Mahler 2 Fast Arpeggios

[Sidney Dharmavaram]

I’m looking at a little after 50 in movement 3 and then again in movement 5.

Is there a simplification (fingerings, enharmonics, dropped notes, dividing notes between harp 1 and 2?) or do harpist work to get these fast arpeggios as written at tempo?

Appreciate any advise on this so I can manage my practice time and dedication to the metronome!

[balfour-knight]

Dear Sidney,

I hope there is an orchestral harpist here who can help you with your questions. I’ve never played the Mahler. Dividing notes between harp 1 and 2 sounds good to me!

Best wishes,
Balfour

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

You use groups of three notes per hand, or four, or a comfortable mix of three and four, whichever is more secure for you. But if the tempo is much too fast, then you play the right chord-tones, but where possible, such as a B-flat on the bottom and four notes in each hand so the top notes are as written, or more widely spaced. But the upper notes are the more audible ones, usually.
There are formulas for 9-10-11-12-13 note arpeggios I don’t remember off-hand. But they are well-worth memorizing. You need them in Sibelius Symphony no.1, and Tchaikovsky parts as well.
I would not count on the second harpist as they have their own part to work on, unless you have a lot of rehearsal time. Acquiring a well-marked part from an experienced harpist will help the most, particularly one who studied with Chalifoux or Lawrence, as they have the best-marked parts.

• This reply was modified 5 months, 3 weeks ago by Saul Davis Zlatkovski.

[Elizabeth Volpé Bligh]

This section is covered by thick orchestration, so you can fake it by playing only the top 8 notes.

[balfour-knight]

These are all good ideas, friends! Thanks for your input. Have a great day, all!

• This reply was modified 5 months, 3 weeks ago by balfour-knight.

[Sidney Dharmavaram]

I am so grateful to hear the replies to this question that I asked.
I have tried these various approaches that were suggested. I’m not sure exactly which I will implement in the concert mid-April. I would like to accomplish all the arpeggios to the best of my ability as I did discover, I can do a little after 50 in movement 3 up to speed using hand groups of three per arpeggio. I also tried the top 8 notes approach and it is very simple that way and I can see that yes, the orchestration is so thick it’s not going to matter too much. But I wonder how much to push myself to accomplish the full arpeggio, so since I have some more time before the concert, I will keep looking at the possible hand groupings that are comfortable enough to get the original.

If in the future, other harpists who have performed this piece can chime in as to what they did for performance, that would be great! Thank you to all harp community for the wonderful advise.

[balfour-knight]

Thanks for updating us, Sidney! Best wishes for a marvelous performance!

[Sidney Dharmavaram]

What I have settled on is the following:
For a little after 50 in movement 3: as written
For movement 5: first 5 measures as written, then groups of 8 until two before 2 which are as written.

I’ve been practicing with this recording (www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oi6ZjkXFlcU) and the above is possible in movement 5 which matches the speeding up and then slowing.

[Author]

Posts