We're sending two Erard harps (a Louis XVI, and an Empire model) from Jakez's private collection to the Caernarfon Harp Festival this year. 2012's festival pays homage to two important harp world figures, born within a few days of each other - the Welsh "King's Bard" Edward Jones, and Sébastian Erard. Download the flyer below or go to the website for more information!
At the end of last year, we donated Camac's first carbon fibre electroharp prototype (pictured above) to the National Museum of Scotland. The museum is now set to reopen on July 29th, after a 46-million-pound refurbishment. The electroharp is ready for the grand opening, set as part of what senior curator of modern science Tacye Phillipson aptly describes as a "ghostly chamber ensemble" of electric instruments. Find out more in this article in the Scotsman newspaper!
Something more for scholarly harpists on the hunt for online resources. David Day from the International Harp Archives in Utah writes:
"This summer, we have been scanning harp scores for the Internet Archive, from our collection of more than 10,000 scores and recordings that feature the harp. Today we reached a milestone of scanning over 1,000 titles. The collection can be viewed by logging into the Internet Archive and in the search box entering the tag tag (byuinternationalharparchive), including the parentheses. The resulting URL of the search can also be used as a link if you wanted to create a resource link for other harpists.
The collection includes scores from the 18th century through to 1922. It may also be of interest to researchers working in the history of music publishing or other musicological topics such as the repertory of arrangements of popular opera arias from the 19th century. Some titles are duplicated in the collection of scans, because we keep variant printings and copies that may feature markings by well known harpists. We are still scanning additional scores from the collection. I hope it will reach the 2,000 benchmark before the end of the year.
Enjoy! David Day"
More good news about the fantastic Erard exhibition currently taking place in Nice. The historical instruments curator at the Musée du Palais Lascaris, Robert Adelson, writes:
"To coincide with the exhibition "Erard and the invention of the modern harp, 1811-2011," I am pleased to announce the opening of the website of the Centre Sébastien Erard, dedicated to the study of the history of the piano and harp.
The Centre Sébastien Erard is the research branch of the Gaveau-Erard-Pleyel archives, deposited at the Musée du Palais Lascaris in Nice by the AXA insurance group in 2009. The centre was created in 2010, in partnership with the Association Ad Libitum, Centre International du Pianoforte, in order to make the archives more accessible to scholars.
This site will make accessible many rare documents from the Erard, Pleyel and Gaveau firms, including:
1. Ledger books and early administrative documents
2. Correspondence
3. Iconography
4. Photos of instruments
Please return regularly to the site, as we will continue to add more and more documents."
The Elysée, our model inspired by Erard harps
The original Empire Erard from which we cast the Elysée's bronze ornaments
The watercolour study for the Empire Erard.
Etude pour une harpe Erard, N° d'inventaire D.2009.1.1631, Fonds Gaveau-Erard-Pleyel, dépôt du Groupe AXA au Musée du Palais Lascaris, Nice
At the Palais Lascaris in Nice, between May 13th and October 17th 2011, is a lovely exhibition dedicated to the double-action harp since its invention by Sébastien Erard in 1811. The exibition includes some key instruments, including Georges Cousineau's "14-pedal" harp of 1782 and Sébastien Erard's first harp from 1786.
The exibition has an associated concert programme, moreover one that is completely free: see here for details. Upcoming concerts are:
June 18th, 4PM, Palais Lascaris: Duo Sébastien Erard (Virginie Tarrête, Erard harp, and Alain Roudier, Erard piano).
October 8th, 4PM, Palais Lascaris: "Autour de la harpe de Naderman du Palais Lascaris" Maria Christina Cleary, harp.
December 2nd, 8:30PM, CNRR Auditorium, Nice, in partnership with the French Association des Amis de la Harpe. Programme: Kikta "La luce delle tacite stelle" for mixed choir, baritone, soprano and harp sextet; Andrès "Un prince oriental" for mixed choir, baritone, soprano, flute, oboe, double bass and harp sextet.
