Wedding Repertoire for Lever Harp

[Sidney Dharmavaram]

I have a standard repertoire that I play for weddings but it requires a pedal harp.

[tony-morosco]

Sylvia Woods has lever harp versions of Canon in D, and Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring that are very nice.

She also has a book of wedding music for lever harp that

[barbara-brundage]

Thanks, Tony.

Sidney, there are published arrangements for everything in your list except the Bach, and that’s quite easily adapted for levers–lots of lever harpists play it by making the lever changes in one voice and forgoing the octaves in those sections (you’ll need to lose a lot of the left hand octaves anyway since the lever harp doesn’t have the bottom notes).

However, I’d keep in mind that some of these will require a reasonable amount of lever technique, especially the Prelude in C (no matter whose arrangement you opt for–there must be half a dozen lever harp versions in print) and the Arabesque.

Also, for lever harp you’re probably going to want to do things in different keys than you would with pedals, which may or may not need some mental adaptation on your part. (Some people aren’t bothered at all, others are driven a little crazy by, say, playing Pachelbel in G when it’s in their fingers for twenty years in D.)

For example, on a pedal harp, I’d do Pachelbel in D and Lohengrin in B flat, but with levers that takes too long to change the key, so I do both in G so that when the unexpected happens I’m good no matter what.

[barbara-brundage]

>except the Bach

meant to say except the Bach Andante, sorry

[Sidney Dharmavaram]

Super.

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