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I’m old fashioned I suppose, but I like the Breitkopf & Hartell edition, and I like the Reineke cadenzas.
Everyone knows the changes that need to be made to the Breitkopf edition to make it playable, notably the left hand octaves at the bottom of the first page. There are some others too. But there is no need for an arrangement by anybody else.
I regularly sell used pedal harps on my web site, http://www.swansonharp.com. Sometimes they are harps that belong to me which I’ve done work on, and other times they are harps that people have asked me to sell for them. In all cases, I can vouch for the structural integrity of the instrument. I won’t sell anything that has repairs on the horizon. I’ll happily describe to anyone that is interested what one instrument or another is like structurally. What I won’t do is make decisions for the potential buyer about the sound. I know from being a harpist myself and from having interacted with harpists for decades that everyone has their own concept of sound. I always strongly urge anyone interested in an instrument that I am selling to come to Boston and try the instrument. That is the only way to know if it is what you are looking for. Same with a ‘big sound.’ You have to try it yourself and decide if it is a sound and volume that will work for you.
Katia, you said that the harp you are thinking about buying is “a few hours away.” Are you seriously thinking of letting someone else make the decision about the instrument when you could go try it yourself without too much trouble? That doesn’t make any sense.
You said: They ask for over $ 6k for their custom made harp.
I know how much for the material, how many hour to complete.
I feel they ask too much!-If that’s the case, then make it yourself! That way you’ll get exactly what you want.
Well, even though they are for pedal harp, do take a look at the samples. Actually, I think you can play all of the samples on lever harp, because the lever flips(which sometimes get complicated) occur later in each etude and etude variation.
OMG Angela!!! I can’t believe you asked that question!! Why??? I was holding off on posting about this until they were ready. But I have just spent the last year on my second BIG project for Carl Fischer Music and it’s nearing completion now. The first BIG project was the new version of the Debussy Sonate pour flute, alto, et harp. But I digress.
After the Debussy project was done, my editor at CF asked me what else I had to publish. I presented 4 or 5 projects, and the one he just loved is the one we are completing now. It is the Bochsa Op. 318, 40 Easy Etudes. I told my editor that I loved those etudes and used them for teaching all the time. But as good as they are, there are shortcomings. 1) They, like many 19th century etudes for harp, are very right handed, with little for the left hand to do. 2) They tend to use a small area in the middle of the instrument and never go up into the treble or down into the bass. And 3),in virtually all of the original etudes, both hands are right next to each other all the time. So my proposal to my editor was to publish a new edition of the Bochsa Op. 318 and for each of the original etudes, write a companion Etude Variation that expands on the technical material of the original. And that is what we have done!
So why am I telling you all of this? Because about 2 months into the project I had a brilliant idea. I emailed my editor and told him that we were not reaching a large segment of the harp playing community: The lever harp people!! And I told him that we should do two editions: one for pedal harp, and the other for lever harp, which we’ve done.
The pedal harp version just came out and it’s FABULOUS. It has a spiral binding. All of the etudes, which are normally crammed onto one page each, are now spread over two pages, making them MUCH easier to read. All of the pedals are written in in HUGE letters that you can read from across the room. No other edition of these etudes has the pedals included. And there is an Etude Variation for each of the original etudes. If the original etude is primarily for the right hand, then the Etude Variation is for the left. When the original etude is more or less evenly divided between the two hands, the Etude Variation uses much more of the instrument, going up into the 2nd and 1st octaves, or down into the 5th and 6th octaves. I also have passages where the hands are playing 2 or 3 octaves apart.
I’m in the process of proofing the galleys for the lever harp version, and I’m hoping that will be in print by December. The lever harp version required some changes in order to be able to flip levers. But it is still the wonderful technical material of the original Bochsa. I don’t believe there is anything out there for lever harp like this, and I’m hoping the lever harp community really likes and uses it.
The book is called BOCHSA REVISITED, and is published by Carl Fischer Music. It contains 82 pages of music, and 12 pages of text that tell you effective ways to practice and describes the technical points of each etude. It will be available, if it isn’t already, at Lyon & Healy, Vanderbilt, Amazon, sheetmusicplus, Swansonharp.com(it’s there now), and other places as well. Here is the link to my web site where you can read all about it, and also download samples of 13 of the etudes and etude variations.
Janis- I can’t say that I agree with your post. I think there are a number of possible reasons why some people are just not good teachers. Often naturally gifted musicians, prodigies if you will, are terrible teachers because everything came so easily for them that they cannot imagine it not being the same for everybody. Their hands fall on the instrument the right way from the start, they have natural dexterity and speed, they memorize easily, etc. etc. It’s the rare virtuoso who can explain in detail what they are doing when they play. Others are just mean people, and it comes out in their teaching. Opera News magazine openly disparages Elizabeth Schwartzkopf as being one of the most destructive teachers who ever walked the earth. You can go to Youtube and see her doing it in masterclasses. She doesn’t let the singer sing more than one or two notes without stopping them and criticizing. Then there is the whole issue of what level the teacher is teaching. Some teachers are excellent for one level but terrible for others. A lot of teachers are very good at starting beginners but then don’t know what to do with them after that. Others are very good at teaching repertoire and polishing an advanced student’s performance. But if a student needs technical work, the same teacher doesn’t know what to do. A friend of mine, talking about a VERY FAMOUS TEACHER in the U.S. said, “If you go to study with her and you have a great technique, you’ll graduate 4 years later with a great technique and lots of repertoire. If you go to study with her and you have a bad technique, you’ll graduate 4 years later with a bad technique and lots of repertoire.” So the issue of good/bad teaching is really quite complicated.
