Davitt Moroney
Davitt Moroney is one of today's top specialists in older keyboard instruments, one who has delved deeply into the music and aesthetics of French and English harpsichord music. He has perhaps the most scholarly orientation among leading early music performers, but his performances are accessible to any listener. Born in Britain of Irish-Italian ancestry, he studied in England, France, and the United States, coming to early music through scholarly study. His PhD, granted at the University of California in 1980, dealt with the choral music of Tallis and Byrd. Through the 1970s, however, he studied organ (with the Austrian player Susi Jeans) and harpsichord (with the Canadian Kenneth Gilbert), and after finishing his degree he embarked on a career as a recitalist, with Paris as his home base.
Moroney has released over 50 compact discs of keyboard music of the 16th through 17th centuries, as a soloist, chamber player, and participant in concertos, winning several Gramophone Awards and France's Grand Prix du Disque de l'Académie Charles Cros. His most ambitions project, which took 15 years of planning, research, and rehearsal, is a complete survey of the keyboard music of the great Elizabethan-era English composer William Byrd. A seven-disc set (for the price of five), on the Hyperion label, it was the first album of its kind. Meticulously researched, it includes a 45,000-word program book written by Moroney himself. The recording uses the most appropriate instruments available, including two different harpsichords, clavichord, chamber organ, the Ahrend organ of the Church-Museum des Augustins, Toulouse, and a muselar virginal especially built for the recording. Many of the recordings were made in the actual locations where Byrd himself had played his music, including Lincoln Cathedral, Ingatestone Hall in Essex, and L'Abbaye Royale de Fontevraid, France.
Despite all the research and intellectual effort involved, and the strict authenticity for which he strives, Moroney's performances are vivid and expressive, delighting contemporary audiences. One way he is known for putting his insights across to audiences is to address them directly. In the year 2000, Moroney's biography Bach: An Extraordinary Life appeared, and his critical edition of Bach's Art of the Fugue (one of over a dozen he has edited) included a new completion of that work's massive, unfinished closing fugue. Since 2001 he has been professor of music and university organist at the University of California, Berkeley.
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Discography
16 album(s) • Sorted by Bestseller
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Byrd: The Complete Keyboard Music
Classical - Released by Hyperion on Sep 1, 1999
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
J.S. Bach: Die Kunst der Fuge, BWV 1080 (The Art of Fugue) (Davitt Moroney)
Classical - Released by harmonia mundi on Nov 28, 1986
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Music from the Borel Manuscript and other sources, Vol. 2
Classical - Released by Plectra Music on Jan 1, 2008
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Music from the Borel Manuscript and other sources, Vol. 1
Classical - Released by Plectra Music on Jan 1, 2008
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Pièces pour le clavier
Chamber Music - Released by Tempéraments - Radio France on Oct 28, 1996
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
L'Œuvre d'orgue
Chamber Music - Released by Tempéraments - Radio France on Nov 1, 1995
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Le Clavecin Français: François Couperin, L'Art de Toucher le Clavecin & Second Livre de Pièces de Clavecin
Classical - Released by Plectra Music on May 23, 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
François Couperin: Le Clavecin Français - Quatrième Livre de Pièces de Clavecin
Classical - Released by Plectra Music on May 2, 2018
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Purcell: Ayres & Songs from Orpheus Britannicus, Harmonia Sacra & Complete Organ Music
Jill Feldman, Nigel North, Sarah Cunningham, Davitt Moroney
Classical - Released by Arcana on Apr 14, 2017
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Le Clavecin Francais: Francois Couperin, Pieces de Clavecin, Premier Livre
Classical - Released by Plectra Music on May 28, 2012
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Couperin: Complete Harpsichord Works (Davitt Moroney)
Chamber Music - Released by harmonia mundi on Dec 29, 2009
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Le Clavecin Français: François Couperin: Troisième Livre de Pièces de Clavecin
Classical - Released by Plectra Music, Inc. on May 27, 2016
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bach: French Suites
Classical - Released by Warner Classics on Nov 1, 1999
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Le Clavecin Français: Louis Marchand & Louis-Nicolas Clérambault
Classical - Released by Plectra Music on Jan 1, 2007
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bach: Six Sonatas for Harpsichord and Violin
Classical - Released by Warner Music Group - X5 Music Group on Jan 11, 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bach: Flute Sonatas, Vol. 1
Davitt Moroney, Janet See, Mary Springfels
Classical - Released by harmonia mundi on May 10, 1991
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo