Ralph Leonard Kirkpatrick (/kɜːrkˈpætrɪk/; June 10, 1911 – April 13, 1984) was an American harpsichordist and musicologist, widely known for his chronological catalog of Domenico Scarlatti's keyboard sonatas as well as for his performances and recordings.
He studied with Nadia Boulanger and harpsichord revival pioneer Wanda Landowska in Paris, with Arnold Dolmetsch in Haslemere, Heinz Tiessen in Berlin, and Günther Ramin in Leipzig.
In January 1933 he made his European debut in Berlin performing Johann Sebastian Bach's Goldberg Variations.
A Guggenheim Fellowship awarded in 1936 enabled him to study seventeenth- and eighteenth-century manuscripts and sources in Europe.
In 1938 he inaugurated a festival of Baroque music at the Governor's Palace in Williamsburg, Virginia and continued as adviser and principal performer for a number of years.
published his edition of Bach's Goldberg Variations, which includes extensive discussion of ornamentation, fingering, phrasing, tempo, dynamics, and general interpretation.
He was invited to inaugurate the Ernest Bloch Visiting Professorship at the University of California, Berkeley in 1964 where he gave a series of lectures and performances on Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier.
[3] During the 1960s, Kirkpatrick made recordings of the complete harpsichord works of Johann Sebastian Bach (Archiv).
He toured widely with the violinist Alexander Schneider and they recorded violin and harpsichord sonatas by Bach and Mozart.