You can also download the full catalogue to the exhibition free of charge. This catalogue includes fantastic, extensive introductory essays about Erard's life and work, as well as an interview by Dr Laure Barthel with Jakez about Erard's influence on modern harp manufacture.
The catalogue is in French. If enough people write in saying they would like an English version, I will ask the museum if I can have permission to translate it. Send your request to harpblog@camac-harps.com, or put it in the comments box to this post.
Left: Camac's Elysée harp, inspired by the genius of Sébastian Erard
The Harfengalerie Camac Berlin are in the news again as part of an interesting article in Berlin's biggest newspaper Der Tagesspiegel, about Louise Nordmann, the Berlin "Harfenjule".
The Harfenjule was the most famous of the many travelling harp players found in Germany during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. She was born blind, although an eye operation carried out in childhood did recover some sight in one eye. She could be heard playing on the streets of Berlin in all weathers, until shortly before her death in 1911. She is considered a true "Berlin original" who enjoyed considerable popularity during her lifetime, and who has gone down in the city's folklore, and was immortalised by Klabund in his volume of poetry "Die Harfenjule" (1927).
Today is the 100th anniversary of her death, and at her graveside in the Luther Cemetary in Lankwitz historical harp specialists Judy Kadar and Nancy Thym have organised a concert in her memory, of music and stories about her.
Today Harpblog has a question which is not a game, but rather an appeal to see if anyone can help a colleague with their musicological research. Can anybody tell us who this harpist is? And if so, how did you recognise him?
We'd be very grateful for your answers, to harpblog@camac-harps.com. Thank you very much in advance!
All harp makers owe an enormous amount to Sébastian Erard. Nobody has yet bettered the double-action pedal system he invented, which made the harp fully chromatic and allowed it to assume a full role in the world of music. In Hungary, they have also been celebrating the great man with an Erard Harp Day for children! Many many thanks to Csilla Gulyas, professor at the Kodaly Zoltan Magyar Kórusiskola,
Budapest, for sending us this article about it.
"On May 1st, the Hungarian harp community didn't celebrate Labour Day. Instead, my harp teacher colleague Márta Szederkényiné Horváth and I gathered our youngest harpists together to celebrate the birth of the double-pedal harp and its creator, Monsieur Sebastian Erard.
At the beginning we just wanted a quiz for some young harpists about the life and work of the great masters, but soon we realized that it would be wonderful if we could organize a bigger event not just for students, but for a wider harp family of teachers, parents and of course future harpists! There had never been an event like this in Hungary before.
One thing the Wales International Harp Festival 2010 particularly celebrates is the tercentenary of the famous Welsh harpist John Parry. The first two days programmed two lectures about this distinguished musicians, who rose from humble beginnings to London's most sophisticated musical circles - as well as a lecture about his son, William Parry, the most important Welsh portraitist of the eighteenth century. During the festival's official opening, Ann Griffiths introduced us to the principal known facts of John Parry's life, and launched two new collections of his music (publishers Adlais and Alaw). Monday evening was to have seen a lecture-recital by Sioned Williams, but sadly Sioned was unable to be there because of ill-health. Good news today, however, in that I rang Sioned and heard that not only is she on the mend, but that Meridian Records will release her acclaimed original LP of John Parry (1981) later this year. It will form a double CD together with her original LP of John Thomas. We may have been unable to hear her presentation about Parry in Caernarfon, but we'll have a second chance when the recordings are launched!
John Parry by William Parry,
reproduced here with kind permission of Miles Wynn Cato of Welsh Art,
London.
The eighteenth century saw a gradual decline in the Welsh system of musical patronage that had dated back to the 6th century, where bards were supported by wealthy households. The industrial revolution had people moving to where Wales's work was, that is, the mines in the South. The same revolution also saw Welsh gentry becoming more anglicised and therefore - Wyn Thomas argued in Caernarfon on Monday night - less interested in music. I suppose we do have the famous description of England as "the land without music", from the German Oskar Hermann's later polemic on the subject.
Ann Griffiths and Jakez François
Continue reading "The Welsh harp legacy: John Parry and his successors" »
