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I don’t know where you learned to move a harp. From all I know and have experienced and been taught, it should lay flat on the side without discs, fully and evenly supported like on a mattress larger than the harp, not on lumpy uneven pillows. The side has to be protected from scraping and bumps as well. Having it lay on the column exposes the neck to flexion and torsion if it is not rigidly held still and encased. It is a problem when so many cars are not long enough, but don’t compromise the harp’s safety! I did see a handyman’s van, who had installed pegboard along the side. This seems to me like a good set-up, so with a pad between the harp and the wall, you can strap it at multiple points, but still, this would not be so stable, and would create stress where-ever the straps were.
The harp is a very particular instrument. There are somethings it just doesn’t like being done with it. Some things seem like a good idea at the time but just don’t work out well in performance. Not everything is a relative value with the harp. Excessive repetition is one thing not compatible with it. It must be played rhythmically. It helps to have a coach, all one’s life, like a singer, because we need that outside ear and perspective on what we’re doing. It’s not like a violin, where the sound is right in your face.
Lucile Lawrence made her edition with the intention of serving the needs of the full-size harp with a modern orchestra, or solo, and yet being stylistically appropriate to the period. She therefore retained chords and voicings when possible from the Salzedo edition, but overall thinned the texture, removed the added voices and revisions of melody and harmony from Salzedo and Grandjany, and used historically appropriate ornaments, with an appropriately brief cadenza by Dewey Owens. If you want a stylish edition to play on a big harp, then this is a good one to use. If you want to go urtext, it will be too thinly textured to sound well on a big harp, and you must consider the improvisatory approach of the time. It is a big project, but perhaps someone can embark on a comparison/contrast study of all the available editions. I’m sure that it would be published. I would do it if someone sent me the music. One has to consider the orchestra/conductor/audience and their expectations. It’s as though we need to know three versions: one rigidly “authentic”, one adapted, and one romantic or modern like Grandjany or Salzedo. Those are the only ones that would also serve as a showcase for the harp. In going through the Grandjany edition recently, I noticed that the opening of his cadenza recalls the opening of the harp’s cadenza in Monteverdi’s Orfeo. I wonder if that was deliberate. The Harvard Dictionary of Music has good articles on performing style in different periods, which is a different issue in part from ornamentation. As I mentioned before, I have begun the slow process of my own edition, which will probably not yield terribly major differences, only I find places in which I think richer harmony is possible based on the bass line and melody given. And then there’s the issue of variation on repeats. I’ve heard it done, a professor from B.U. helped create a version with added elements and variations on the repeats. I must say, I found it disturbing. We are used to a structural approach to Baroque music, and even though improvisation may have been done, particularly by singers, it doesn’t mean the composers liked it, and didn’t want to do away with it. It adds a layer that is trivial and self-serving of the performer, much like “pop” singers of today. I think we are right to want to look deeper into the music, and to not be distracted by superficial detailing.
Ibert’s Six Pieces have several pieces based on seventh or sixth chords and their inversions. I think you might find these very helpful.
I am a musician; violist, in the Brazos String Quartet and am seeking the music to “Storybook Love” or Theme from “The Princess Bride”. If you have this music or know where I might find it, please contact me. I am especially interested in finding a string quartet arrangement. My email is joeortiz1@hot.rr.com and my phone is 254.751.1482. Thanks!
Oy, chichornya. 🙂 Ya lyublyu go to Russia but is so far. I never heard of Slepushkin, only Erdelis, Tauer, Shameyeva, Ortenburg, Dulova. We have great tradition here, too.
Now I can see, Moscow. If you ever meet a conductor named Robert Luther, or his son, Slava Luther, they are friends of mine.
Bravo! And please send some here for their college studies. I would love to teach them. With all the string folk instruments in Russia, why not the harp? Guzla, Bandura, Balalaika. What manufacturer’s pedal harps do you sell, and what city are you in?
Well, why isn’t there a lever harp with two rows of levers so it can be tuned in c-flat and make naturals and sharps?
Well, having heard Zabaleta play on his Obermayer harp with the muffling pedal, I think, twice, it was no prize sound. It was remarkably dry and colorless. He may have liked that for the contrapuntal music he performed, but it left a lot to be desired in Carnegie Hall.
Now that is a very good idea. The modern day equivalent of requiring your students to bring in cassette tapes.
Another thought — my cell phone takes short videos (30 seconds), and they can be either sent to another cell phone number as a text message, or sent directly to an email box from the phone, with no processing. Maybe cheaper (or easier to borrow from a friend to test it out first?) for someone who does not already own a camcorder. And a webcam can be very inexpensive. Quality on both the cell phone and webcam are lower than a nice camcorder, though, so try to borrow one to try it out first.
