Bruch's Scottish Fantasy

Since the end of the summer, I've been working on my part for Max Bruch's Scottish Fantasy. This orchestral piece is a four movement fantasy on Scottish folk melodies with a solo part for violin. Additionally, paying homage to the Scottish tradition, Bruch gives a prominent part to the harp as an accompaniment to the violin. 

While this is exciting (especially because I get to double the harp part with Zach, whose amazing playing makes me want to better myself), it's also quite terrifying. There are a lot of solo sections for harp, where I have to follow not only the conductor, but Zach, as well, since he's principal harp. Thus far, Zach and I have been sounding pretty great together, but being in orchestra does make me a bit nervous sometimes, especially since I've moved up to the Pre-College Orchestra this year from PCS. 

In the introduction, things are pretty straightforward. There are some lush chords and pretty straightforward rhythms.

The first movement is fairly straightforward, as well, although some sections are somewhat difficult to play with orchestra. The big chords and arpeggios are easy; however, the midsection involves both triplets and sixteenth notes together in the same measures. This is easy to play sans orchestra, but I find it more difficult once I get to rehearsal.

The second movement...well, the harp has about five chords at the end of a 196-measure rest, so there's not much to worry about there.

The third movement is difficult simply because it moves quickly at points, but it is fairly easy to follow in orchestra.

And here we are at the fourth movement. It's the most rhythmically easy, I think, but the difficulty comes from the HUGE chords in almost every measure (see below). Right now, I feel pretty good about this section, since I've had to practice especially hard with Zach gone this week. I'll be the lone harp in rehearsal this week!

That's all for this week, but in pre-college, you never know what will come next!

Inspiration (Xavier De Maistre)

As of late, I've been struggling a bit with a gorgeous but rhythmically difficult Debussy piece called Premiere Arabesque. There's a difficult triplet polyrhythm that occurs throughout the entire piece, and I just can't seem to get it exactly right. I've also been struggling with how to phrase certain passages. In pieces like Premiere Arabesque and Clair de Lune, phrasing can be everything. So, I turned to one of my favorite harpists, Xavier De Maistre, for inspiration. I took out my CD (yes, they still exist!) of Xavier De Maistre playing works of Debussy on the harp, and listened to his interpretation of two Debussy pieces, Premiere Arabesque and Clair de Lune. Listening to De Maistre's interpretation and phrasing was quite helpful, as he really seems to understand how to "sing" a phrase, not just play it. He plays the difficult rhythms so well that they don't sound cumbersome and tricky; rather, they sound light and playful. Going forward, I plan to think about De Maistre's phrasing while working on the piece as a whole. I wholeheartedly recommend listening to his version of Clair de Lune .
Secondly, though unrelated to harp itself, I've found musical inspiration in one of my favorite musical performances of all time, Marc-André Hamelin's performance of Un Sospiro. The piece itself is beautiful, but few carry it off to the separate realm of musical beauty that Hamelin does through phrasing. When he plays, he truly captures the meaning of the title--A Sigh...