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Basel- You can play the Grandjany edition with or without orchestra. I think if I were to do it with orchestra I would not play in the tutti parts where the orchestra plays. I really love the Grandjany version, and his cadenza in the second movement is just wonderful.
That’s really interesting Barbara. I would have thought it would be the opposite. I was always under the impression that most brides want something that looks like a hood ornament on a pimp-mobile. What a pleasant surprise.
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.
Cathy- It has to do with where each of the chains ends at the top of the harp. In order to avoid crossovers in the chain around the second or third octave, they decided to cross the rods inside the column. I just finished rebuilding a Wurlitzer DDX(which will be up on my company web site soon if you want to see it) and the crossovers are even worse in that one. Most harps of that period had discs only up to O F. But this model had discs on OOG. So in order to do that and not have any crossovers in the chains, they reordered the rods. In that case the order looks like this: Again, write down the following letters at the top and bottom of a piece of paper and then draw a line from the letter at the bottom to the corresponding letter at the top.
F E D C B A G
D C E B F G A
Here’s something that may interest you. In many older harps of all makes-almost anything built before World War II)- the rods that connect the pedals to the action cross over each other inside the column. There are different versions of the cross over, but the most common one is this:
Take a blank piece of paper and write the following letters in this same order across the top of the paper.
E D C B A G F
Now, at the bottom of the paper, write the following:
D C E B F G A
Now take a pencil and connect the letters at the bottom to the letters at the top. In other words, draw a line from the bottom D to the top D, C to C, etc. That’s what the rods do inside the column!
Seeing the return of this thread and reading most of the posts has been interesting. I had no idea there were so many versions of this concerto!
I think in the end one has to choose the edition that is appropriate to the circumstances. It is WRONG to simply play the original. Handel wrote the melody and figured bass and expected the player to fill it out. He would have looked with derision on anyone who played any of his keyboard works exactly as they were written. Another thing to consider is that Handel frequently reworked his pieces, again, to suit the circumstances of the performances. There are 5 or 6 versions of the Messiah, just to choose one example. Also, when he made an organ version of the B flat concerto, he made changes to that so that it would fit onto the keyboard of the day. So there should be no problem with any version of this concerto that fills out the original.
If you are playing this piece on a period harp with a period orchestra, then it is probably most appropriate to stick to minimal additions to what’s written and insert a cadenza that lasts no more than 10 seconds. But who is going to do that? I’m not sure that any harp of Handel’s period exists in playable condition. If you are going to play this either as a solo piece, as several of the editions allow, or are playing this as a concerto with orchestra in a large hall, then you have to beef up the whole thing, filling out chords much more and using a longer cadenza. To my mind, the Grandjany cadenza is the best available and a real crowd pleaser.
With a number of these editions it is necessary to correct the ornaments that were added. In virtually all cases, the ornaments should start on the upper note and on the beat.
*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.
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- 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.
Saul- I don’t remember ever seeing any posts here “begging and pleading” for a harp. What are you referring to? I found a harp for what I believed(and still believe) was a very deserving harpist overseas. But nobody asked me to do it. And the recipient was dumbfounded when told that several people(the donor, Wally Kresiki, president of Venus harps, and several others who gave music, strings, etc. in addition to myself) had pooled their efforts to provide an instrument to a professionally trained harpist who had no chance of ever getting such an instrument. That effort was not the response to someone “begging and pleading.”
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.
-Even if Salzedo stated that they should be below, he wasn’t infallible-
OH MY GOD ELIZABETH!!!!!!! He wasn’t infallable??????????
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.
I agree with you Mel. It’s fine to have rules for writing pedals and pedal diagrams. But the goal has to be a piece of music that is easy to read and is uncluttered. So to that end, I would say my first choice would be to put the pedal diagram above the staff and the pedals below. But if that is just not possible then you have to write them in wherever it’s possible.
Something that bothers me much more, particularly on rental parts, are markings that are illegible, on a 45 degree slant, that are written over notes or other markings, or that are scrolly or curly. Pedals in particular should be written in CAREFULLY in straight up and down block letters, in dark pencil, with care that there is blank space around them and that they do not touch any other markings or notes. They should be written in, CAREFULLY, as large as space permits. If they are written in clearly like that, then anyone can read them at a glance.
In printed editions that include pedals, the markings are almost always too small to read easily. Again, they should be printed in as large as space permits.
