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Sylvia,
I do agree with you. Makes me wonder if he worked this out on a keyboard with the “harp button” on. If that’s the case, then that is what should play this part.
Zanoni Bei- You don’t say what the tempo is of the extract you printed. But whatever the tempo, I think it is probably playable, but it needs to be edited by a good harpist to clarify the notation. For example, why use G flat when you have just used F# everywhere else? The F# works easily, the G flat does not.
In the second extract, you have a G natural in the right hand, immediately followed by a G in the left. Is that one also a G natural? I would think it needs to be marked with a natural sign same as the right hand G. If the tempo is faster than a slow tempo, that left hand G will probably muffle the right hand G that was just played.
I don’t think other musicians have as many problems as the harpists have, and I think the reason is that composers usually play piano, and think of the harp parts as being the same as the piano, just with a different sound coming out. I have always felt that any composer who wants to write something for the harp should study the instrument for at least 6 months, just so they can learn to see and hear the instrument the way harpists do.
This whole discussion made me think of Renie’s wonderful transcription of La Rossignol of Liszt. That piece, a minor one for the pianists, has 3 or 4 quasi-cadenzas which are each huge washes of chromatic scales. Totally impossible on the harp. So Renie lifted each one of them out and composed something that would be playable for each one, and her replacement cadenzas are brilliant. In fact, I’m so used to hearing her transcription, that when I hear the original on piano, I really don’t like Liszt’s own cadenzas as much. They seem to me to break with the texture of the rest of the piece. They stick out too much. So I guess it all really comes down to how the changes are made.
Tacye,
I think the trickiest part of editing an orchestra part is in fact trying to figure out what the composer did want to hear. It would be very easy to over do it and turn the harp part into a solo with orchestra accompaniment, or into something different, but no better. I always tried to stick as close to what the composer wrote as I could. Sometimes the changes are so simple but make a world of difference. Years ago I had to play Stravinsky’s Scherzo à la Russe, which has a piano and harp duet in the middle of it. The two instruments are in strict cannon, with the harp following the piano. Both parts are written in the key of B major, and there are no accidentals within the duet. I rewrote the harp part so it was in C flat. That made the harp resonate better, and it meant I could tune note for note to the piano so we would be perfectly in tune with each other. Why Stravinsky couldn’t figure that out baffles me.
Dearest Bettyblue- This is just a matter of semantics, but sight reading refers to playing music that you have never seen before. You are playing it as you read it for the very first time. So what you were asking about is not “sight reading” to play a performance, but rather “using music” to play it.
Concerning your upcoming performance: Do whatever you are most comfortable with.
Howard,
Welcome to the harp column forums!! You have just survived your first trial by fire from one of our regulars! Two things you need to know about him: 1) He believes that Salzedo was not simply the last word on anything to do with the harp, but the ONLY word. Anyone who does not believe the same thing is wasting their and everybody else’s time. And 2) he absolutely has to have the last word on any thread here. So you haven’t heard the last of him yet!!
The forums are, for everybody else, a wonderful place to collect information, exchange ideas, and learn something. For him, it is the place where he has to lay down the law and have the final word, and anyone who doesn’t agree with him is simply wrong. Poor souls!
I won’t go into my own feelings about Salzedo here. I will however credit him with two very important innovations that have made harpists lives much easier. First, I believe that he was the first composer/arranger to include ALL of the pedal changes in a piece for harp. I can’t think of anyone before him who did that, and that is major. The other thing that I believe he did was to invent the pedal diagram, which is the lifeblood for any harpist. It tells you instantly what the pedal positions are at a given point. You have to understand that in most harp pieces, including all orchestra, opera, and ballet parts, as well as chamber music, pop music…everything we play, the pedals are almost never in the key of the piece being played, and its extremely important, especially in an orchestra part, for the harpist to be able to start where the conductor wants, and know what the pedal setting is at that point. I believe I’m correct that Salzedo did that.
Howard,
“But what really has me scratching my head is the fact that a L&H Ogden is cheaper than just about any of the other instruments (Ravenna excepted) in its 34 string class. It is bigger, heavier, and has the L&H cachet going for it but still doesn’t break the bank for all that. What is going on?”
Ask someone at Lyon & Healy where those harps are being made. Are they made in the U.S.A? Or outside of the U.S., like at their factory in China?
