Music for lever harp that is NOT classical, folk, Celtic, etc.

[Alissa W]

I’ll update this by saying that my first 3 purchases after this list were Marcel Grandjany’s Trois Pieces Faciles, Bernard Andres’ Aquatintes, and Pamela Bruner’s book Midsummer Meadow.

[barbara-brundage]

I’m really sorry to break it to you, but the Grandjany pieces are classical pieces, Alissa.

[barbara-brundage]

Oops, don’t know what happened to the rest of my post.Andres is also generally considered a contemporary classical composer.

Just wanted to point out that there’s lot of interesting non-cliche music in many genres, so it’s worth investigating them all.

[kreig-kitts]

I wasn’t sure if they would be an appropriate difficulty for you, but if you’re enjoying Trois Pieces Facilies and Aquatintes (I recently worked on one and am now working on the other), you might also like Nancy Gustavson’s The Magic Road. They’re a similar difficulty level. The first few have an Eastern sound and use a lot of nail and close to the soundboard effects to imitate Japanese instruments, though the final piece (probably the most difficult) has an Andalucian/Moorish sound. Since they’re in non-western keys (no lever changes) they really have an “I didn’t know my harp could play this music” effect the first time you read them. I found them enjoyable to play and a nice break from other pieces. If you don’t know the sound effect symbols you’ll need to look them up in a method book or ask another harpist. I know Yolanda Kondonassis’ book On Playing the Harp has them.

[barbara-brundage]

Yes, those are nice. Here’s a youtube of “Moorish Garden”, the last piece:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzzRg0f4Muo

[barbara-brundage]

> If you don’t know the sound effect symbols you’ll need to look them up in a method book

Kreig, doesn’t the current edition have a page in front that explains them? My antique copy does.

[kreig-kitts]

I just checked my copy again, and yes it does! Very nice.

[sherry-lenox]

There’s a LOT of music by Grandjany and Salzedo that is at your level, given that you like Trois Pieces Faciles. I think you’d have to have a look to see what’s appropriate. I find the “faciles” thing a rather cruel snipe at my technique. Several of the faciles pieces mean that you don’t have to break down single measures with 73 notes in them, but they certainly aren’t beginner music either.

I love the Barcarolle too, but for me it’s about a hundred times easier with pedals.

Enjoy!

[barbara-brundage]

>I love the Barcarolle too, but for me it’s about a hundred times easier with pedals.

I can’t imagine why, given that there’s not a pedal in it, unless you have that edition which added all the glisses at the beginning.

[sherry-lenox]

Yep, that’s the one, although I did realize after posting my comment that it couldn’t be played without pedals and nobody would try to anyhow.

[barbara-brundage]

Yeah, on the lever harp you just skip that part, but I must admit I prefer the other edition anyway, which has the Barcarolle in all flats (so you just play it in C on a lever harp) and doesn’t have all that extra stuff at the beginning.

There are slight differences in the other two pieces, too, depending on which edition you have, but nothing that makes a difference in terms of difficulty.

[Alissa W]

Barbara, you say that the Grandjany pieces are classical, but they are actually early 20th century conservatory style (classical-seeming) pieces.

[barbara-brundage]

Ah, gotcha. I thought you were objecting to the classical genre, not the classical period. 🙂

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