HARP ILLUSTRATED: MAXWELL ASHBY ARMFIELD

'Music in New York, Homage to Johann Sebastian Bach' (USA, 1946)

by Maxwell Ashby Armfield. 
Tempera on board. 35cm x 42.5cm (13.77" x 16.73") 

Born at Ringwood, England, Maxfield Ashby Armfield (1881-1972) studied at the Birmingham School of Art in 1899 and later at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris. Part of a diverse group of artists associated to The Modern British Period, Armfield painted a majority of his works in egg or milk tempera technique. He and his wife, writer Constance Smedley, lived for a period in the United States, with time spent near the coast of California. Armfield was a highly regarded illustrator & painter, deeply involved in theater, music, teaching and writing.

Description of the painting from Peter Nahum Leicester Galleries:

"The strings of the harp echo the extraordinary vertical rhythm of the skyscrapers of New York, and through this visual reverberation, Maxwell Armfield suggests the parallel structures of architecture and music. Just as architecture creates and defines space, music creates and defines sound. More specifically, the painting evokes the structure of counterpoint in a score by Bach, whose music, although diverse, is ordered through the vertical relationships of notes within a scale. Accordingly, Maxwell Armfield includes an inscription on the harp, which reads: diverse parts in ordered harmony. Bach wrote very little for the harp because it was not a professional ensemble instrument until the early Romantic Period, but the key to Maxwell Armfield's depiction of the instrument, with its regular array of vertical strings, becomes apparent when envisaging his visual metaphor."

HARP SIGHTING: ROBERT LABAREE PLAYING THE TURKISH CENG

Ethno-musicologist and performer Robert Labaree seen playing an Ottoman harp during a concert of music from Istanbul during the 17th and 18th centuries. In 1985, Labaree collaborated with the instrument-maker Feridun Özgören to create a contemporary version of the Ottoman microtonal harp, çeng. 

As a founding member of the EurAsia Ensemble from 1980 to 1995, Labaree performed and taught Turkish classical music across the U.S. His recordings with EurAsia Ensemble include Eski Dünya ile Sohbet (Conversations with the Old World), Istanbul on the Charles, and Boston Sema. His solo CD, Çengnağme (Song of the Harp), appeared in Turkey in 2001 on the Kalan label. 

HARP IN LA HARP STUDIO OPEN HOUSE

HARP IN LA is pleased to invite you to our Harp Studio Open House event, Sunday October 19, 2014. Come see and play the harps at our studio located in Pasadena, CA. There will be many harps to see and try from harp makers Lyon & Healy Harps and Dusty Strings Instruments.

HARP IN LA STUDIO OPEN HOUSE
Studio entrance is in the back, through the LEFT GATE of the main house.

1981 East Orange Grove Boulevard
Pasadena, CA 91104
October 19, 2014
2:30 pm - 6:30 pm
No appointment necessary
Click here for a map link to the studio.

Featured will be Lyon & Healy's Style 85-CG & Prelude models currently on sale, as well as Dusty Strings' beautiful FH36S model instruments. There will also be Lyon & Healy's Style 23, Style 30, Style 100, Style 150 and the complete Chicago line of instruments. There is also a used Venus Paragon pedal harp available at a very good price.

Dusty's economical Crescendo model is available to try, along with their newest 34 gut-strung model, the Boulevard. Also Lyon & Healy's Ogden lever harp and some special sale-priced Ravenna 34s (limited quantity). HARP IN LA has two Ogden lever harps available for rent. Contact HARP IN LA to make arrangements.  

HARP IN LA now offers Allegro financing for all new harps at creative and competitive interest rates.   

THAT'S A LOT OF HARPS! Our space is small and there is much to see. Be sure and give yourself enough time to stay and play! 

Contact HARP IN LA for directions and questions.

Day of the event, please call Paul's cell number at (323) 854-4296.

Top image: HARP IN LA's Paul Baker moving harps through the Harp Garden to our studio. Photo taken by Kathleen Clark.

HARP ILLUSTRATED: CRISTIANO GIUSEPPE LIDARTI BY NATHANIEL DANCE-HOLLAND

Composer Cristiano Giuseppe Lidarti (1730 - 1793), is shown posing with a beautiful blue harp along with painter Giovanni Battista Tempesti of Volterra, Italy (1729–1804). Both men lived and worked in Pisa and in Rome, primarily.  Born in Vienna of Italian descent, Lidarti, best known for his oratorio, "Esther", composed a huge body of work using Hebraic text specifically for the large flourishing Jewish community in Amsterdam.

Sir Nathaniel Dance-Holland, 1st Baronet, RA (born: 1735) was a successful and notable English portrait painter who studied with Francis Hayman and Angelica Kauffman, as well as various ateliers all over Italy.  One of the founding members of the Royal Academy, in 1790, Dance-Holland gave up a stunning career as a painter to become Member of Parliament in Sussex. He continued in politics until his death in 1811.

This painting is from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon. Click image to enlarge, then click to enlarge again.

HARP ILLUSTRATED: SARAH CURRAN BY WILLIAM BEECHEY (c.1805).

Sarah Curran (1782-1808), the youngest daughter of John Philpot Curran, an eminent Irish lawyer, was the great love of Irish nationalist Robert Emmet. 

Curran met Robert through her brother Richard, a fellow student of Emmet's at Trinity College in Dublin. Sarah's father considered Robert unsuitable, and their courtship was conducted through letters and clandestine meetings.When her father discovered that Sarah was secretly engaged to Emmet, he disowned her and then treated her so harshly that she had to take refuge with friends in Cork, where, in 1805, married Robert Sturgeon. The two had a child which died in infancy. Sarah died of consumption in 1808. She is buried in County Cork. 

