10/10
Amelia Romano
Self-released, 2023
As I began listening to Amelia Romano’s outstanding disc, Levers Engaged, I felt compelled to look up the difference between lever and pedal harps just to be certain I understood what she does as a performer. I came across this:
“If you intend to play the genuine, unmodified classical repertoire…you will have to play a pedal harp…Yes, you can play arrangements of classical music on lever harp…but it is not the real thing.”
Well, Romano has shown in exquisite taste and with artful technique that the classical repertoire can sound very much like the “real thing” on a lever harp, and with an added intimacy and freshness that brings the music alive in unexpected ways.
Take the sweet music-box-like Toccata by the classical era composer Pietro Paradies. In it, beats or measures are added to accommodate lever shifts, and yet the slightly mechanical sound adds a rawness that serves to make Romano more authentic and real as if in the room with us. Rather than hiding the mechanics, we’re invited into what it takes to make music.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hear this as a gimmick at all, but rather a quality of sound that enhances the performance, returning us to an earlier time when nearly everyone made music with what was on hand. Taken to its logical next step, Essence of Ruby by Brandee Youngeris chock full of percussion while Sergei Prokofiev’s Prelude in C takes on an airy quality of flight, pure as a biplane lifting off.
Romano underscores the expressive range of the lever harp in the flagrantly sensual Beige Nocturne by Pearl Chertok as well as the mystery and plainspoken aspect of Bartok’s An Evening in the Village. Most telling of her mastery of the instrument, though, is when playing Marcia Dickstein’s arrangements of Scarlatti sonatas, where precision and dexterity are requisite. She gives the impression of lightness on every note; it’s exquisite.
Two contemporary works by Lou Harrison and Philip Glass exhibit Romano’s deftness with styles, and the final work, Alannah Thornburgh’s Branjo, rounds out the perfect repertoire choice.
A note here that Romano has made her arrangements available in a sheet music collection. That along with this impressive album present the lever harp as not only a valid but natural classical voice.
