Iris sent me this clipping from the Philadelphia Enquirer, 16th April, 1939.
The harp that Cecille is playing is more lavishly decorated than mine, and has soundboard lines as well as forepillar carving copied from the Queen Mary harp. I wonder if it is the gut-strung one that is now in the Horniman Museum in London.
Arnold Dolmetsch harp no. 10 has finally arrived at my house. Thanks to Iris Nevins who passed it on to me, and Ann Heymann who organised shipping from the US. Continue reading Arnold Dolmetsch 10
I am working hard this week, preparing for three events in three days. On Saturday I am in Dundee; on Sunday in St Andrews and on Monday in London.
I am listening to last night’s BBC broadcast of The Well-Tuned Piano by La Monte Young. This fascinating five hour performance has prompted many thoughts and half-baked ideas on the nature of this kind of music.
Out today in the birch and beech woods of Glen Lyon.
I often hear the opinion that decoration on a new harp is a kind of decadent luxury, unnecessary, a bit of an affectation. And when decoration is applied to a replica harp, it is often somewhat simplified, or sketchy, or partial.
After a long break I have made a new ambient electronic track which you can hear on my Soundcloud page.
On Thursday I was at the National Museum of Scotland store in Granton, a suburb north of Edinburgh. I went there with Karen Loomis, to look at the plaster-cast of the Trinity College harp which is kept in the store. We had a very productive hour, inspecting, measuring and photographing the cast, and discussing aspects of the cast and how it related to the real thing in the Long Room at Trinity College, and to later illustrations and depictions of the harp.
I recently made two items from Cumbrian bog oak, a tuning key and a pendant.
Michael Newton has an interesting post on his blog, gathering opinions on attitudes to Gaelic cultural heritage and Gaelic language in North America.
I wonder how much of the kind of attitudes discussed and revealed here are related to attitudes to Gaelic harp traditions?
