This special blog does not include any harp guitars, but instead, plenty of harp. Having only recently become a member of the Historical Harp Society, I was inspired to provide my perspective and this “trip report” by the many new friendly musicians and staff I met, and the discovery of so much incredible knowledge and talent both!
For any harpists who find their way here to Harpguitars.net and are curious, let me first state (and remind my own readers) that, no, “harp guitars” are not a “combination” of harp and guitar, they are simply “extended” forms of the standard guitar. They have virtually nothing to do with harps at all, beyond having a few extra open strings “plucked in the manner of a harp” – and of course, they also sound magical! On this exhaustive website, you can learn about them and their inventors and players if you like (and you should!), but right now I’m here to talk about my first visit to the Boston Early Music Festival and the concurrent Historical Harp Society Conference.
I made the trip to Boston in under two hours, driving up Wednesday June 12th so I could check out the Early Music Festival’s Exhibit Hall and get the lay of the land. No sooner did I pay my $10 fee and walk into the hall than I ran into:
Michael O’Brien and Tom MacCracken – what are the odds? Michael is perhaps the one person I would expect to see both here and at our own Harp Guitar Gatherings, as he builds and plays harp guitars but also builds and plays harpsichords. Tom on the other hand is an old AMIS contact (viols) I haven’t seen at one of our meetings for some years now.
They were hanging out at the booth of another friend all HGG-goers know and love: Emily O’Brien, showing her handmade bags for recorders of every known size and shape.
Another colleague I hoped to run into (we’d never met) was Olav Chris Henriksen of Boston Catlines. I finally met him and his wife (forgot to snap a photo; the image below is from his website) and again urged them to drive down to the new museum for a visit. I had actually discovered Chris via the lute network way back in the early 1990s when I had him supply the strings for my first-ever commissioned archlutes (the two John Rollins instruments on A Christmas Collection). He’s calculated for a couple other gut-strung instruments of mine since then. I liked being able to see these simple samples of the string types he carries from various sources.
The other string maker I knew – Gamut – also had a booth. I had used their specialty strings for that wild c.1590 bass lute recreation you might remember.
Luthier Daniel Larson, above, is part of Gamut. Sadly, lutes in the Exhibit Hall were in very short supply, and I missed the concerts that included any.
Hey, why does this woman and that instrument look so familiar?! Oh yeah, I saw her give a talk on the British Museum’s medieval citole during our 2003 AMIS trip to London. That was 22 years ago! She’s Kate McWilliams, who built the citole reproduction she’s holding along with other medieval interpretations. I love that she’s still obsessed with it and what she calls her business: Unprofitable Instruments!
Next to her was Anatolian Harps (and other plucked strings) from Turkey. I spent much time in this booth, examining both the bray harp and their two triple harps. All of these were “travel size” but with (nearly) full playing capability, spacing and tone. It was all I could do to not drive home with one of each. Seriously tempting and affordable – perhaps I can save up for next time.
This is co-owner (with her husband Ali) Zeynep Öykü – harpist and harp-builder.
She gave me my first introduction to the mind-boggling triple harp, which I’ve long known of but still didn’t believe was possible. There are two (nearly identical) rows of diatonic strings on the outside for each hand. But then a third row of accidentals is somehow tucked in-between them. What you see me attempting to do here is reaching through past a red C in the front to touch and pluck a C# just forward of it and between it and the third C behind. You cannot look at the strings or your eyeballs will explode! Just think – no messy pedals – full chromaticism is just a reach-through-and-pluck the inner string at will! Yeah, right. But just wait – more triple harp to come!
Before I left the Early Music Exhibit Hall, I checked out the sole harpsichord/early keyboard maker, then browsed the ton of CDs (finding two new ones with triple-harp!).
Luckily, I had free room and board for my entire trip, staying with the Silvas in Waltham (about 20 minutes from my various destinations). Nancy promised – and delivered on – her made-from-scratch wood-fired pizza…
…while Steve’s only task was to slice.
The next day, I headed straight to the Fine Arts Museum in order to get a seat for the second event of the Historical Harp Society conference (I had to skip the first).
I had completely forgotten their location – but the instruments are in the very first gallery upon entering, the lyre guitar player giving it away.
I remembered the foyer display from my last visit here. In fact, that was when I supplied and strung the sub-basses on their Dyer before demonstrating for my paper ten years ago.
I did not remember the museum’s unusual hangers! But in checking my old photos, I see that they did have them installed on all instruments back then. They are individually hand-painted clips duplicating the material behind them, so meant to hide their obviousness (but do they really?). No, I won’t be doing that at my place, cute though it might be.
