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I’m not convinced about a riser. Joan Mainzer always played on a podium, and it may have enhanced her lower register, but it didn’t help the higher register at all, and she was placed between the violins and winds, and was often covered up by their sound. If the harp actually had a small bandshell around it, that might project the sound.
I just got a Stokowski recording of Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet, and the harpist, at the end, lets out with a volcano of rising chords (Miss Lawrence, I believe) but as soon as the tutti resumes, it is obliterated.
Spend the money! Work chairs are not appropriate. I have a heavy, piano artist bench, and it should last the rest of my life. It also looks decent on stage. You do not want something with wheels or a back. There are some benches that are less than $600. A harp bench is the suitable thing for good reasons. The bench should match the harp as closely as possible. It needs to have sturdy legs and adjustable height. It needs to be made to last.
I have one, but I’m not sure I want to sell it. What you can do is commission a portrait from an artist who can work from a photograph.
We had the Malecki Concertion performed twice at the Harp Festival of Philadelphia by Harps AFire, and I like it so much, and so much more each time I hear it, that I would gladly feature it every year. I think it is truly a classic piece. And Harps AFire gives it the best performance I have heard yet.
I don’t think etudes and exercises by a non-harpist to be a good idea, generally speaking. Pozzolli, on the other hand, are harmless etudes. Almost no etudes develop both hands equally, and are thus basically useless. There is no point in training to become a 19th-century harpist with all their limitations. Use orchestra parts as etudes.
Good old-fashioned library cards. Make them sign out the piece, and you hold the card telling you who borrowed it and when. Your collection is no doubt too valuable not to do it. Keep a stack of index cards by your studio door and use them for signing out everything. And put a due date on the card too, give one to the student and keep one. I wish Miss Lawrence had done that, she lost so much important music.
Good old-fashioned library cards. Make them sign out the piece, and you hold the card telling you who borrowed it and when. Your collection is no doubt too valuable not to do it. Keep a stack of index cards by your studio door and use them for signing out everything. And put a due date on the card too, give one to the student and keep one. I wish Miss Lawrence had done that, she lost so much important music.
Good old-fashioned library cards. Make them sign out the piece, and you hold the card telling you who borrowed it and when. Your collection is no doubt too valuable not to do it. Keep a stack of index cards by your studio door and use them for signing out everything. And put a due date on the card too, give one to the student and keep one. I wish Miss Lawrence had done that, she lost so much important music.
Magistretti was at one time a major Italian pedagogue. I don’t know his exercises. Some of his works seems good, not much different from other harpists of the period. I wouldn’t seek them out.
The best single set of exercises I know is the Conditioning Exercises of Carlos Salzedo, which you can use for all of your life.
It was a Russian edition by Dobrodinsky, I think, and Lyra should still have it, I would think. It is probably under methods or collections or orchestra parts. I don’t know if all the cadenzas are complete. I would also get the complete parts.
The position of your hands will also make a difference. Just playing the strings where the harmonics are, in the center, will add to your volume a noticable amount. Having space in your hand, between your fingers, a rounded palm, will help, too. Definitely sit angled toward the audience, behind the first violins is a good spot.
