She still has the instrument. “I couldn’t part with it,” she says. “I’m attached to it.”
Jonas does not use the decades-old harpsichord in her many local concerts. But she treasures it as a reminder of her musical beginnings in Europe, where she studied with the late, famed Wanda Landowska, considered by many to be the fountainhead of the 20th-century harpsichord revival.
Jonas, herself, has become a name player in the world of harpsichord, a keyboard instrument in which the strings are plucked rather than struck.
She has performed as a guest soloist with the Cleveland and Cincinnati symphonies, as well as orchestras in Jerusalem, Oxford and Strasbourg. Under the auspices of Ohio State University, she directed the Put-in-Bay Harpsichord Festival, which she also founded.
Here, she has performed in such venues as the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, Stanford University, San Francisco State University and the Goethe Institute. For 12 years, she has performed at the Episcopal Church of Saint Mary the Virgin in San Francisco; her next concert there is Sunday, Jan. 5.
The harpsichord, which reached its peak of popularity between the 16th and 18th centuries, might seem an unusual choice for a young musician living in this era. For Jonas, who began her musical career playing the piano, it was a natural next step.
“It so happened that the music that I loved particularly, which is Bach and Mozart and other baroque composers, is particularly suitable for the harpsichord,” she says.
But Jonas, it turns out, has plucked her instrument’s strings for more than the Goldberg Variations.
Among her several recordings is a rendition of the Six Biblical Sonatas by 18th-century German composer and keyboard artist Johann Kuhnau. These dynamic, expressive arrangements include interpretations of Jacob’s wedding, Jacob’s death and burial and the combat between David and Goliath.
In writing the cassette’s liner notes, which help listeners understand the Biblical Sonatas, Jonas consulted with scholars Rabbi Jacob and Jo Milgrom, who are formerly of Berkeley and now live in Israel.
“They went over the whole text with me and corrected the text where it was not accurate,” Jonas says. “They changed it in such a way that it was really correct.”
Jonas, who prefers not to give her age, believes the harpsichord is a more versatile instrument than most people realize. She has, for example, played contemporary and children’s music on it.
But she agrees it is probably best suited for period pieces from past centuries, and for those, she believes, the instrument is gaining fans.
“It’s very popular and well-liked,” she says. “The trend to play early music is tremendous.”