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Remember that the harps we are talking about would have been Grecians (Erard’s initial double-action model) which were smaller and less powerful. The “big-gig” harp that you tend to see in most photos of concert artistes of the time was the larger and louder Gothic, which didn’t make its appearance until five or six years after Symphonie Fantastique premiered.
Therefore they would certainly have needed a whole battalion of harps.
Yes. GIVE IT UP. You seem to be the only person interested in perpetrating this hey-let’s-all-diss… thread, which was drifting nicely down to the horizon until you just had to bring it back up again. What is the point of this? Don’t you think people have feelings? Honestly, who cares who the world’s worst harpist is? Or who qualifies as mean girls? Maybe you should get out more –
The music school I teach in has an Aoyama Orpheus, as do several of the students (one plays the smaller Etude model), and we also own another well known and respected brand of pedal harp.
In fact the kids and I all prefer the tone of the Orpheus as it is brighter, with more presence. Ours is about 10 years old and still going strong – both our harps have “worn” well and demanded very little in the way of maintenance, so I would certainly lay to rest any idea that the Japanese harps are somehow inferior. I’ve been in contact with about five Orpheuses and an Etude over the years – one of them being my teaching harp which gets a lot of use – and never had a day’s problem. Aoyama has been in existence for as long as Lyon and Healy, and I think they are certainly as good as their equivalents in other makes. There are other Aoyama threads if you type that name into the Search box, which show many happy owners (below are a couple of links).
I share Carl’s questions – Au Matin (one of my favourite pieces) is reasonably advanced fare for a student.
Me again. Went and had another look. A number of their pedal harps bear a suspiciously strong resemblance to those made by long-established and well known firms elsewhere.
Thread is here (though the hyperlink may not work so you might have to copy-&-paste):
http://www.harpcolumn.com/forum/message-view?message_id=26580
Their website http://www.eagleharp.com gives phone and postal address, though you can always take a blind shot and try “sales@eagleharp.com” because websites have email facilities, and the word “sales” ought to grab somebody’s attention. There are a number of Chinese harpmakers out there, with people reporting mixed reactions to their experience of them.
I don’t know if this story is apocryphal or not – and I’m not sure whether American readers are familiar with the television series about Robin Hood which appeared on the BBC some years ago.
This is not a “worst” experience (because it was actually a lot of fun and the people involved were lovely) but it qualifies as one of my strangest: Playing for a Druid wedding which took place on top of Glastonbury Tor (a large hill considered holy by many) in England.
So, did she ever give her judgment? Guess she had a bad experience with a harpist at some previous time – it is certainly a needlessly nasty and pointless comment.
She must not care what us ordinary folk think of her, a bad career-attitude if nothing else. You know what they say: Be nice to people on your way up because they’re the same ones you’re going to meet on your way down.
