Grosse Dramatische Fantaisie

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Note from the editor

I am delighted to introduce you to this fascinating collection of new repertoire for our instrument, thanks to Alaw Music Publishing. These hidden gems were created by the Swedish harp virtuoso and composer, Anton Edvard Pratté (1796-1875), in his lifetime highly-praised and successful but never published to this day!

A few years ago I had the good fortune to come across Pratté’s name and to study his manuscripts. I soon realized how marvellous was his music, and that we were both based in the same city of Norrköping, Sweden! For interpretation, most dynamics and fingerings have been added by myself and should be regarded as suggestions only.

The recently rediscovered Swedish harpist and composer Anton Edvard Pratté (1796-1875), once described by his contemporaries as “the Harpking of the North”, composed over 200 works and enjoyed an illustrious career as a harp virtuoso, both in Scandinavia and Continental Europe, alongside other illustrious figures such as Elias Parish-Alvars (1808-1849) and Nicholas-Charles Bochsa (1789-1856). Interestingly, a critic compared Pratté’s playing with the latter, stating that Pratté was “the teacher” and Bochsa “the student!”