Colin Tilney, who has died aged 91, was an accomplished executant on historical keyboard instruments. He came to prominence in Britain during the 1960s wave of the early music revival. He went on to be a significant figure with regard to historically informed performance practice in his adopted Canada. Not only were his performances characterised by stylistic awareness and consummate discretion, but he was always scrupulous in ensuring that the instrument on which he played provided a suitable match for the music.
He is best remembered for his mastery of the Elizabethan composers, the Italian school (especially Frescobaldi) and German school (Froberger, Kuhnau) as well as Domenico Scarlatti, Bach and Handel, but a catalogue of more than 70 recordings covers virtually the entire harpsichord repertoire. Having at an early stage in his career played harpsichord on the 1964 recording of Stravinsky’s Rake’s Progress, under the composer’s own direction, he maintained an interest in contemporary music, commissioning and playing new works in both Britain and Canada.
The gift of an Irish harpsichord for his 21st birthday piqued a curiosity about historical instruments that would bear fruit in the decades to come. He became assiduous in seeking out originals or replicas of harpsichords, clavichords, fortepianos, chamber organs and virginals which he drew on to gain an ever better informed knowledge of the relationship of repertoire from different periods and geographical areas to the original instruments that brought this music into being.
He was especially devoted to a replica of a 1745 harpsichord by the 18th-century Flemish maker Johannes Dulcken – the only instrument he took to Canada when he emigrated in 1979.
Born in Maida Vale, north London, to Eileen (nee Graham) and Commander George Tilney of the Royal Navy, Colin grew up in Haslemere, Surrey. He was educated at Charterhouse school, in Godalming, then – following national service (when he learned Russian) – at King’s College, Cambridge, where he took a BA in modern languages and music, followed by a BMus.
While at Cambridge he studied harpsichord with Mary Potts, also the teacher of Christopher Hogwood, and with Gustav Leonhardt, the leading practitioner of the Dutch early music movement.
For a few years he worked as a repetiteur for Sadler’s Wells and the New Opera Company in London. Gravitating towards early music he appeared in the early 60s with ensembles devoted to English repertory.
Tilney’s period-instrument performances were consistently noted for their exceptional refinement, good taste and poetic sensibility. They were praised too for their crisp ornaments, stylishly discreet embellishments of repeats and a firm rhythmic control, which nevertheless avoided inflexibility.
A review of his recording of Bach’s Partitas, made when he was in his 80s, while noting the “leisurely trajectory” of his reading, also praised his ability “to make the quills on his resplendently engineered harpsichord sing”.
Eschewing mannerism or what he would have regarded as undue subjectivity, his performances further exemplified his mastery of agogic accents – made through extending the duration of notes – and meticulous attention to nuances of phrasing and articulation, as well as to such issues as the original notation and the instruments for which they were written.
The influence of Leonhardt is palpable in Tilney’s recording of Bach’s English Suites, made on a fine brass-strung Italian harpsichord of the early 18th century, where the first two suites are characterised by the Dutch master’s somewhat cerebral approach. His playing of the later suites, however, is more attuned to Bach’s dance rhythms and has greater rhythmic dynamism generally.
His continuing interest in contemporary music led to him giving the London premiere of Hans Werner Henze’s Lucy Escott Variations. He also commissioned works by Elisabeth Lutyens and the South African composer Priaulx Rainier.
He made his first tour of the US in 1971 and in 1979 moved to Canada, settling in Toronto, where he continued to teach privately and at the Royal Conservatory of Music and the University of Toronto. He worked additionally as an accompanist for the Canadian Opera Company.
To his collaborations with the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra and Toronto Consort he brought both performing skills and historical expertise, undertaking tours to Asia, Australia, Britain and elsewhere in Europe.
In 1985 he formed the chamber ensemble Les Coucous Bénévoles (The Benevolent Cuckoos), named after a descriptive keyboard piece by François Couperin. The initial purpose was to celebrate the tercentenary of Bach, Handel and Scarlatti.
Later, with the participation of the flautist Elissa Poole, the ensemble worked increasingly with contemporary Canadian composers. In 2002 he moved to Victoria, British Columbia, where he continued to teach and perform.
In addition to the erudite notes he wrote to accompany his own recordings, Tilney’s publications included an edition of harpsichord music by Antoine Forqueray and the three-volume Art of the Unmeasured Prelude (Schott), incorporating facsimiles, modern editions and commentaries documenting the harpsichord preludes of Louis Couperin, Nicolas Lebègue, Jean-Henri d’Anglebert and others.
In the early 60s Tilney had a daughter, Lucy, with his first wife, Samia Jazairy, an Algerian nurse and princess (the daughter of an emir). He had another daughter, Bee (Beatrice), with his second wife, Hilary Jones. Both marriages ended in divorce.
On Tilney’s emigration in 1979 he co-habited with a new partner, William Emigh, and they married in 2008. Emigh died in 2022, and Bee died the following year. Tilney is survived by Lucy.
• Colin Graham Tilney, harpsichordist, born 31 October 1933; died 17 December 2024
