Harps

“ The very nature of the harp is chordal, and the sculptures always depict the performer playing with both hands, the fingers being more or less outstretched. That the music must have been of a deep, sonorous character, we may gather from the great size of the harps and the thickness of their strings. ”

“ Cultured races and primitive peoples alike played the harp. The Greeks had three-cornered harps and the Romans had harps with a curved frame, pegs, and sound-box. The famous lyre was a kind of harp. The ancient Irish harp, called cruit, and also crwth, which in time became a sort of fiddle-harp and was played with a bow, seems to have been an ancestor of the violin. As early as 200 B.C. the Irish children were taught that “the spirit of song dwelt among the trembling strings of the cruit.” ”

“ The forms of Harp drawn in this work (Plates II., III., and XXXIV.) differ from the ancient harps which had no forearm or front pillar, and could therefore have endured but little strain. Yet an old Celtic monument represents a harp-like instrument with this Eastern peculiarity. The extremely interesting Celtic harps here drawn, the Queen Mary and the Lamont harps, have forearms or bows of a constructive strength that would, with the rest of the framing, bear a considerable draught of wire. The Celts and Germanic nations appear to have long cultivated the harp. ”

“ The effect of harps is in proportion better as they are in greater number. The notes, the chords, or the arpeggios which they throw out amidst the Orchestra are of extreme splendor. Nothing can be more in keeping with the ideas of poetic festivities, or religious rites, than the sound of a large body of harps ingeniously introduced. ”

“ how the waves run and toss their arms about,--and the wind plays on those great harps, made by the shrouds and masts of ships. ”

“ The harps were frequently the heighth of a man; they were painted tastefully with lotus and other flowers, and richly ornamented and inlaid. The tuning was by means of pegs, sometimes two rows of pegs are shewn. There were long slit holes at the back for giving freedom to the air, exactly as found in modern harps.
No instance has been found of harp with supporting pole or pillar. The strings were always of gut. One harp has been discovered with strings which though they had been buried more than 3000 years still sounded on being touched. ”

“ They delight much in musicke, but chiefly in harps and clairschoes of their own fashion. The strings of the clairschoes are made of brass wire, and the strings of the harps of sinews, which strings they strike either with their nayles growing long, or else with an instrument appoynted for that use. They take great pleasure to deck their harps and clairschoes with silver and precious stones ”

“ The Egyptians possessed various kinds of harps, some of which were elegantly shaped and tastefully ornamented. The largest were about 61⁄2 feet high; and the small ones frequently had some sort of stand which enabled the performer to play upon the instrument while standing. The name of the harp was bene. Its frame had no front pillar; the tension of the strings therefore cannot have been anything like so strong as on our present harp. ”

“ Those who arrive in the morning are entertained until evening with the conversation of young women, and the music of the harp, for each house has its young women and harps allotted to this purpose. In each family the art of playing the harp is held preferable to any other learning. ”

“ According to the miniatures in manuscripts, the harp was of a size that the top of it{215} did not extend higher than the head of the performer, who played upon it in a sitting posture (Fig. 190) . There were, however, harps of a lighter character, which the musician bore suspended from his neck by a strap, and played upon while standing up. This portable harp was the one that may par excellence be called noble, and was the instrument on which the trouvères accompanied their voices when reciting ballads and metrical tales (Fig. 191) . ”

“ The notation of harp parts is the same as that of the piano. Although the harp is hardly a regular member of the orchestral family, one or more harps are frequently called for in modern scores. Their brilliant, scintillating effect is too well known to require description. Harmonics are possible and are of ethereal beauty in soft passages. ”

“ Sweet faces, rounded arms, and bosoms prest
To little harps of gold: and while they mused,
Whispering to each other half in fear,
Shrill music reached them on the middle sea. ”

“ Those standing near the torch-bearers are costumed in the same manner, and hold small harps in the left hand, while the right touches the strings. The body and head are thrown back slightly, and the eyes cast upward. Those performers standing near the platform should be elevated on small platforms of various heights, so as to be distinctly seen. ”

“ It is well known that if one of the wires of a harp be made to vibrate vigorously, its movement will call forth sympathetic vibrations in the corresponding strings of any number of harps placed round it, if they are tuned to exactly the same pitch. ”

“ There it stands so strong and sturdy, and yet so beautiful, a very type of the best sort of man. How proudly it lifts its bare head to the winter storms, and with what a full heart it rejoices when the spring has come again! How grand its voice is, too, when it talks with the wind: a thousand aeolian harps cannot equal the beauty of the sighing of a great tree in leaf. ”

“ These effects are of the same nature as those produced by the harp of Orpheus, and it is to be observed that in the ballad of 'Harpans Kraft' the harper is a bridegroom seeking (successfully) to recover his bride, who has been carried down to the depths of the water by a merman. We have had something like these effects in the 'Twa Brothers,' No 49, B 10, I, 439, where Lady Margaret harps the small birds off the briers and her true love out of the grave. [97] There is a fisherman in the Gesta Romanorum who has a harp so sweet that all the fish in the water come to his hand: Oesterley, No 85, p. ”

“ As the old mystics used to say, the same heat that melts wax hardens clay into brick. The same light that brings blessing to one eye brings pain to another. You have heard, and hearing you have not heard; and you will cease to be able to hear at all; and then the thunders may rattle over your heads, and be inaudible to you; and that Voice which is as loud as the sound of many waters, and sweet as harpers harping on their harps, and which says to each of us, 'Come to Me, and I will be thy peace and thy rest and thy strength,' will no more be audible in your atrophied ears. ”

“ When he dived towards the guns on the far side of the room the crossbows twanged like harps of death. ”

“ Raising the top and looking inside, we observe the harp-like disposition of the strings as in a modern grand piano, which led Galilei, the father of the astronomer Galileo, to infer the direct derivation of the harpsichord from the harp. ”

