harps blah etc
I've just spent the last ten days at masterclasses in the splendid surroundings of the Pałac Radziejowice near Warsaw. Sitting in palaces going on about harps is a fine thing, even in pidgin-Polish (I thought it was "pigeon Polish", but a clever friend at Oxford took the piss, so now I know).
Ooh, I love going on about harps. I've just been reading a 24-answer thread on a harp message board about the tricky pedal bit in the Debussy Danses. Here's some of it:
A: Jamet's solution omits two notes, and at full tempo, even knowning that you are listening to his version, you can't hear these omissions. Salzedo's version leaves out the entire left hand, and then divides the right hand 16th notes between the two hands and drastically alters the harmony!!!
B: But it works beautifully and is standard for many many harpists!!!!!
My version leaves all the notes intact.
A: You're unbelievable! You jump all over the Jamet version for leaving out two notes(really one, because it's the same one when the pattern repeats an octave lower), and then praise a version that is so far out in left field as to not bear the faintest resemblance to the original version. And why? Because it was written by Salzedo! When I complain about the cult-like mentality that I have observed so often over the years, THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!!!
B: No it is not.
- [afterthought] And if it were, so what? You can't do anything about it, so move on.
[there then follows an interlude where someone else reminisces about a Salzedo transcription of the Lord's Prayer]
B: The "leap" from Jamet to Salzedo was simply a reflection of my impatient mind. I am striving to play the original. If it is to be changed at all, then I would rather go all the way to Salzedo's brilliant solution which sounds clearly, moves well, and is playable in the tempo Debussy seemed to want. And we know he liked speed. One thing I do not agree with is changing any notes of the slide into the last page. It must be in theis it Lydian-mode to set up the chords to follow and get the harp ringing in the mode.
A: That is the most pathetic defense of Salzedo's indefensible solution to that passage that I have ever heard...
...Salzedo's version of the Danses, including the glissandos on the last page, are just another example a domineering narcissistic 'leader' playing fast and loose with the music.B: If one plays the last page of the Danses up to tempo, it sounds just like it is already "glissandi", and glissandi are far more effective in communicating what Debussy is trying to say, but couldn't be done on a chromatic harp.
Those who live in glass houses, as the saying goes, should not throw stones. What would Debussy would say about attempting to play the whole Children's Corner Suite as a harp solo. I know what I would.
