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Please add my concern and good wishes to those of the others. He manages to post on Facebook at odd intervals (not using any surname), though I can’t read the language. But his recent change of avatar-photo speaks volumes: It’s a row of young girls holding what look like prayer candles, in an otherwise dark room. My hopes go out to him for a safe return to an undamaged home and two harps waiting and ready to be played.
Bonnie
Just in case this isn’t an April Fool jest – if you don’t mind having it only be single-action, you could consider a Tyrolean harp. These are much smaller and lighter than the standard concert pedal harps, including the “chamber-sized” ones, and cost far less. Thread about them here (and I’m pretty sure there are others too if you dig around):
http://www.harpcolumn.com/forum/message-view?message_id=5086671
I’ve admired her since 1983 when – at age 15 – she won the Maria Korchinska competition in the Isle of Man, beating out a whole assortment of seasoned professionals.
Grade 7 in six months is an impressive achievement. Which syllabus are you using? There are also other questions which will give a clearer idea of what you’re looking for:
Where are you? And do you want to buy or rent? I’m assuming you mean pedal harp and not lever harp – yes? And that you want us to suggest places where you might find one?
There’s also a Yahoo Group devoted to Egan harps:
http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/johneganharps/?yguid=327814981
I second the AntiquePedalHarps group, though it’s not very active. But there’s a fair bit of knowledge on there:
http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/AntiquePedalHarps/?yguid=115738585
You might also contact Mike Parker:
http://www.parkerharps.com/Welcome.html
and Tacye Phillipson, who posts here and may see this thread. She’s done some impressive-sounding restoration work.
I have an 1837 Erard Grecian and the music school I teach in has an 1818 Erard Grecian – both of these harps still have their original soundboards. Another friend here has an Egan dating from 1835 – all three of these instruments are in full working order with good pedals.
What a great idea! I’m putting a tracer on this thread so do please keep us posted.
Have you managed to listen to it? It’s a lovely work but parts of it are not that easy. The first movement is straightforward hand-over-hand arpeggios (allegretto-ish) but they’re pretty pedally. Of the 2nd and 3rd movements, one of them is simple – just chords – and the other is moderately difficult if the conductor wants you to play those figures very fast; but you can make them easier for yourself by playing the ascending notes with one hand and the descending notes with the other, instead of doing it all with one hand as it’s written.
The glorious and dramatic fourth movement is pretty challenging, especially in view of the tempi – and bear in mind that you can’t hear everything that the harp has to do from a recording.
If you can get ahold of a CD or find it on YouTube, the best thing to do is give it a close examination following along with the score. You can download a PDF of it here:
http://ia600603.us.archive.org/34/items/gesngefrfrau00brah/gesngefrfrau00brah.pdf
If that doesn’t automatically load, try the main page and then click PDF in the sidebar to the left:
http://www.archive.org/details/gesngefrfrau00brah
Of course, a lot will depend on the speeds the conductor wants to take these at, so see if you can get him/her to give you metronome markings for the tempi.
Let us know how you get on! Best of luck –
He’s a Facebook buddy, so on that site I can see that he’s posted on his wall in the last two days, though it’s in his native language, so I can’t read it. But it’s engendered comments from others (which I also can’t decipher) and quite a few number of “Like”s, so that’s a hopeful sign. His most recent wall post is marked Tuesday (which is now yesterday for me) and there were two on Monday, so at least he’s managed to get online in the past couple of days.
The email and phone communications there may be being monitored? In a recent Facebook private message to me (within the past week) he mentioned that he had to be careful about what he said (but didn’t elaborate) so it may be that FB, for all its sins, is actually a more secure means of communication (though everyone’s wall is public). WHICH MEANS THAT WE MUST BE CAREFUL WHAT WE SAY TOO. (Not that any of us knows anything…)
This is not much help, but it’s a little reassuring anyway to know that he’s at least able to post online and have some contact with people. But – maybe emails & the telephone are not the best route for him right now? I remember the role that social network sites have played in several large foreign national events – governments seem to have to ban them (or internet access outright) because they’re obviously not externally controllable. Am watching, waiting, and hoping just like the rest of you!
[Sorry for the late reply – I’ve only just come across this thread]:
I have not done this with a Daphne, but did so on a Pilgrim Progress (which normally has full concert-gauge strings) and am VERY happy with the result. I also string my Erard Grecian (which is about the same size as a Daphne) in a lighter gauge and it works very well there too. So I would say a resounding Yes.
On both of these instruments I use Bow Brand Lever Gauge gut strings (though I’m sure the other makes in “lever gauge” would do just as well), which is about half an octave lighter. And it has the reds & blacks already coloured in so you don’t have to fuss with felt-tip pens.
As Barbara says, you will probably need a regulation done, but it’s well worth it. (In fact I didn’t get my Pilgrim regulated for ages and it still worked quite well – though even better after the servicing, obviously.)
