La gamba. Baroque harp

Mike Parker harpist. La Gamba played on a copy of a French triple harp from 1710. Apologies.... tuning a little vague.. hot night, thin gut strings etc... Live performance Quay Arts June 2008

Category:

Music

Tags:

• baroque
• gamba
• harp
• la
• Mike
• parker
• triple

[pheona1000]

Mike, may I very gently ask if the baroque triple harp was originally played on the left shoulder like the Welsh triple harp?

[parkerharps]

@pheona1000 Hi there... no, all the iconography and surviving instruments indicate R H treble in Europe. Only the wirestrung clarsech and the late Welsh triple are left shoulder instruments, the latter largely due to Lady llanover, who would only let LH treble triples be played on her estate, and so that's what her harp makers made, and her players taught. If you look at the longest rows, its the one the left hand can play, so you couldn't play it RH bass. M

[parkerharps]

No, the harp is very small.. its only about 5 feet in total... I don't believe in huge instruments... I just don't think they ever existed in the general school of playing

[barokharp]

so what about the bottom G for Montiverdi? And what about tthe tall harps we have like the Barbarini in Rome and the big triple at Bologne?

[parkerharps]

2 different questions. Firstly, the Barberini harp and the Bologna triple are both considerably later than Orfeo. Neither is in its original form. For Italianate chromatic harps c. 1608, all of the iconography is for cnsiderably smaller instruments. the G that Montiverdi call for in Possente Spirito. and that Trabaccicalls for in a couple of works is not a standard note in composition for harp until much later on, so is hardly typical. limited space here makes detail a problem!

[parkerharps]

Hi there.. its horribly out of tune, and I do play a c natural against a C sharp at one point.. but I was moving through 9 different harps in the course of the evening and addapting takes a moment or 3...

I built it back in 1988 (it was the first triple I built) and it is a copy of a French original from 1710.

M

[straptight]

Tuning isn't so bad as all that; I've certainly forged ahead in performance sounding worse! The harp is beautiful, with a lovely contrast of registers while still even throughout its range. One wonders why we don't see more French triples...

[brayharper]

Shame about the tuning, and thank you fo your honesty about it, but well, all those strings must be a nightmare to keep in pitch.

Beautifully played and realized, though.

Phil

[pheona1000]

@parkerharps - many thanks Mike for the clarification and for sharing your work.

[CicadaKillerMan]

The "horrible tuning" actually adds character if you ask me. If you consider the roots of this kind of music and the time when there was no standard temperament of stringed instruments.

[YANAGITAtokinori]

Light and sweet sound !

It's different with chemballo's.

[barokharp]

Nice sound and a good clean technique... is it my imagination or are you sitting very hhigh?