I first became aware of Edith Taylor many years ago, from reading Frances Collinson’s book The traditional and national music of Scotland. After describing briefly the wire-strung clarsachs made by Arnold Dolmetsch, he writes:
Miss Edith Taylor, the first Honorary Secretary of Comunn na Clàrsaich, has one of these on which she once played for the writer at a B.B.C. ‘Country Magazine’ programme from Lochaline, Morvern.
Today I presented my concert in St Andrews, “the Memoirs of Arthur Ó Neill”.
I read excerpts from his autobiography, and played the tunes referred to in the anecdotes.
Here is my video of the complete, half-hour performance:
I’ve been playing almost every day now for a week and a half, using the tips of my fingers, with my nails trimmed short. Here are a few preliminary observations.
Continue reading Some observations on playing with finger-tips
When Iris Nevins gave me the Arnold Dolmetsch harp no.10, it had a bad soundboard crack. Closer inspection showed that the entire area where the neck attached to the soundbox was also loose.
I had promised Iris that I would get the harp up and running and do a video of it being played, so first I had to repair it.
Continue reading Repairing, restringing and playing the Dolmetsch harp
I just removed the old strings from the Dolmetsch harp.
On page 87 of their book Telenn: la harpe Bretonne, (Éditions Le Télégramme 2004), Alan Stivell and Jean-Noël Verdier write about Heloise Russell-Fergusson:
depuis l’été 1932, elle possédait la première copie de clarsach fabriquée par le musicologue suisse Arnold Dolmetsch, installé à Haslemere en Grande-Bretagne: modèle en cerisier monté de 27 cordes en métal. La harpiste, l’instrument et les mélodies vont charmer le public (dont Gildas Jaffrennou), au point de faire une tournée en novembre de cette même année en Bretagne. L’année suivante, elle sera encore présente au Gorsedd de Quimperlé : à cette occasion, Gildas Jaffrennou prendra les mesures de cette clarsach et en réalisera une copie dans son atelier de Carhaix : selon les dires de l’intéressé lui-même, ce premier instrument n’était pas assez satisfaisant, cette première harpe aurait fini au feu ! (Rencontres avec Gildas Jaffrennou en juillet 1993 et 1997).
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 have digitised the first of the three sides I have of these old Dolmetsch transcription discs. I chose the “test” side to do first as I assumed it would be the least interesting.
Actually it turned out to be really fascinating. There are 5 tracks. The first starts with the voice of Arnold Dolmetsch himself, announcing his performance of Lord Salisbury’s Pavan on the Clavichord. At the end he laughs and says “hopeless!”
Then we have three tracks of Mabel playing the early Irish harp. Two of them are fragments of An Seann Triucha (the Old Trugh) – from Bunting’s Ancient Music of Ireland, 1809, p.6.
I do not recognise the third track. I wonder if it is some Welsh music from Robert ap Huw.
You can listen to these tracks here:
http://www.earlygaelicharp.info/Dolmetsch/
I have acquired two discs which I think might be the oldest recordings of early Irish harp music, recorded in April 1937. I have not yet played them to hear what is on them – I am still trying to source a suitable stylus for my turntable.
They are one-off lacquer gramophone records, also known as transcription discs – the 1930s equivalent of a cassette tape, for direct recording as a one-off copy. These are not reproductions or duplicate pressings so are almost certainly the only copies that exist of these takes.
Here’s the handwritten label of one of the discs, a double-sided 10-inch disc:
And here is the second record, a 12 inch single-sided disc:
…the small, metal-strung variety [of harp], favoured in Ireland, and the Highlands of Scotland, under the name of Clarsach. I never ceased to thank him [Arnold Dolmetsch] for producing these most fascinating of instruments, whose suavely tuneful music rejoices the heart and charms the senses. One day when I was recreating myself with one of these little instruments, a neighbour who had asked if she might use our telephone, came running into the music room, exclaiming: ‘Oh, what are those lovely sounds? That is the kind of music I want to hear when I am dying!’
From Mabel Dolmetsch, Personal Recollections of Arnold Dolmetsch, RKP, 1957, p148
