Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
I rent pedal harps, mostly in the New England and greater New York City area. If there is an option to buy, it will be written in the rental contract. But the renter is never obligated to purchase and can rent as long as he/she wants. If the renter decides to buy, then a maximum of 5 months of paid rent will be applied to the purchase. The full balance then has to be paid. The renter also has the option of applying the 5 months of paid rent to any other harp I have for sale which belongs to me(occasionally I sell harps for other people. In those cases the 5 months paid rent will not apply).
I’ll ask him why he fingered it that way. I got home yesterday from a week of vacation and there was an email from him. So I’ll see what he has to say.
The fast repeated notes are only on 1 string, not two. So he had to come up with some sort of “trick” fingering to accomplish this. He’s very hunched over because the harp is so small.
Let’s try this again. I tested the previous youtube address and it didn’t work. Try this one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnXqbz7UUr8&feature=player_embedded#at=
48I suspect that if Renie suggested the idea of a gliss for those fingered passages, she would be very very picky about how the gliss was played. It would have to be very even and precise so it almost sounded like the passage was fingered. it would not be a matter of just strumming the strings like in a Broadway show.
10 minutes??? The most important thing??? Tell them to write down little ideas they’ve got and then have a harpist play
William- Don’t turn your back on music by Marcel Tournier. He was a contemporary of Debussy and one of the best composers for the harp we have ever had. Try his Offrande. It’s printed with another easy piece and both are called Deux Pieces Facile(or Breve et facile, I can’t remember right now).
You need to have someone remove the rivet and put a nut and bolt attachment in there. Lyon & Healy has something made especially for that. So do I(Swanson Harp Company).
Patricia- That’s really fascinating. What a project for someone to do: to research the recordings that Renie made.
I don’t think so Sam. Her active playing career was so early that there were not a lot of harp recordings being made then. And she was very dissatisfied with the sound of recorded harp. One possibility might be in the archives of the ORTF, the French radio and television organization. I’d love to spend some time there and see what they have in the way of harp recordings and videos. I know that the ORTF did special programs on Lily Laskine and Pierre Jamet. So at the very least, there may be some interesting interviews in those archives. But I wonder if Renie ever played on the radio?
The first performance, a private concert a Durand’s, the publisher, was played by a chromatic harpist(I think her name was something like Suzanne Dalie), with Darius Milhaud playing viola. I don’t know who the flutist was. Debussy probably received a commission from Pleyel to write the trio sonata, but he clearly and loudly stated repeatedly that he wanted his music to be played on an Erard. He didn’t say pedal harp, he said Erard. That’s why, a few months later, when Debussy heard that a young wizbang harpist named Pierre Jamet was working on the piece, he asked that trio to play the work for him, and then asked them to perform it at a public concert that Debussy had organized for the French Red Cross.
Marguerite- I agree with you completely. But it must be remembered that both these parts were written for Chromatic harp, not pedal harp, and harmonic or scale glisses are just not possible on the chromatic harp. An argument could be made that Debussy did what he had to do for the chromatic harp. But to me there’s a distinct difference in the sound between a gliss and a fingered passage, and I much prefer the fingered passage in these two cases.
It’s sometimes done like that, although I’m not crazy about it. I much prefer the fingered arpeggios. I believe that Renie even played it with glissandos! I’ll check with my friend Geraldine Ruegg, who studied with Renie and who translated Renie’s Methode into English. She’ll know for sure.
That’s how Mildred went through life. I remember when I read her Christmas letter years ago, it was filled with little stories about her travels in which, in each incident, she swopped in and saved the situation. One I clearly remember was about a week long masterclass she was teaching in California. According to her, one of the students was a girl who had just gotten a job playing harp at a hotel in las Vegas, but who only knew three tunes. Mildred got to work on her and by the end of the week the girl knew 17 tunes. I would love to hear the girl’s version of that story.
