in 1980, he attended lessons in tone composition, basso continuo and piano under the tuition of the composer Reinhold Weber at the Baden Conservatory in Karlsruhe. In 1984 he began to study for his degree at the Robert-Schumann- Musical High School in Düsseldorf under the tuition of Professor Günther Becker for Composition and for the harpsichord Prof.Dr. Werner Smigelski. He finished the degree in 1988/89 with the state examination resulting in a diploma in harpsichord. He has been a free-lancing harpsichordist since then, performing in numerous solo concerts in various cities. In 1995 he made his first appearance in a series of Aton-concerts in Düsseldorf. In his recitals he draws attention to an uncompromising individual interpretation, where the passion and overflowing vertuosity submits to a very finely developed sence of form.

His repertoire concentrates on solo pieces for the harpsichord originating from the 18 hundreds: The later French suite (Francois Couperin, Jean Philippe Rameau, Nicolas Pancrace Royer, Jaques Duphly, Claude-Bénigne Balbastre), selected compositions from Domenico Scarlatti and Johann Sebastian Bach as well as Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (Württemberg Sonatas and collections for connoiseurs and lovers), Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (a collection of middle and late sonatas). A series of CDs as well as a number of music-videos with works out of his repertoire is published. The instrument used mostly for the concerts and recordings has two keyboards each with five octaves. It is a copy based on the original wich stands in the Castle Sondershausen in Thüringen. The original was created at the beginning of the 18 hundreds by the „piano maker“ Johann Heinrich Harras. He originated from a family of harpsichord builders from Großbreitenbach in Thüringen.