Dives and Lazarus

[Alison]

Has anybody played Vaughan Williams’ “Dives and Lazaurus”? There’s a lot to do and I only have three weeks before the first rehearsal.

[carolyn-lund]

Hi Alison,

I played this piece a few months ago, and I agree with you – sometimes the notation is a little awkward!

[Alison]

Thanks, I’m okay now thanks to some real help with those chords from another harpist, so I have made real progress, even in 3 days and yes it is a lovely piece.

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

One thought is, if he wrote chords with a sixth on the bottom for the left hand, like c-a-c-f, you can leave out the higher c, the doubled bass note so you can easily play it 124. He did that a lot in the Sea Symphony.

[janelle-lake]

A good harpist knows what to leave out!

[marguerite-lynn-williams]

It’s been a few years since I played this, but I seem to remember the part actually being for more than one harp. Possibly one of the rare parts that says ‘harpes’ meaning more than one. Aren’t there some figures that are physically impossible to be played by one person?

What a great piece to be performing! Enjoy it!

-MLW

[Fearghal McCartan]

Yes, good plan. I had to do that with the Sea Symph. (In one concert I even had to play both parts as best as possible as there was no second harp available. No chance of rests, some killer pedal changes and lots of photocopied page turn helps – though most of those were due to some printer at Stainer and Bell writing double hand gliss’ and continuous chord sequences over page turns. I had 25 photocopied bits attached including the whole 1st and last pages due to this. Anyone know a better publication for the harp part at least?)

Regarding the plan of tippex-ing and ledger lineing – do that if it is your own part as that is what I have done to some of mine. Hire companies are not usually that keen on you doing this though! I have Dives coming up next season (in the spring) and have a part on order so will have a look and see what needs to be done once it arrives.

[Alison]

Well that’s behind me, the concert was on Friday night and that piece went down a treat. I only had two rehearsals with the strings and could have done with someone to rehearse Variation III with me or play the part on the piano (anything).

[Author]

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