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Arioso is the third piece from the Towards the Light collection for piano written during Patrick’s time as Composer in Residence for Classic FM.
Arranged for pedal harp by Elinor Evans, this beautiful piece is a soothing outpouring of melody. Meaning ‘in the style of an aria’ it introduces the lyrical quality which is a major feature of the collection.
Intermediate to advanced
Maeve Gilchrist’s Celtic-inspired original composition Catriona’s Jig is for solo lever or pedal harp. With this arrangement Maeve also provides some alternative arrangement and ostinato-based ideas for you to make the piece your own.
Intermediate to advanced
Maeve Gilchrist’s original composition Fin and Sarah’s Wedding Waltz is for solo lever or pedal harp. It’s written in a “light and easy, dreamlike” jazz waltz style with some quick double lever changes. A great piece to explore the harmonic possibilities of a lever harp.
Visit Maeve Gilchrist’s studio at Harp Column Academy for her tips on how to play Fin and Sarah’s Wedding Waltz.
Internationally renowned harpist and composer Catrin Finch is one of the most accomplished harpists of her generation, and has been delighting audiences with her performances across the UK and worldwide since the age of five. But despite having run her own summer harp academy in the village of Gwaelod Y Garth near Cardiff for many years, attracting students from America, Australia and other parts of the world, Catrin never saw herself as a real teacher until now. “I guess I want to start handing on,” she says. “I see now that it’s my duty to pass on what I’ve learned and ensure there’s another Catrin Finch coming up.”
The Catrin Finch Harp Academy Book 1 will help you on the right path with your harp playing. “A good technique is the foundation of all great harp playing. I was lucky enough to have great harp teachers that ensured the fundamentals of my technique and playing were there right from the beginning. I’ve always believed that the foundations of technique are the same for us all, and once mastered, we can adapt and find our own unique ways of playing. Whether you are a beginner or a more advanced player, the contents of this book will be relevant to you.”
In addition to the exercises, Catrin has composed four new studies to help you bring together specific aspects of technique in a musically satisfying experience. So make those harp strings sing and start working with Catrin today!
Mixed abilities
Made available as a single publication for the first time, Catrin’s contemporary pieces for harp, Clear Sky, Sunflower, Môr Arianrhod and Aurora are joined by a fifth, Endless Sky.
“Pictures is the first in a series of works for solo harp written between 2015 and 2020. A collection of five different pieces, Clear Sky and Aurora were written for my first ever self-composed album Tides. Sunflower was commissioned by the Tamnak Prathom Harp Centre in Bangkok for the Third Thailand International Harp Festival and Youth Competition, and Môr Arianrhod (The sea of Arianrhod) by the Canolfan Gerdd William Mathias for the Youth Competition in the Fourth Wales International Harp Festival. More recently, Endless Sky was written during the Covid-19 lockdown of 2020.”
The original version for solo soprano and SATB choir appeared on Patrick’s debut album Blue in Blue. It was subsequently recorded by Hayley Westenra for her Number-One-selling album Odyssey and, in 2014 by Voces8 choir to produce a version for them which featured on their Number-One-selling album Eventide.
Arranged here for pedal harp from the piano version by Elinor Evans, the music reflects the heartfelt longing for the joys of heaven, a happiness to be shared in a future moment of meeting expressed in the words.
Intermediate
Available from January 2019, Reflections is a companion book for the collection of pieces written specifically for the lever harp in 2018 by New Zealand composer Jeroen Speak. The composer writes:
This volume constitutes new works written for pedal harp alongside some pieces, reworked from my earlier volume of the same name for lever harp, which lent themselves equally well to the pedal environment. As with the the former works, these aim to exploit the idiosyncrasies of the instrument while opening up new technical challenges to the player within a stylistically familiar environment. Nocturne 2, for example, explores rolled chords and balance of melody over an active accompaniment whilst Sunny Sunday plays with irregular time signatures and shifting accents and Taras Dream Waltz challenges your pedaling and explores more exotic sonorities.
I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed writing them!
Jeroen Speak, London, England
This meditative piece reflects on the eternal mystery of ‘what is true is beautiful and what is beautiful is good’. The simplicity of the text is mirrored in the pure tonality of D major and in the repetitive four-bar harmonic progression.
My interest in rhythm explorations and hand separation has evolved organically through my love of texture, soundscape and my insatiable appetite for collaboration. I hope you enjoy this selection of exercises and études and that it inspires and helps you in your own journey to realising your musical potential.
I hope this book will be a gentle guide to encourage harpists into the greater world of rhythmic possibilities and hand separation. I’d like to emphasise the point that a solid sense of time and greater rhythmic understanding doesn’t mean more complex and syncopated material. More and more, I find myself wanting to play less but play what I do play more accurately and (most importantly) beautifully! I say this so that the beginning student will not be put off by some of the more complex etudes and examples. All of this material can be scaled down to the fundamentals and should be taken and understood at whatever pace is right for the student. A student might play the first page of ostinato-based exercises for a year at a very slow tempo. If they play the material with accuracy and understanding then that is a great accomplishment. For those with greater technical skills or experience with sophisticated rhythms, don’t let the end of this book be the end of your explorations.
For every étude you master, create your own. Turn it inside out, make something cooler! You are your own best teacher. As players of a marginalised instrument in contemporary music it is our collective job to push its boundaries and create music that illuminates the harp as a 21st century instrument. Whether that involves simply understanding and supporting the possibilities or bringing them alive, I hope this book is a help along the way.
Intermediate to advanced
Maeve Gilchrist’s original composition Yellow Birds is taken from the suite The Ostinato Project, and can be played on lever or pedal harp. Alternating from a sprightly 6/8 to 9/8 meter, the piece evokes “starlings in the sky.”
Copyright © Debra Wanless Music 2020
