Re: Re: Playing the Harp in Movies

[barbara-brundage]

>What about the wonderful “David Copperfield” by BBC? Rosa Dartle plays the harp for Steerforth.

>Seemed to me she was actually playing

If you mean the version that starred Daniel Radcliffe as little David and Maggie Smith as Betsy Trotwood, you made me curious so I went and watched it. The actress (can’t remember who she is, but fairly well known BBC actress) obviously spent a lot of time working on the playing bits and she was very well coached, but there are several places where the left hand comes unsynchronized from the soundtrack. and while she’s always playing something in the right place in the right hand (really good for an actress) the patterns are not always the same as the notes that are heard. For instance she plays a scale with the notes coming exactly on the right beats, but what is heard is a broken arpeggio pattern.

Still, it’s about the best fake harp playing I’ve seen, and I doff my chapeau to the work it must have taken.