“ The harp is our principal musical instrument. We have one that is portable and in form like a lyre; but our great harp is much larger than yours, differently constructed, and far more effective, combining, as it does, in its tones all the delicacy, expression, and oneness of a single executant, with the brilliancy and power of a combined body of performers. ”

“ As the instrument is new, so it is also easy to construct and very pleasant. It is the admiration of every one. It is made exactly to tit a window, in which it is placed ; and the harp, while the window remains shut, is silent : but as soon as it is opened, an harmonious sound, though somewhat melancholy, coming from the passing wind, astonishes the hearers; for they are not able to perceive from whence the sound proceeds, nor yet what kind of instrument it is, for it resembles neither the sound of a stringed nor yet of pneumatic instrument, but partakes of both. ”

“ I WILL WAKE MY HARP WHEN THE SHADES OF EVEN. [23]
I will wake my harp when the shades of even
Are closing around the dying day,
When thoughts that wear the hues of Heaven
Are weaning my heart from the world away;
And my strain will tell of a land and home
Which my wand'ring steps have left behind,
Where the hearts that throb and the feet that roam
Are free as the breath of their mountain wind.
I will wake my harp when the star of Vesper
Hath open'd its eye on the peaceful earth,
When not a leaf is heard to whisper
That a dew-drop falls, or a breeze hath birth. ”

“ As the ring-dove cooes from its nest aloft.
I am full of a song that mothers croon
When their wee ones tire of their play at noon.
Though a harp may feel ’tis a silent thing
Till the breeze arises and bids it sing. ”

“ Boschsa how little the harp, can do to entrance the soul in musical delight.’ This is sensible criticism, in no far as it extends to the singing and playing of the individuals named: but the harp, when in the hands of those who best know how to use it—who seek not to astonish by what is called execution, which is only another name for murder, but study its pathetic and romantic character, and attempt nothing out of this—is an instrument that, in some shape or other, has charmed in all ages, and will continue to be admired wherever a taste for music is at all cultivated. ”

“ The Anglo-saxons frequently accompanied their vocal effusions with a harp, more or less triangular in shape,—an instrument which may be considered rather as constituting the transition of the lyre into the harp. The representation of king David playing the harp is from an Anglo-saxon manuscript of the beginning of the eleventh century, in the British museum. The harp was especially popular in central and northern Europe, and was the favourite instrument of the German and Celtic bards and of the Scandinavian skalds. ”

“ Then the harpman became so sad that he could not live in the midst of other men, but was off to the forest, and sate upon the hills both day and night, weeping, and playing on his harp so that the woods trembled and the rivers stood still, and hart shunned not lion, nor hare hound, nor did any beast feel rage or fear towards any other for gladness of the music. ”

“ The harp itself is beautiful as a work of sculptural art. Around its framework most elegant and tasteful ornaments are executed with the minutest perfection—small birds of variegated plumage perched on graceful foliage of green enamel, with flowers in their natural colours, so executed as closely to resemble nature. The birds, flowers, and foliage are connected with the chords of the harp, and conceal from view small vases or reservoirs set in the framework of the instrument. ”

“ Any one who has seen an Æolian harp, and listened to the wild notes of its music, will be aware that the wires of the harp are swept by accidental currents of air; that when those currents have been strong, the notes of the harp have been raised to the highest pitch, and as the intensity of the currents has fallen, the musical sounds have deepened and softened, until, with melodious sighing, they have died away. No finger has touched the strings; no musical genius has presided at the harp to wake its inspiring sounds ”

“ Gather together in one heap of useless rubbish (for they will never more be needed) , harp, lyre, flute, flageolet, violin and guitar, piano and organ. Even that harp of three thousand strings, which the divine hand has placed in the human ear, shall not again vibrate to the delicate touch of nature’s hand. ”

“ The harp presents a triangular form of singular beauty, the graceful curve of the neck adding to the elegance of its appearance Although the outline has varied at different epochs and in different countries, the relation of its proportions to the musical scale—a condition of symmetry in musical instruments—is in the harp very close ”

“ A harp might conceivably be so framed by its maker that every string, tho rightly tuned and rightly struck, according to the theory and design of the instrument, should emit when touched a separate discord. Or it may be so framed, as we know by experience, that from it shall flow, when fitly swept by an educated hand, the concerted numbers of noble music; inspiring the thoughts with their spiritual force, or suffusing the very air around us with an audible glory, and making it drop benedictions upon us. ”

“ Now men came to say of the harper that he could play the harp so that the forest swayed, and the rocks quivered for the sweet sound, and wild beasts would run up and stand still as if they were tame, so still that men or hounds might come near them, and they fled not. ”

“ Jacob Grimm in his work on German mythology points out an old tradition, preserved in Swedish and Scotch national ballads, of a skilful harper who constructs his instrument out of the bones of a young girl drowned by a wicked woman. Her fingers he uses for the tuning screws, and her golden hair for the strings. The harper plays, and his music kills the murderess. ”

“ The same old harp, which was swept by a hand that has long since forgotten its cunning, now wakes to melody under the touch of one in whom life’s earliest pulses play. Its music ever floats between the cradle and the grave. ”

“ An endless monotone of single notes
That ne’er began and nevermore shall end
Across the seas in dim metallics floats
The years to blend.
And they that bear the harp revere their lords,
The blind uncertain gods that smite the chords. ”

“ And the harp itself (yes, even so extensive is the occult power they wield) makes its own special appeal to you, [Pg 24] and with its taste for delicacy seems suddenly like a dull tormented thing, swaying and trembling under the stiff sullen fingers of its master, there on the garish pavement—an instrument which, but for the uncertainty of life (ah, the uncertainty of life!) ”