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What is challenging also, is to play the harp with lots of color, to balance the loud piano playing. The notes overlap a lot, so getting the harp to really ring out fully is vital to success. Metaphor is playable, but what got me was the Moonlight cue, which was during a blackout, and you had to have your fingers placed before the blackout in order to begin.
The Basques are a distinct ethnic group with a unique language. I don’t know what their religion would be, but it would not be Jewish. Salzedo’s family were Spanish and Portuguese Jews who moved to southern France to escape the Inquisition. The families are Salzedo and Silva, both distinguished names with long histories. While he had a mystical identification with the number five, the origin is unknown to me. He certainly may have adopted Basque culture quite naturally from his nanny. Losing his mother so young had to have had quite an impact on his life. I think that using the 5/4 meter, however natural to him, was another way to be a distinctive, modern composer, as no other composer used it so frequently or so well. Salzedo is the only composer I have seen whose 5/4 cannot be divided into groups of 2 and 3. It is whole, like the prime number it is.
How extraordinary it is to be so close in life to a composer as to have first-hand information on how to play his music. Imagine how pianists hunger to have that on Chopin. I would like to know which European harpists have a sufficient background, aside from those who trained extensively here. For some reason, few Salzedo-trained harpists ever lived in Europe, except for the years Alice Giles spent in Germany, and two students of Lucile Lawrence I know of who live there.
Most, if not all, harpists play the ornaments as published, the appoggiaturas beginning before the beat. This is not correct to Spohr’s period. Music publishers in the 19th century are notorious for changing the ornaments or writing them incorrectly. The on-the-beat ornament is far more expressive, which is its purpose. The turns in the fast passages can be played 1232, which flows into the following notes without repeating the first note which you would be doing if you played 21231, and that doesn’t flow.
To practice ornaments, play a series of them slowly, many times and/or up and down the harp, then play them as part of the line. They must be very clear, very facile, and very melodic as well as rhythmic. The trills definitely must start on the upper auxiliary, in my opinion, and that way they finish rhythmically and lead right into the following melody. I mostly play them as 64th notes, is that hemi-demi-semi-quavers? I have yet to hear another harpist play this piece with “correct” ornamentation. It is not romantic music, it is very classical, just like a Mozart Fantaisie or earlier composers. Spohr was not a radical composer. I have done a lot of study of ornamentation.
A turn can be as few as four notes. I would definitely begin the ornaments always on the beat, all of them, especially appoggiaturas. You can choose a turn that is rhythmically comfortable.
The other factor is tipping. Will the restaurant do anything to encourage it? Or will they put a music charge on each bill? That adds to your pay.
There are also cultural differences in how people speak that one might not be aware of, so it is generally a good principle to give others the benefit of the doubt, and ask them to clarify their tone or response. For example, if a Scandinavian-cultured person asks you to go somewhere, and you say, “Well,” meaning you want to consider it, they will interpret that as a no. Jewish people argue vividly and interrupt each other or comment as one is talking, and there are set patterns of argument as well. So, best not to jump to conclusions. If someone is even talking to you at all, then they probably like you.
You can make the fourth octave strings secure by also making a second loop over the knot, this works quite well. In fact, it makes me question the use of splines altogether. Why don’t we simply make two or three extra loops so the knot is big enough to hold itself? This should work on all strings. Adding any other object can cause buzzing, but especially, anything that is not string will affect the sound. Some harpists used cotton pieces like cigarette filters, and they totally dulled the string.
It is not simply a matter of stacking them. As I was told by Alice Chalifoux, the only way to do that is to reverse one harp, loading it disc side down, so that the strings part of the harps are next to each other and not the bodies. If you could use a van, then you could column-load them side by side. If your vehicle is long enough, then something else might work.
The principle concerns in placing a harp in a car are these: to protect the harp from impact, bumps, swerves, and stress. This is accomplished by adequately padding the harp, such as with a mattress, or thick foam pad underneath, and laying it flat. It must be flat so that the neck is supported evenly and equally all the way across it. If not, you will find you have trouble tuning the harp after you arrive, I do. If you column load, the harp must be within a frame that holds it still, and equalizes the pressure on the neck, and still suspends it from all bumps, only now you also have to deal with turning. You can get torquing in the neck otherwise. If you braced it against the wall of a van against padding, it would work, but it must be braced evenly and fully. A seat belt alone will not do that. A harp must be coddled.
A colleague of mine was column loading her harp between van seats and showing me how simple it was and how it did no harm to the harp, and I had to point out to her, “Didn’t you just have to have the neck replaced?”
The old-school approach is still the best, I say, flat-loading the harp onto a full-size bed in a station wagon, like a Ford Flex, and ideally, you can use bungee cords to hold it in place in case of sliding. Mrs. Frances Miller had a frame constructed that was like half a trunk, it had padding and hand-holes along the sides. She could pull it out, lean it against the car, set the harp in it, lift it up and slide it in, and secure it to the wheel-wells with bungee cords. I never saw anything better than that. They should be made and sold. One alternative is to have plastic/acrylic sheets in the car, one on top of the other, with a foam pad on top, and slide the top one out, put the harp on it and slide it in. Or a couple of vinyl-covered exercise mats. Only, I don’t think they are adequate suspension by themselves.
It also helps when putting the harp in, as Virginia Flanagan showed me, to hold the harp and stand between it and the car, to sit down on the edge of the car and at the same time lower the harp into your lap, then slide out from under it, and, voila, it is gently loaded onto the car.
It may be safe to column load, but my experience has clearly indicated the effect of torquing on the neck. I believe, that in the long run, this will necessitate replacing the neck. It may be that one would have to do that anyway, but why tempt fate, and why have tuning problems? This is all based on my experience with a Lyon & Healy Style 23 manufactured in 1979.
I have never tried a wheelchair lift, but as they can hold the harp suspended in belts, they might be very good, or perhaps not. The ramp is certainly helpful.
The way people phrase things or talk is a reflection of their state of mind and upbringing, it has nothing to do with you, so don’t react to the way it is said. He has a point, in that the act of moving a harp from one location to another will cause it to de-tune, so you are wasting effort. Better you should tune as soon as you arrive, then re-tune just before playing. The new temperature is where you arrive, not where you depart from.
If it was Ormandy, then it was probably the Philadelphia Orchestra, featuring Marilyn Costello and Margarita Czonka Montanaro.
Your nails should be plenty strong if you have a regular diet, without adding polish. Because they are such a visual nuisance, polished nails are considered a no-no. The polish also thickens the nails enough to cause more buzzing.
