Trills on harp

[Bonnie Shaljean]

There is a trill – i.e. two adjacent rapidly-alternating strings – in the score to Zabel’s La Source, though it doesn’t sound like one because it’s one of those enharmonic D#-Eb ones that makes it into more of a mandolin-style tremolo.

It occurs right before the piece modulates into Ab for the middle section, and then again at the end, prior to the climb up to the final notes (you can gliss down from the top one instead if you feel like a bit of fun, though you’ll have to set the A# pedal).

[carl-swanson]

Bonnie- That’s the one I’m talking about. It starts out on the D#/Eb and then I think the D# is changed to a natural and then a flat. Mildred plays that using the 4321 trill.

If someone can tell me how to upload a DVD onto youtube I’ll upload this so everybody can see it. It really shows Mildred in her prime.

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

I can’t see any benefit to holding onto a string you’re not playing, and think it would increase the strain on the hand, and decrease tone production. The only time I would do it is to create a legato connection between notes not otherwise possible. One’s hand should be secure all the time in itself, each finger, not dependent, as a rule. I think if one is not sure of one’s self, it is reassuring, but then becomes a bad habit, possibly.

[Mel Sandberg]

I understand now what you are all talking about.

[carl-swanson]

As soon as my computer guru comes up to Boston for a visit, I’m going to have him put this Mildred Dilling DVD up on youtube so everyone can see it. It shows very clearly her doing the 4321 trill in the Zabel.

[carl-swanson]

Mel- On the double trills in the Serenade that you mentioned, I do those at the same speed as the ascending thirds that come right after it and it sounds fine like that. I don’t know if that is what he intended, but it works for me.

[patricia-jaeger]

Mel, your question

[carl-swanson]

Patricia- Thank you for clarifying that. I’m so used to it being called the fountain that it didn’t occur to me to translate it properly for everybody. I suppose calling it The Spring in English could be confusing. Some people would think of the season and others a seat spring(Boing, boing!), when in fact it means water gushing out of the ground. Mildred Dilling quite correctly came up with English equivalents to some French titles and this is one of them. She also retitled Tournier’s Vers La Source dans le Bois as The Forest Pool. The literal translation means Towards the Spring in the Forest.

[Mel Sandberg]

Patricia – thanks for this info, it is very informative, but even the French translation of La Source is not exactly the same as Am Springbrunnen. The “Am” means “by the”, as in somebody standing right next to it in close proximity.

[Mel Sandberg]

Carl, it never occurred to me to do it that way, and I’m sure it would work well.

[Mel Sandberg]

Me again, sorry, I pressed Enter too soon.

The issue of not “seeing a solution” as I described above, does not only befall me at the harp or piano.

[carl-swanson]

*I still wonder though, how many harpists can toss off a double trill like that…

Mel- Do you mean at a much faster tempo, or the way I described,i.e., at the same tempo as the thirds that follow? It is a little tricky but not impossible to do at that tempo. And I really think that’s what Parish-Alvars intended when he wrote that.

[Mel Sandberg]

Carl, I meant

[carl-swanson]

I can’t help but feel that Parish-Alvars intended it to be played as I said: at the same tempo as the thirds that follow. I’ve heard singers do a trill that slowly and it sounds lovely. I don’t know why he didn’t just write it out.

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