Born in Burford, Oxfordshire, 1753, William Beechey was appointed portrait painter to Queen Charlotte in 1793 and knighted in 1798 in recognition of his most ambitious painting, the huge Review of the Horse Guard with King George III and the Prince of Wales. Beechey painted not only the portraits of the royal family, but of nearly all the most famous or fashionable people of the time. Beechey died in London, 1839.

BENJAMIN BAGBY PERFORMING BEOWULF ON 7TH C. GERMAN HARP REPLICA

The 6-string harp used by Benjamin Bagby for his re-created telling of the poem "Beowulf"was built by Rainer Thurau of Wiesbaden, Germany. It is based on the remains of an instrument excavated from a 7th century Alemannic nobleman's grave in Oberflacht, just south of Stuttgart.

Links:
Benjamin Bagby
Rainer Thurau
About Beowulf
Beowulf poem (modern English translation)

AUGUSTA SAVAGE'S 1939 NEW YORK WORLD'S FAIR SCULPTURE, "THE HARP"

  
Photo above, of Augusta Savage (center) detailing parts of her sculpture, "The Harp". From the archives of the New York Public Library, Catalog Call # MssCol 223

Augusta Savage (b. Augusta Christine Fells) was a sculptor and teacher associated with The 306 Group of artists during the Harlem Renaissance. Named after the art studio at 306 West 141st Street, this place saw the likes of black artists such as Charles Alston, Romare Bearden and Jacob Lawrence.

Savage was commissioned to create a sculpture for the 1939 New York World's Fair. This massive work, exhibited in the Court of Contemporary Arts, was entitled "The Harp" and was influenced by James Weldon Johnson's song, "Lift Every Voice and Sing."

The sculpture depicted a group of twelve stylized black singers in graduated heights symbolizing the strings of a harp. The sounding board was formed by the hand and arm of God, and a kneeling man holding music represented the foot pedal. No funds were available to cast "The Harp", nor were there any facilities to store it. After the fair closed in 1940, "The Harp" was demolished, as were many other works of art created for the fair.

In her 2017 OP-ED piece for the New York Times, film documentarian, Aviva Kemper advocates that Savage's "The Harp" should be rightfully restored as a work of art "wrongfully destroyed". 

"It should be recreated and displayed in New York City" she suggests, "Or better yet, how about placing a second replica of “The Harp” in front of the new National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington for all to see?"

LOST APRIL

Clip from The Bishop’s Wife: Lost April 

Released in 1948

Director: Henry Koster

Based on a story by Robert Nathan
Cary Grant's "hands" performed by harpist Mr. Gail Laughton.

Dudley (Cary Grant),who has not informed anyone but the bishop (David Niven) that he's an angel, plays a song composed for the usually frosty Mrs. Hamilton (Gladys Cooper) on the harp (music by Emil  Newman & Herbert Spence, lyrics by Edward Delange). 

Lyrics:
Lost April, where did you go
Like the winter snow, I saw you vanish.
Lost April, so soft and warm
A memory not even time can banish.
Lost April that taught me this,
A single kiss could lead to heaven.
But April had numbered days
So when they passed, love couldn't last.
I lost love and you, and April too...

LYON & HEALY NEW PRICE LIST

LYON & HEALY PRICE LIST 

EFFECTIVE SEPTEMBER 1ST, 2013

Read it! There's a number of changes. 

REMEMBER TO UPDATE YOUR INSURANCE POLICY 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Image Above: National Library Week Original Literacy and Reading Poster ca 1960's

ROYAL STRINGS ATTACHED; HANNAH STONE AT BOW BRAND STRING FACTORY, KING'S LYNN

Royal Harpist Hannah Stone visits the Bow Brand factory in King's Lynn, where they make the strings for her harp - Hannah in the string drying room. (Picture: Matthew Usher).


...Carolyn Clarke, managing director of Bow Brand, said the company was established in 1902 and was the only factory of its kind in the UK.

“We were here when this was just fields and they used to drive the cattle up the A10 to the cattle market,” she said. “I guess they thought: ‘We’ll just build a factory and steam the intestines here’.”

During the two world wars, Bow Brand made sutures for stitching wounds – those made of gut dissolve gradually as the injury heals.

Mrs Clarke said the company, which employs 25, was having its busiest ever year.

Excerpt from article written by Chris Bishop, July 26, 2013

There will be a price increase on Lyon & Healy harps effective September 1st, 2013. Prices will increase by 3 - 7 %. The increase will effect lever and pedal models.

If you are interested in a Lyon & Healy harp, or have a student interested in purchasing, we suggest taking advantage of the current lower prices (and the Chicago CG harp sale!) before September, 2013. 

HILA has the new price list effective September 1st. If you have any questions regarding the price of a new harp, or anything at all, please ask!  


Image from  French coat manufacturer, Blizzand, entitled "Red Coat" by  Gruau, c. 1965

HARP ILLUSTRATED: FLORENCE GRISWOLD WITH J PITT LEWIS & CO PEDAL HARP

 Alphonse Jongers (1872-1945)
The Harpist, 1903
Oil on canvas. Gift of the Lyme Art Association

During the first two decades of the 20th century, the village of Old Lyme, Connecticut, was the setting for one of the largest and most significant art colonies in America. Centered in the boardinghouse of Miss Florence Griswold, the colony attracted many leading artists -- Henry Ward Ranger, Childe Hassam, Willard Metcalf and others, who were in the vanguard of the Tonalist and Impressionist movements in America. Its identity as an artists’ colony held fast and grew in reputation. The constant behind this was the central figure of Florence Griswold (1850-1937), affectionately referred to as “Miss Florence”.

Click here to learn more about Miss Florence and the Old Lyme Art Colony.

Click here to learn about the painting of Miss Florence and her harp by Alphonse Jongers.