The great age of musical instrument mechanics was for the most part from around 1760 to 1840 or so. All of the instruments of the orchestra as we know them today had their mechanisms developed and refined during that period. The valves for the brass instruments, the mechanism for the flute and woodwinds, the piano double escapement action, and of course the harp mechanism. It’s incredible to see just how good those instrument makers and inventors were back then, and how well their inventions and developments have lasted.
Emma- In the case of Zighera, it’s just the way he was with everything. His divorce from his first wife was so bitter that his only child, a son, had nothing to do with him for decades, even though he lived just a few miles away. It was finally his teenage grandchildren, whom he had never met, who finally reconnected him to his son.
Amy- At no level of playing is nastiness and/or negativity called for or acceptable. It’s always counterproductive. My last teacher, after I had spent 3 years in Paris with Pierre Jamet, was Bernard Zighera, the principal harpist of the Boston Symphony. He was nasty, negative, and very destructive, and it took me more than two years after I graduated to recover from the damage he had done. There was also a VERY FAMOUS HARP TEACHER AT A VERY FAMOUS MUSIC SCHOOL who got more and more nasty as she got older. Many of her students in her last 10 years of teaching GAVE UP THE INSTRUMENT!!
It sounds like you have opened the conversation with your daughter’s teacher. Maybe you can continue the dialogue in little bits, telling her for example about something that she said that your daughter responded well to, or saying “I find that my daughter really digs in her heels and refuses to do something when I’m too demanding. But if I say, let’s try this this way, then she’s willing to do it.” Something like that. Good luck!
Very well said Catherine. The Camac experiment, made by Joel Garnier many years ago, was also a very heavy instrument. Something like 120 pounds.
As those of us who have been playing the harp for a long time know that dependability is a big deal. With a mechanism that depends on electricity to make mechanical parts work, the slightest thing could render the instrument unusable.
Amy-I too was wondering what “method” of playing this teacher teaches. Also, how old is the teacher? Do you know any of her other students? Can you talk to any of those parents and feel them out about how their child gets on with this teacher?
If you do talk to the teacher, I would be as specific as possible on what the problem is. You can be diplomatic, but specific. I would tell her what you can hear from the other room that bothers you and your daughter(“No, no, no!!”) and tell her that it sounds more like punishment rather than a correction, and that your EIGHT YEAR OLD DAUGHTER is frightened by this tone of voice. I think I would also call her between lessons rather than talking to her at the beginning or end of the lesson. Or you could write her a letter.
Amy- I think I need more information. Let’s try this. First off, tell me as specifically as possible what the teacher is doing that is not working. Secondly, pretend for a moment that I am the teacher in question, and tell me what you want to tell her, exactly as you are considering telling her. I want to hear what the issues are and what you want to tell her. We may be able to advise you better, and maybe save the situation with this teacher, if we have more specific information.
The problem is a classic one: you only play one instrument. Your harp. The solution is to play as many different instruments as you can get your hands on, on a regular basis. You will arrive at a point, quickly, where you can change from one harp to another without any problem.
Harp students at music schools are usually good at this, because they have to play different instruments that belong to the school. I don’t know if you are talking about lever or pedal harp. But you need to make a big effort to play different makes and models of instruments whenever you can so that you can adjust quickly. Years ago, Lyon & Healy made standard and wide spaced instruments. The wide spacing was only in the 4th and 5th octaves. But if you weren’t used to it it felt like the Grand Canyon. But harpists who regularly changed back and forth between wide and standard got so they could make the adjustment instantaneously.
Alison- Parish-Alvars is the only composer I can think of where players have occasionally changed a measure here or there, because something that he wrote just didn’t seem to work musically. I think that must be the reason that there are different versions of his music. David Watkins made his own version, and as I said earlier, left out the key slide. But even when I played Davids version, I made some slight changes, not to make it easier, but because I felt that what Parish-Alvars had written didn’t fit as well into the piece. Even Zabaleta, when he recorded the Introduction, Cadenza, and Rondo, made some changes(for the better). So don’t go nuts looking for the ‘original’ version. I’m not sure that it works all that well.
When I was learning both the Serenade and the Introduction, Cadenza, and Rondo, I got the sense that Parish-Alvars probably wrote and published these pieces before he had really performed them, and probably made changes himself later which never got published. In a couple of the performances I found on Youtube, the players had used an alternate version of one or more of the little cadenzas, the alternate being much easier. I never did that. The changes I’m talking about involve making a measure, most often in one of those cadenzas, sound better, but didn’t make them easier.
Alison- I just went on youtube. There are 3 harpists that do some version of the key slide.
The first one is Dorotea Pedini and although she doesn’t play the slide, you can see the music throughout the piece and see what is written at the key slide(although she doesn’t play it). Go to 6:18 or a little earlier on her video to see the missing music.
Carol Kihm plays the whole Serenade, including the key slide. I’m not crazy about how she chooses to play it, but it’s there to see. Go to 6:46 on her video.
Hdemia Palmanova also plays the whole Serenade, including the key slide. Again, I’m not crazy about her way of playing it. You can see it at 6:40 on her video.
