I have a spitzharfe on loan, so here is my first feeble attempts at playing a tune on the thing!



I have written up my researches into the instrument and its history and you can read my article on my website at www.simonchadwick.net/spitzharfe

In the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, there is a little wooden box containing three brass or bronze tapered pins. The left and right hand ones are tuning-pins for early Irish harps, but the middle one is a mystery to me. It is labelled and described as a harp tuning pin but this is clearly rubbish - its tapered shaft is hexagonal and its wide end is in the form of a female bust with stubby crossed arms and bare breasts.

I really can't think what this thing is!

I have looked at it on and off for about 10 years; I kept asking Hèléne La Rue if we could get it out and look at it but we never got round to it. But here’s my recent photo.

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/

This morning I was up Drumcarrow Craig. There are great views of the whole of East Fife and beyond. I looked for the prehistoric hut circles marked on the OS map but I didn't find them. However the ruins of the broch next to the trig point are very clear to see - must have been an impressive tower standing right on the highest point.

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:

 Victorious Tree

Lullaby

Take 3.   N.D.G

(The other side of this disc says "Tests - A.D. on outer ring - II.IV.37")

And here is the second record, a 12 inch single-sided disc:

D II Take I

Irish Harp Music.

Mrs. Dolmetsch.

The Victorious Tree.

Lullaby.

 These records came from a collection of Dolmetsch discs, tapes and papers. Some of the other discs indicated that they were recorded by L. Ward.

Arnold Dolmetsch made a number of harps, both small gut strung instruments as well as the early Irish harps modelled on the Queen Mary harp and Trinity College harp, and fitted with metal wire strings. Mabel used them mainly for exploring the medieval Welsh repertory preserved in the Robert ap Huw manuscript, and in 1937 they released a set of gramophone records with an accompanying book of sheet music "translated" from the manuscript. Mabel played this Welsh music on the wire-strung Irish harp, and her performances and Arnold's editions proved very influential; Alan Stivell included performances of these versions on his LP "Renaissance of the Celtic Harp".

However I did not know until now that Mabel had also experimented with Irish repertory. "An Bile Buadhach" (The Victorious Great Tree) comes from Edward Bunting's 1809 collection; it was collected by Bunting from an unnamed informant "at Lord Clanbrassil's" house, Tollymore Park, co. Down, "in 1793".

When I get the correct stylus for my turntable I will play these discs once, digitise them and present them here for you! I am not going to put them on the gramophone machine - I understand that these transcription discs are extremely fragile and wear out very quickly from only a few plays.

Here's what Mabel had to say about her own playing of the early Irish harp music:

...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

Historic Scotland have confirmed the dates and times of my harp recitals at St Andrews cathedral ruins here in St Andrews, Fife.

Due to funding cuts at Historic Scotland we are only running two events this year. They will be on the first Thursday of July and August - 4th July and 1st August, at 12.45pm.

For more information please see my cathedral recitals web page.

I  am at the Edinburgh Harp Festival at the moment, running the Emporium stand. We have a great position in the Robertson Building - it is spacious, light and quite peaceful.

 This is a portrait of harpmaker Tim Hampson, with the replica Egan single-action pedal harp that he made - one of the best harps at the harp festival each year in my opinion.

This is a photo (taken by Karen Loomis) of me playing a very interesting harp that was at the Telynau Vining stand. It is a Welsh triple harp made by the Llandudno maker Hennesy Hughes (I think) in the late 19th century. I was very keen to play this harp as it is set up for left-orientation player (right hand bass, left hand treble), with the bass singling out to the right side.  It was really a delight to try this harp - I usually have great troubles playing triple harps as they are almost always set up for right hand treble, left hand bass playing.

More info about this harp from Camac.