If I was confused by their sign, that’s really saying something. The Knutsen patent is indeed part of the story, but nowhere do we see the brand and instigator of the actual instrument – the crucial W. J. Dyer & Bro. Company of St Paul, Minnesota.
The main room was locked in preparation for the presentation by my friend Nancy Hurrell (frantically tuning) – but fortunately, I have new friends in high places. In fact, I had just left them in Savannah where we all attended AMIS: Curator Nate Steele and new Pappalardo Curator of Musical Instruments Jared Katz. With a seat secured, I could then wander the halls for an hour or so…
I was reminded to look up at the spectacular dome by a waist-level mirror they had set up to reflect it:
The small African gallery was around the corner. I always try to snap pics of new random favorite objects.
Beautiful, if deadly, metalwork
Bronze figures
At this point lost, I’m somewhere in China, in front of a giant bronze drum.
A souvenir image for my wife back home
Another favorite of mine is Oceania, well-represented in another gallery.
They had two of these navigational charts of bamboo and twine made by outrigger canoe sailors of the Marshall Islands, something I hadn’t seen.
I wandered through some of the Paintings rooms before having to head back.
The instrument gallery now open, I had plenty of time to enjoy old friends…
Just as I remembered from my previous visit, although a double-neck guitar had replaced their 9-string Lacote.
Something still on my Want List: the Burmese croc zither. Exquisite.
Pay particular attention to the large cláirseach in the corner…
Time now to take our seats in front of this wonderful tableau. The striking harp on the left is the museum’s modern reproduction of their 1734 cláirseach – as accurate as they could get. Yes, the bold red and black colors were the original colors – hidden now under other layers.
No, sadly not price tags; just Museum Inventory tags!
The BMFA’s resident harp expert, Nancy Hurrell, discussed and played several of their rare examples. I first met Nancy through AMIS in 2012; helping her the next year with Carlsbad’s NAMM Museum of Making Music’s first (and only) harp exhibit. Now that I’m in Connecticut, we’re almost neighbors, and she was one of the first to see the new Miner Museum:
Back to Boston and the present: Nancy plays the gorgeous single-action Naderman. I finally learned about stringing these antique harps from Nancy and others on this trip. To retain the color-coding but not re-invent the wheel, one can use modern gut harp strings but swap everything down one or two octaves – meaning, the final tuning will be the same (or close); but for example, the third octave is strung with lighter second octave strings, etc.; this reduces tension considerably.
John Egan’s Royal Portable Harp
If you don’t know, Nancy literally wrote the book on these instruments.
After the four harps, she played the museum’s Edward Light Dital Harp – explaining how the right hand plays backwards from the true harp. She surprised me by calling me out as a “harp-lute expert” (well, it’s not like there are a lot of us!) and making me stand up in front of a room full of professional harp historians. It was another great presentation by Nancy and generous of the BMFA (and Jared and Nate) to allow us to see and hear these instruments so intimately. Thank you!
The second day of the HHS conference was at the fabulous Old South Boston Church a couple blocks walk from yesterday’s Early Music Festival’s exhibit hall. A word of warning: Parking in the city during the 4 days was not inexpensive.
Approaching the gorgeous Gothic building, first finished in the 1600s.
Inside, a recorder ensemble was preparing to rehearse for that day’s festival concert.
Spinning in place, to look up at the organ.
Upstairs in a quite private room, we attendees were treated to four special programs during the day. First up, fine Medieval and Renaissance music by multi-instrumentalists Jay and Abby Michaels. Here they both play bray harps. Jay is right-handed but just decided one day that he would play melody with the left hand!
Click the Play button to hear a snippet of recorder and bray harp.
Did you hear the buzzing? Those are the “brays” (little pieces of wood) just touching against the strings as they are plucked – a bit like a fuzzbox on an electric guitar. I particularly like the combination of bray harp with hammered dulcimer in the above clip.
The next segment was nothing but stunning. Not one, but two triple harps! Focusing on female singer/harpists from 17th century Northern Italy, Anna O’Connell (left) sang while she played duets with Phoebe McDonnell. (Sadly, I would learn that this duo has not yet recorded this amazing program, even with their can’t-miss “rock band” name of McDonnell & O’Connell – c’mon!)
In this first clip above, the pair play an instrumental – one of my favorite theorbo pieces, Piccini’s Ciaconna – which I’d never heard on harp.
A solo from Phoebe. Remember my observations about the triple harp? (The traditional “Baroque harp” of Italy, btw.) Watch as she moves effortlessly in and out of keys. To the distant eye, her fingers look like they’re simply playing a normal single bank of strings. But as we now know, they are actually threading an M.C. Escher-like impossible maze of 3 dimensions!
