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Sherri,
yes, there is such story. At least Italian triples count over a century more of a history, before Welsh harp arrives.I play Italian triples. We own a Welsh harp, but it stands in the corner, untouched for the last 4 years. Wonderful instrument, made by Martin Haycock, but all Handel gigs for it are easier to play on a main instrument, and I just don’t play Welsh music…
http://www.thurau-harps.com – I have Domeniccino, Zampieri and De Viaggio. All strung with Kuerschner plain gut (btw, I do recommend Kuerschner strings indeed for any sorts of harps: they are a lot better than BowBrand, live longer and cost slightly cheaper). On big harps the lowest 4 strings have partial metal wounding. That is historical, as described in some theorbo manuscript.
I started with triple harp in January 2009. Mostly play harmonic lines in continuo section (sounds simpler than it is), accompany recitatives in operas and some tunes from here and there in a range of late 16th-middle 18th century. There is hardly any dedicated repertoire for Italian triple, but that is not because it wasn’t popular – the reason is that it was sharing the repertoire with keyboards and lutes. Caccini calls it a “perfect instrument which works great as a powerful bass harmony section and for high solo parts, as good as violin or flute”.
I have 4 different models of Rainer Thurau harps (3 Italian triples and 1 Gothic “Bosch”), and number 5 (Spanish X-string) is in process. A big problem of saying good things about these harps is that they just have absolutely no minuses and they are good things incarnate.
The most beautiful and powerful sound the one could imagine on harp, great designs, fantastic woodwork, ideal engineering. Very strong basses on baroque harps – great for playing continuo. Ideal balance of volume all through. Rainer is one of very few makers, who treats the question of acoustics very seriously.
I also saw Thurau lever harp and found it just stunning. I don’t play lever harp and don’t own one for quite a while already, but Thurau one is what I’m trying to persuade myself not to buy (so, it is anti-lust here). It is spectacular, with enormous sound, ideally done in all aspects and just 5kg weight!
Great professional instruments. All of his model range.
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A! I found the minus, but it is the silly one: Thurau harps are highly addictive! After playing one of them you try what absolute most of other makers or factories do… and you feel like you have the earplugs in your ears, and physically quite uncomfortable.It is all fine, as long as it doesn’t chat back.
Yes, I do. I actually talk to everything: to my computer, to washing machine, to the door lock, to my power tools, chisels, etc., – when something doesn’t work properly or I don’t have enough technical skills to manipulate it the way I wanted.
Make the third choice and invest in Fisher harps. http://www.fisherharps.com/
They are sounding just wonderful, very anatomically cozy and lightweight, much better made and have longer warranty, but for about the same price.
Larry also has got quite an impressive list of 1st grade harpist among his clients.
Pros of 2 you are talking about: might be available straight away and the construction and sound in general is not bad.
Cons: both are pretty heavy. I also don’t like the strings on Dusty – had to play 3 concerts on hired Dusty 36S, got awful bleeding blisters from “rolling” bases.
I played both models you are talking about, and Fisher seriously beats them up on quality and sound.
Camac DHC. Super harp. I used to have LH Silhouette, and loved it very much, but recently tried DHC and understood that it is much better quality.
Well, all mothers think that their children are genius, even if it is not so.
Each person has own opinion, and your opinion is not necessarily the right one either.
Don’t be angry or take it personal. I spent more than 5 years working on harp factory as an acoustics specialist and actual carpenter, so my angle of approach to the harps is quite far from romantics or politics, but rather technical. For the last 3 years I mostly work as a restorer and repairer.
I understand your warm feeling to your own harp, but unfortunally from the specialist point of view the line to which your harp belongs is not superbly constructed, roughly made from cheap materials, with pretty bad levers and quite heavy. Generally, even Camac Bardic, which I don’t like either, wins in several points. Triplett Shanti 28 with full set of Camac levers costs the same or just 100-200$ more, but the construction is much better, the sound is nicer and louder (maybe because it is , it 1.5kg lighter, no matter 1 string more in more comfortable range (from down A, not C). Well, Camac levers are a lot more accurate, tender to the strings and eacier to operate than Salvi/LH. The strings tension is a little bit lighter than on Juno, but that is handy.