Howard,
“Harpists regularly encounter things that range from impossible to ineffective.” Tacye is absolutely right. Orchestra harpists, be it symphony, opera, or ballet, spend a great deal of their time trying to figure out two things when they look at the harp part. 1) How to play an unplayable part, and 2) What DID the composer want to hear in one spot or another, because what he wrote is certainly not what he wanted to hear. As far as Salzedo is concerned: He ‘invented’ the idea of writing the harmonics where they sound rather than where they are played. The idea is idiotic. Harp music functions much like a tablature, meaning that it ideally tells the player where to place his fingers, what strings have to be played. So for a harpist, double flats and double sharps are ridiculous. A harpist is going to have to place his finger on the B string in order to play A##. Or he may even have to place it on the C string, and play the note as C flat. Whatever string the harpist has to place his finger on is the one that should be notated. So the traditional way of writing harmonics, where the harmonic is played on the string that is notated, is the correct way of writing harmonics. In all of my Carl Fischer editions, I spent a great deal of time figuring out the clearest way of notating the music, so that any harpist working from one of my editions, the first time they glance at it, knows exactly what strings to put the fingers on, and which hand plays which notes.
Gretchen,
I chose the ones I chose because I liked the way they contrasted. I wanted a nice balance of pieces with different feels to them. I think these 10 pieces make a nice first collection. There are tons more Tournier pieces, and I’m sure, if I do a vol. II of these, a number of them will show up in that one.
Gretchen- I forgot to answer your question. The whole collection is from pieces that are either currently in print, or were in print but I don’t think are now. In choosing these pieces, I wanted, as I said above, to make the pieces immediately accessible. I wanted to do this so that harpists who may have never played Tournier before, or certainly not these pieces, would not be overwhelmed trying to figure out how to play the notes. Here’s the list of pieces I chose:
Au Matin
Offrande
Vers la source dans le bois
Berceuse Russe
La Voliere magique
Eternal Reveur
Lolita la danseuse
Cloches sous la neige
Claire de lune sur l’etang du parc
Jazz-BandDo you know all of these pieces? I’ve used many but not all of them in recital. They’re all just gorgeous. Several of them are quite easy technically. But Tournier makes enormous demands on the player as concerns the musical nuance.
Gretchen and Veronika,
First, this volume is not for lever harp. But it has crossed my mind to try to find some Tournier that is playable on lever harp. I already found one, and it’s a pretty major piece that is completely playable on lever harp with no changes!
I adore Tournier’s music. But the big problem for many harpists is that it is not notated the way it is actually played. He uses enharmonic spellings a lot. A# for B♭. Things like that, and he uses it a lot. Often it is not clear which hand plays what. The result is that there is a lot of initial layout work when a harpist wants to learn one of his pieces. So this collection prints the pieces EXACTLY the way they are played. There should be virtually no marking up, figuring out at all in order to play them.
The 10 pieces I chose for this represent a variety of textures, a variety of levels of difficulty, and a variety of moods. I think you will really love all of them. I’m waiting right now for the second proofs. I’m hoping that it may be released sometime in November or December.
Let me think about that some. It was SO MUCH WORK doing those two volumes (one for pedal harp, the other for lever harp). I’m finishing up my second edition for Carl Fischer Music for this year (the first one, Two Masterpieces for solo harp by Gabriel Fauré, which came out in June), and I’m kind of exhausted at the moment, and still not done with the second one, which I’m hoping will be released by the end of this year. It’s a collection of 10 pieces by Marcel Tournier(You heard it here FIRST!!).
Sarah- If you go to my web site, http://www.swansonharp.com then click on the ‘store’, then click on the Bochsa Revisited, you can see a sampling of the etudes and etude variations that are in the book. What you will see are two things. 1) A rich and extensive variety of patterns, which is what you are looking for in a set of etudes, and 2) that both hands get a technical workout on all of the patterns involved. The etudes are short, only 2 pages long. They work on the pattern for that etude in a variety of ways, to help you build muscle memory for that pattern. I don’t know if you play pedal or lever harp, but there is a separate edition for each. If you work your way through the 20 etudes in that book, I guarantee you will build a solid and even technique for that level of playing.
I don’t know what level harp player you are. But the real solution to even and independent finger movement, for anything you want to play is etudes. Work through a set of etudes with a teacher and all of your technical problems will disappear. You might look at my Bochsa Revisited, which is a reinterpretation of his 40 Easy Etudes, op. 318. They are wonderful etudes and fun to play. My edition gives both hands an equal workout.