Here’s Anna’s triple, made (if I recall) by Campbell Harps of Washington.
Closeups of the 3 rows at soundboard (held by guitar bridge pins and individual “frets” to sound. Above, we see the traditional “terraced” carved landing for the string posts to layer strings within their triple-decker sandwich – and see how close the banks are!
And Phoebe’s harp (stung in gut; that can’t be cheap to maintain) by Rainer M. Thurau.
Here, she is showing me how “simple” it all is. A whole different world, and I understand there were other triple-harpists attending the conference as well. I think I better stick with my harp-ukulele…
The Boston Public Library was right across the street and we were urged to visit during the lunch break.
Main entrance; let’s take a quick look!
Loving the doors…
Front stairs: well-lit and protected by giant lions, something my library is unfortunately not.
Turning around, yeah, this is a nice building.
Just off to the left, up a few stairs, they have a nice map display room. As I’m a New England resident now, time to check out the lay of my land in 1777…
… and there I… am not. Yet. Of course, the man-made lake we live near wouldn’t be created until later for the mills. Nice and hilly, though! Already, we see Stonington on the coast, which my 11th generation ancestor Thomas Minor had co-founded (his grave is still there).
Back in the church, we reconvened for another incredible performance program – Scottish harpist Rachel Clemente and Baroque flute player Mei Yoshimura Stone.
Just a snippet, but you get why I also urged this ad hoc duo to record!
Next up: a lovely antique concert harp?
No, it’s only this big! But it’s a real harp, owned and researched by harpist/collector Mia Theodoratus in the Bronx. Hit Play below, and you’ll hear this tiny “improved harp.”
Though unmarked, Mia was able to deduce that it is surely the patented metal-bodied “improved harp” by one George Reed of Vermont in 1874. Nothing in the patent nor its illustration suggests that it was anything but full size, but other clues from old newspapers seem to refer to this small “carriage harp” as being one and the same.
Here you can see the metal body, folded over at the edges to contain the wood soundboard. Cute and clever!
Mia had originally intended to bring her own dital harp for this program but had to leave it behind. Too bad; it turns out she was the buyer of the spare dital harp I sold on eBay ten years ago!
(Sitting in my Woodland Hills CA niche 25 years ago; now played regularly by Mia.)
The next day, we were back in the Colonnade Hotel (which housed the Early Music Festival on the ground floor). Alice Margerum told the strange-but-true story of Two Medieval Harp Carvings on Grave Slabs in Northwestern England. Quite the investigation as to who, where, when and why!
This slide shows one that she replicated at actual size (on chair) as an experiment (she also builds).
Next, Abigail Stoner (Society VP, conference planning committee and my interface with this new group) showed many beautiful and dramatic harp-themed paintings from Ireland, Scotland and France based on the Ossianic legends, exploring the many common themes.
…and I need more wall space.
After lunch, another visit with my brand-new friend, Ian McVoy. By complete coincidence (or are we stalking each other?), I had just met him at AMIS in Savannah the week before, giving a completely different presentation.
This time, he brought one of his (many) harps with him, and it was a beaut! (the soundboard decoration is non-original).
This is a rare early Erard from Paris, with a “prototype” or transitional fourchette mechanism:
Rather than the pronged discs on the outside that we’re used to seeing today, these were placed inside, with circular slots to allow their rotation.
And the simple linkage.
Ian is a professional Paris-trained harpist, but also a self-taught restorer. With occasional help from his dad, he refurbishes (or plans to!) the over-20 harps in his collection (some in the States, some in London). Like this one, which he had recently completed, anxious to play and hear it and share it with us.
He did some touch-up here and there to the incredible carvings…
… and cosmetic repair as needed throughout.
Ian holds the piece removed to take off the linkage side panel above. This was in the period before composition molds replaced most of the carver’s work in Erard (and others’) shop. This (and the harp’s full ornamentation) was delicately hand carved. His dad Mic hael believes this is limewood – somewhere in the family of basswood. Fascinating!
Though his A-pedal was still sticking a bit (this is a single-action harp by the way), Ian played two lovely pieces. I was struck not just by the volume of this 225(ish)-year-old instrument, but by the beautiful tone. Extremely warm and even from top to bottom, very unlike our modern harps which can seem overly muddy in the mid-range. Take a listen!
Sadly, I caught no other concerts at the Boston Early Music Festival; anything I hoped to attend was either too far away or concurrent with the harp festivities. But as you can probably glean from my comments, photos and videos, I’m glad I went!
I’d like to thank Abby and Jay for their welcoming hospitality, all the harpists for lugging their priceless babies all the way to Boston, and the staff at the BMFA, along with Nancy. Looks like it’s time to for me to start harping again!
