George Malcolm

George Malcolm CBE (28 February 1917 – 10 October 1997) was an English harpsichordist, organist and conductor. Malcolm's first instrument was the piano, and his first teacher was a nun who recognised his talent and recommended him to the Royal College of Music. Malcolm went on to study at Balliol College, Oxford. During the Second World War he was a bandleader. After the war, he developed a career as a harpsichordist, although he continued to make occasional appearances as a pianist in chamber music, notably with the Dennis Brain Wind Ensemble.[1] In the 1950s he participated in annual concerts featuring four harpsichordists, the three others being Thurston Dart, Denis Vaughan and Eileen Joyce. In 1957 this group also recorded two of Vivaldi's Concertos for Four Harpsichords, one in a Bach arrangement, with the Pro Arte Orchestra under Boris Ord. Malcolm, Dart and Joyce also recorded Bach's Concerto in C for Three Harpsichords. In 1967, he appeared with Eileen Joyce, Geoffrey Parsons and Simon Preston in a 4-harpsichord concert with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields under Neville Marriner in the Royal Festival Hall.[2] As well as Baroque works, he played modern harpsichord repertoire including his own compositions "Bach before the Mast" (a humorous set of variations on The Sailor's Hornpipe in the style of Johann Sebastian Bach), and "Variations on a Theme of Mozart". Like Wanda Landowska, he favoured rather large 'revival' harpsichords with pedals, built in a modern style, that now are seen as unauthentic for Baroque music.[3] While aspects of his interpretations may seem outdated by the standards of today's historically informed performance practice, his recordings and live performances introduced many people to the harpsichord and influenced a number of today's musicians.