Salzedo versus Grandjany?

[unknown-user]

What style does Dan Yu use?

[carl-swanson]

She’s a former student of McDonald, so guess what?

[unknown-user]

I think I am entirely rational, to answer Nicole. I think the ideas forming the foundation for what we do are essential. Not everything is about making money, hard as that is to do with the harp.

I think these days, you find people of all techniques in each conservatory, and the teachers I see mentioned are not teaching only one technique over another. The Curtis Institute is very open that way. I’m not saying that’s better or worse. But I know at least one prominent harpist who graduated from Indiana who can still be seen to be a Salzedo harpist, or rather, a Chalifoux harpist. But who keeps score, anyway?

[unknown-user]

I?m still a little confuse about what techniche is better than the other, i have learn in the salzedo way but last year i was in italy and i met an italian harpist who said that she has learn the french way but our way of playing was almost identical!!!i think the diferences are only in our heads, a good harpist is only good if he or she is hardworking ,techniches are just a way to understand the instrument, but some rules are make to be broken in some cases, so i don?t see a reason to argue about this.

[unknown-user]

I am not trying at all to argue, simply to establish some clarity about the differences there may be, which are often mostly esthetic. One reason you see less difference than there used to be is that some of the Salzedo approaches have been adopted very widely. What remains significant is that to play his music as it was meant to be heard does require specific knowledge of his esthetic. Also, the quality of harp playing in general, in terms of basic ability seems to have risen overall in the last twenty years. I hope you will continue your study along the same lines so you can fully participate in his wonderful music, which is so important to hispanic culture, I have always thought.

[kilby-li]

I saw her playing and she is like Salzedo. I don’t think she is using a Chinese style.

[carl-swanson]

Someplace else on this form I mentioned the fact that, at the advanced level, the differences between Salzeo method and anything else, at least in terms of hand position, finger motion, etc. is minimal.

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

Is her name Who She? Who are you talking about?

[unknown-user]

[barbara-brundage]

FOR GOD’S SAKE, PEOPLE, KNOCK IT OFF! PLEASE!

[barbara-brundage]

I was most bitterly unhappy to see this topic resurrected, because it was obvious where it would go, and it has.

[unknown-user]

I’m sorry, I truly meant no offence.
But you have to admit, the whole debate has a tinge of the absurd.
It’s pure Swift, the Lilliputians warring over whether one eats an
egg with the small bit at the top. We’re so small a community,
especially compared to every other instrument, save perhaps the nose
flautists, and yet we further divide ourselves with semantics. Can it
not be a war of witticisms, instead of insult and injury? Usually
musical jokes are so formulaic, but the ones I’ve heard provoked by
the fire of the Salzedo vs. Grandjany debate have been the most
darkly humorous.
Our founders, they were somewhat ridiculous in
and of themselves, hell, Salzedo renamed his pupils and changed their
handwriting to be more like his. Many of the classical harp composers
were the most incorrigible womanisers, beautiful and terrible, it’s
something to rejoice. There is nothing sissy about the Harp, it’s a
glorious instrument of torture we are bound to, to slowly grind away
our fingertips, at our every thought, it’s a fever, a plague. It’s a
warrior’s instrument, and

[barbara-brundage]

>Can it not be a war of witticisms, instead of insult and injury?

Why must it be a war at all? Every time this topic comes up here–every time– the pattern is the same. Someone from school A makes snide catty remarks about school B and tries to get away with it with “just kidding HA HA.” Then someone from School B retaliates with a puerile remark about School A.

I really hoped we had gotten past this for a while after thngs had calmed down here, but I see it’s absolutely hopeless.

I canoot tell you what an embarrrassment to the harp community at large this site has tended to be by reinforcing all the stupid harpist stereotypes. I see it probably always will be, and that to expect civil adult discussion of differerences in performing philosophy is asking too much here.

[carl-swanson]

I think that one of the best things to come out of this site has been an open discussion of this whole Salzedo/non-Salzedo issue. For years it wasn’t discussed at all, and even at the national level, the American Harp Society didn’t address it in any way.

I wrote a letter to the directors of the AHS many years ago with a list of suggestions for things that should be incorporated into the AHS (at that time annual) conferences. One of my suggestions was that whoever gave the opening recital should, as part of the package, give a masterclass the following afternoon. I received a letter in response to my letter of suggestions and the idea of a masterclass was flatly turned down. The person who wrote me the letter ( I can’t remember anymore who it was) said, point blank, that they could not do that because, if the opening night soloist was a Salzedo person, then it would offend the non-Salzedo harpists there, and visa versa. She said that! And so the divisions lasted another 15 years or so.

It was only in 1994, at the Boston Conference, that I made the suggestion again, this time to the local organizing committee, and they loved the idea. Marie-Claire Jamet was the first opening night recitalist to give a masterclass the following day, and now it is a standard part of the harp conference format. To my knowledge, no one on either side of the division has complained.

The discussions on this site concerning this very divisive subject have at various times been acrimonious, snide, venemous, and many other things as well. But they have also been informative and frankly have had the effect of softening to a large degree my own feelings on the subject. And that, I would think, would be the intended goal of any discussions on any controversial subject here. I’m sure, from reading many posts on the subject, that other people have softened their stance on this subject as well.

I would not want any subject to not be discussed here because the person posting was afraid or intimidated by the possible reaction. And I think a site like this is at its most interesting when people disagree, even strongly, provided their posts are not vicious or hurtful to anyone else. So bring on the controversy, bring on the strong opinions, but make them informative, well articulated, and if possible, witty.

[barbara-brundage]

I’m not objecting to discussion. I’m objecting and I have objected for a long time (as have many, many other people who just left in disgust) to the puerile tone that accompanies the pointless squabbling these topics always deteriorate into. I”m sorry Carl. I see no “wit’ in “jokes’ (not picking on you specifcially, Kit, it’s typical of many, many posts here) that are nothing but flamebait.

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