That leaves the problem of lighter-gauge wound bass strings. I know a woman in England who custom-makes wound strings at very reasonable prices (she does a lot of work for antique pedal harps etc), and strings are fairly mail-able if you live far away. There are no doubt people in the USA who do this too, but I live in Ireland so I don’t know who they are! The British string-maker is: http://www.salopianstrings.co.uk/
I know that Salvi (Bow Brand) also do Lever Gauge bass wires for their own harps (the Egan, the Livia etc) but I think these would be too thin for a pedal harp. I tried them on my Progress, thought their quality was excellent, but I didn’t find them satisfactory for my purposes (and the Daphne is larger than a Progress) so you may be looking at getting some custom made. But Salopian’s are no more expensive than what you’d pay a standard retailer for normal ones.
If you need a lighter feel, I think that antique pedal harp stringing is probably what you want. There are a number of other period harp players around, so there is a market for it.
Be sure to report back here and let us know how you get on! Best of luck –
Yes I second the suggestion of Howard, who is excellent.
There’s also a Yahoo chat group called AntiquePedalHarps which, while it doesn’t get a lot of traffic, does certainly have some knowledgeable and helpful brains on board:
http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/AntiquePedalHarps/?yguid=115738585
Something of the same sort rather appears to have happened to Mozart’s concerto, because this composition lay in obscurity until revived in 1877 by the Welsh harpist John Thomas (who played an Erard Gothic but had been brought up as a boy on Welsh triple harp). When he “premiered” it at a concert it was at that time an unknown work. I’m writing all this from memory, quickly, so don’t have the details to hand; but it was Thomas who revived it for the modern concert repertoire.
What a lovely story! I had not heard that one before –
People may have seen me burbling on in a couple of other threads about free harp music downloads from various sources. Well, here it is again, because you can download a PDF of the Posse 8 Etudes (and also his 6 Little Etudes) if you want to get a look at No. 7 – thanks for the heads-up on that, Carl.
Links are here, though both of these seem to be the same edition so I don’t know why the duplication, unless they are different scans. There’s also a third PDF of another edition, but it’s not as clear a reproduction, the score is in rather rough shape, and for some inexplicable reason that one leaves out the first etude. Anyway:
The harp could have had unpleasant associations for Mozart, as his only foray into that territory was not a happy experience.
Mozart wrote the Flute & Harp Concerto for the daughter of the Duc de Guines, a harpist to whom he gave private lessons in composition, and the duke himself, who was a gifted flautist. It’s not surprising therefore that he commissioned Mozart to write a duet for the two instruments, presumably so he and his daughter could play it together.
At first things went well, and Mozart wrote to his own father praising the girl’s musical talent, and mentioning that she had an incomparable memory and could perform some 200 pieces by heart. (I think that figure is correct: I myself am writing from memory so I could be mixing her up with someone else from history.) But before long he was complaining in his letters that she was not only stupid, but also thoroughly lazy. To top it off, the financially-needy Mozart did not receive payment for his concerto. I have always thought that this disagreeable episode helped to put him off having anything to do with the harp ever again.
Also, the sad truth is that it’s an instrument which not everyone likes – there are some notable harp put-downs in the annals of time. I suppose it’s the flip-side of the reaction many of us experience when first hearing its distinctive voice, that here be magic and there’s nothing on earth like it. If a sound inspires a strong response in some people, it’s also bound to have the opposite effect on others.
In any case, I don’t think composers really bother their heads about pedal-changes (In fact, I KNOW some of them don’t!!) but tend to figure that those are the harpist’s problem. Which they are. Sigh…
I heartily second Paul’s helpful post, and his endorsement of Mike Parker’s excellent material. You can also find a whole load of free downloads of harp music at http://www.archive.org
The link to the harp/violin page(s) is:
http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=harp%20violin%20AND%20mediatype%3Atexts
And you can always borrow from the harp/flute selections:
http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=harp%20flute%20AND%20mediatype%3Atexts
There’s a lot of other harp music on there too – if you’re coming in through the main entry page (www.archive.org) and want to get to the above, you reach it by typing “harp violin” or “harp flute” (or whatever other instrument you want) in the search box, and restrict the field to “Texts” in the drop-down menu beside it. There’s also a fair bit of music for larger ensembles as well, and a number of harp/pianoforte duets which, with a bit of judicious editing, can be morphed into harp/harp duets.
If you want to browse through all the harp music, type “harp music” in the search box, again restricting the field to Texts. You can also search by name. It’s mostly older repertoire, many of them standard warhorses, but it’s a fun trawl nonetheless.
There’s also a gold mine on Morley’s website in England:
http://www.morleyharps.co.uk/acatalog/Downloads.html
And the Petrucci Music Database
http://imslp.org/wiki/Category:Composers
and, as Paul mentioned, the Sibley Music Library (you’ll have to click around for the free downloads, but they’re there)
http://www.esm.rochester.edu/sibley/
and don’t forget good old Google Books, which has a surprising amount of stuff. Happy hunting!
You could also try enquiring here:
