Komarov’s Fall

[diane-michaels]

I am playing the 2nd harp part to @[[komarov-s-fall:Piece:Komarov’s Fall (Dean, Brett)]] and like a previous harpist who wrote “what’s this” in the part, curious as to what the composer meant.

Measure 170, marked tremelo, pres de la table, I have a series of pairs of octaves in the first and second octaves (C#’s paired with D’s, etc…). The composer has added one more comment that confuses me: “tremelo effect by scraping thumbnail along length of string, increase speed to create cresc.”

Any takers?

[Elizabeth Volpé Bligh]

Hi, Diane!
I suspect that he means to do a “trino” effect like South American harpists do, strumming the two strings with the fingernail back and forth. It won’t create a crescendo, but maybe he felt that the increased speed would create that effect. Have you considered emailing the composer and asking? If you get an answer, let us know!

[diane-michaels]

I think it’s just some bad copy editing. The comment looks like it’s attached to this measure, but the same instructions appear in the 1st harp, definitely attached to a specific measure. So I’m going to assume that it belongs with the tremelo on the 6th octave C in the 13th measure from the end.

It’s funny – this end section is to be played “suddenly weightless and floating” and that seems to apply to the text in the part, too.

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