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My feeling is that lanolin is the best thing for skin. If you don’t like the smell of bag balm, you can melt together more-or-less equal amounts of vaseline and lanolin and have the equivalent, which will jell again as it cools. You might also mix in some olive oil or cocoa butter.
Look at Stoney End harps also. They are economical, with excellent
financing options, and it is my opinion that their tone quality is very
high for the price. I’m buying one to keep in my downtown studio to
teach on. If they are built at the factory, you have a good option. A
second hand kit built by an unknown person is better avoided.Thank you for your feedback! I was able to order a Ravenna yesterday. It will be coming from the Folk Traditions Store in Savannah, GA – they are closing and having a big sale. Check out their website here: http://www.folktraditionsstore.com
I learned the Salzedo version first. And because of the difficult nature of the piece, I altered only a few passages in the first movement. I had played it on several Marine Band tours and just simply couldn’t re-work it. Salzedo had a series of sevenths at the end of the first movement which was not stylistic, Grandjany’s was more stylistic, but now I use a climbing octave in the bass line that makes sense. Second movement I use Lawrence but fleshed out a lot of the chords. Seemed too thin for my taste. As for the cadenza, it depends entirely on where you are playing the work. When I did it twice in Boston with the H/H Society, Tommy Dunn didn’t want a lot, just an embellishment and resolution. The Salzedo cadenza isn’t good at all, it’s even in the wrong place, would never play it. I would play the Grandjany in almost every other venue, but would cut some of it. In both the Grandjany and Salzedo, the ornaments need to be fixed. My third movement is the Lawrence. I love this piece immensely, it’s been one of my standards for years. I was lucky enough that one of the performances in Symphony Hall was in celebration of Handel’s 300 birthday! It was performed in it’s original setting of “Alexander”s Feast”.
i played M.Grandjany version, but for cadenza, first played Grandjany, second time played another cadenza.
If you’re playing the Handel on a big harp, I don’t see any reason not to play a full-blown creative cadenza. I think audiences need and probably expect it. I don’t like the idea of switching back and forth between Grandjany and Salzedo editions. I would only be concerned with which edition I used if I were playing with an “original instruments” type group.
I agree, it is difficult. I learned the Lawrence edition, and feel loyalty to it. I prefer the Salzedo in many ways, but would only teach with its original cadenza, and it is a wonderful 1945 version of Handel. I have begun work on my own edition, as I see other possibilities in the original. If I ever finish it, then perhaps that will be what I teach. I have not been able to see all the others. I have a recording of Zabaleta playing the original with little or no embellishment, but it is overly spare and lean. I have composed a very good cadenza for it, I think, in the style of the period of C.P.E. Bach. I am willing to make it available for performance.
I think art is created with the public in mind, perhaps. At least for me it is. Artists who disregard the public and work only to please themselves are less interesting for it. I don’t think Salzedo chose Arkansas Traveler just to suit his fancy. He chose one of the most well-known popular folk tunes at a time when he was performing cross-country, and subjected to the cleverest permutations and deconstruction, long before Foucault. The tune in itself is playable on the harp. He was consciously going against the typical impression of the harp, I think, to maximized the effect of how he handled the music, to brilliant effect. I think creativity should be encouraged, but it thrives on structure and guidance as well in order to excell. As long as people strive to improve and grow, that’s most important. As for the bumble-bee, somehow I missed that. But precedents should never be an excuse. And as the old French saying goes, “It’s the exception that confirms the rule.” Meaning, exceptions must be and are made, but it doesn’t violate rules (structure) to do so. It’s really quite an elegant statement. As one who has almost always had to be an exception, it has allowed me to develop and grow.
Hello,
I need
your assistance. Reading your post, you mentioned a lady who plays the
harp and is in Hermiston. Do you know if she plays for weddings? I have
a lady who moved here from Florida and is getting married the end of
July and is pursuiting a harpist or violinist.Your help is greatly appreciated.
Sincerely,
Glenda Gibbs
509-585-9683
The thread is about “necessary” repertoire. When masters like Renie, Grandjany and Salzedo were transcribing pieces from other periods for harp, they carefully selected what they felt were appropriate works and laboriously worked them out as harp pieces, I am sure. (I can only speak “directly” of Salzedo’s work methods.) Has their discriminating activity legitimized all manner of transcribing, or perhaps it is just the attitude that individuality is all that matters. It is very easy to say ‘do whatever you feel like’. And we all do what we feel like, to some extent or another. Music is individual, but it is a shared language and culture, with a certain amount of norms and traditions that help keep it strong.
But speaking of Carnegie Hall recitals, which I do, I tend to assume other people share the goal or dream of such performing, and so I try to help them along that kind of path. I guess that’s the agenda I am being accused of promoting. I want people to do the very best they possibly can, and to do the best for the harp they can at the same time. If someone has the chance to perform at Carnegie Hall, and they do a program like, say, a Nadermann Sonata, four Bochsa and Dizi etudes, four chosen at random Scarlatti Sonatas, followed by a Beethoven piano sonata, tidbits by Zabel and something like Parish Alvars Serenade and a Fantasy on opera airs, I would venture to say they are not really honoring the occasion or the harp, though it may be what they want to do most of all. And they will be pleased with themselves, but as people leave, they may well be saying, as I heard after a recital in Carnegie Hall long, long ago by a foreign harpist, “Well, that’s the last time I go to a harp recital! Is that what they have for repertoire?” You might want to say that was an ignorant fool, but he spent his money for a Carnegie Hall recital by a harpist and was disappointed. We are all ambassadors for the harp, and are always educating the public and other musicians by what and how we play. If we’re going to play Mozart Sonatas, then by golly, we should just be darn sure we’re going to play them better than those pianists.
