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I’m not particularly experienced or particularly good and I survived it fairly well when my community band played it last fall. It was certainly a stretch for my level, but a very good one and it improved my playing and confidence considerably. If you have at least a few months you should be able to get it under your belt in time. The first movements has some spots but the third is where the action is and where the harp is quite important.
The first movement is the most fun. It has lots of fff and ffff
glissandos, tons of them, and if you didn’t have good callouses before
you will after playing that movement a few times. More to the point, you’ll have gigantic blisters about three seconds after your first time, and callouses once those heal. I played it with picks
in dress rehearsal and the concert, and discovered that when a pick hit the bass wires at ffff, the string can vibrate enough to knock the pick out of your fingers and launch it into the horn section. I’m sure the composer intend that effect, so just go with it. It also has some quickly moving block chords which are
tricky, but you can simplify them a bit or take a hand out. In
addition, the block chords are doubled by the piano and other instruments.The second movement isn’t hard and sounds cool. Some 6/4 and 5/4 measures can throw your counting off if you’re not careful, so count well, know what is going on around you, and listen a lot.
The third movement has a lot of pedaling in it and is extremely exposed, plus you have to listen and count carefully for your initial entrance. The beat isn’t very pronounced and it’s easy to get lost, and you’re the one who starts off the main part of the movement. One of the orchestral excerpt books has that part of that movement as well, and that transcription is easier to follow than the actual part, so you might try to find it or see if your teacher knows which one it’s in, and hopefully has all the markings handy that you can copy onto your part. Some of the pedal changes can be moved a beat or two before or after where they’re printed, and a couple spots are much easier to pedal that way. It also has some tinkly measures of 32d notes in the right hand against some 9ths and 16ths in the left, but when you hear the whole ensemble there you realize it’s not so bad and the important part is to hit a couple glissandos well. Then you get a lovely solo of left hand harmonics, which is the entire reason Respighi wrote the whole piece, so enjoy it.
The fourth has only a few measures and they’re super easy. When you get lost counting the rests in the fourth movement, just remember to listen for the English horn entrance doing a snake dance type of thing, which is 4 measures before you come in and easy to hear. You play almost the same measure over and over, so if you hear a second batch of low horns enter, you’ve kept repeating too long and should stop. Fortunately the harmony and beat are still the same and you could keep playing that measure another 25 minutes and sound fine, but Respighi wanted the harpist to go reserve some tables for dinner or something while everybody else finished the piece, so stop playing and wait for the end. Or go make sure the pub has your room reserved for post-concert party, but be back before the last note, as the harp might get its own bow.
People generally close windows instead of clicking the log off, so that’s probably the culprit. The site probably kicks them automatically after a period of inactivity, but if they don’t click “logout” before closing, it most likely thinks they’re online for another 20-30 minutes until it logs them off automatically.
For my next church solo, I’m going to play a 25-minute meditation in which I run a spoon across my strings
They did it with tennis pros and discovered that some things tennis pros often teach, such as turning the wrist during a serve, they don’t actually do when they play. It would be quite informative for this to be done with harpists, for many aspects of playing including raises, wrist position, finger closing, posture, and leg and foot movement.
Show why scale glissandos are noisy and don’t project and how we can make them sound better. And how to notate a glissando. Despite how good it sounds on Finale, a 64th note run for three octaves isn’t the best way.
My first teacher studied with Alice Chalifoux, so I learned the more pronounced raising, though I do it more moderately now. One benefit I did find is that it kept me from placing my fingers back earlier than necessary and led to good habits in that department. There would be other ways to accomplish it, but keeping the hands away from the strings will do it.
In her book, Yolanda Kondonassis describes it as a way to help prevent tiring out. I think that could be so if done well. I used to imagine my hands and forearms were naturally light and would float up on their own, which made the motion relaxing and soothing for me. However, I’ve seen some people in YouTube etc. who look more like their wearing manacles while doing it.
I also do a big one at the end of Chanson Dans La Nuit because I think it looks cool and I’ve just played something spooky and mysterious.
I’d call them. It sounds like they lost your message or it didn’t get through an email filter. Since business usually have contact information on their web sites, their emails get picked up by a lot of automated spammers and sometimes messages get blocked by accident.
I hope that somebody has requested “Someone Like You” at a wedding. “Do you take so and so as a reasonable substitute for your now-married ex?” Oh, l’amore, l’amore.
I think it’s Pirastro that has a video on their web site about the process. It might be on YouTube as well.
The composer is Davud Foster, which might help when looking for sheet music since the title is fairly common.