If you are happy with your one, that is fine, congratulations.
I won’t recommend anyone to buy it because there are the harps of sensibly better quality for about the same price. But that is just my specialist opinion, not necessarily the right one
.Well, I tell what I experienced, I have no reasons to lie. I haven’t seen your particular harp, maybe it is super and you’ve got a lucky exclusion, or it works fine for your particular needs. But that doesn’t turn down the fact that all Junos I saw were badly constructed, robust and heavy with cardboard sound, so – rather overpriced in the end. I wouldn’t think they brought the worst harps they have to Frankfurt Musikmesse.
Main harp:
Take Egan. Sounds pretty much like a pedal harp. Nice instrument… but very big, pretty heavy and not any portable. It is a bit too expensive for its quality. I have seen many harps of other harpmakers for more-less the same price, but much better sound. Thormahlen (http://youtu.be/9rgB0wKU1-g here is the sound example) and Triplett in USA, Fisher in Canada, Thurau in Europe (he ships worldwide also).
Travel harp:
Don’t take Juno. I tried it on Musikmesse and for couple other occasions. It is the worst crap you can find for that money. Looks and sounds like Ikea-made stool with some strings on it, but with the exception that Ikea stool will be much lighter.
Almost anything will be better. If you are in USA – Triplett is the choice. Really well sounding harps, cheaper and MUCH lighter weight.
I tried several. Very nice harps.
“Gothic” is very good. Much more of a sound than you would expect for this size. Very cozy shape and good respond to the fingers. 100% YES
Friend of mine in Russia was waiting since June and finally cancelled her order in February. I don’t know, what happened with second Russian girl and her order, but so far nothing flew to Russia, but “glory” of Chris flew around. Russian society of folk harpists is rather small, everybody more-less know each other, so, there are now big doubts that Russia can ever become a market for Sweetharp.
I can’t say if she got her deposit back, but out of correspondence I was watching to help her with some English expressions I can say the following: sorry, colleagues, I’ve been working at a harp factory for 5 years, and the main credo of production is that you should never have only one supplier, but if your supplier collapses you should drag yourself out of Facebook and immediately search for a new one. Innocence? The materials he using are quite easy to find around; even if not, then ordering and shipping even from other side of North America (even from Europe) would not take more than 2 months. 2 months can be considered as understandable delay, yes.
So, good luck with yours. And congratulations to those who got the harps already.
Irish tradition still has improvised bass. In that sense we can call it polyphonic.
There are too many strings on survived historical harps to be only a monophonic instrument. To be honest, on average clairseachs had the same or bigger number of strings than average European harps at a time, and the same or lower ranges.
I don’t think that the conception of using the instrument was a lot different from the rest of Europe or from how it is now.
O’Carolan (1670 – 25 March 1738) is pretty late baroque. His music is quite well influenced by Italian style.
Why any of those?
Buy Thurau Fianna for the same, actually, price, but get a far better quality and really fantastic sound.
Deb,
I play baroque triple, also tried Spanish cross-strung harp, copy of 17th century source. I’m not sure if you are talking of modern or historical ones, but will give you a word about historical.
Crosses are funny. They are a bit strange to play, ’cause you should play wery close to where the strings are crossing and pluck the semitones between the strings – a bit further in and higher/lower, depends on which hand/which side. Here I find my triple more convinient… but not for Spanish music: Spanish Arpa Doblada allows to do quick stops of sustain and guitar imitation effects. Basicly, it was born to be a big perfect “guitar”.
The tension on multi-row harps should be much less, otherwise they just won’t sound well (soundboard overtensed) – if you are lucky. If you not, they will just explode.
On all early harps I know the maximum bass is down to GGG. That is quite a bit less than normal pedal harp, and the tops are less as well.
