Page:EB1911 - Volume 13.djvu/25

Rh rests on the pedestal, it is really supported by a brass shoulder firmly screwed to the beam which forms the lowest part of the body, a connexion which remains undisturbed when the pedal box and its cover are removed.

(3) The body or sound-chest of the harp is in shape like the longitudinal section of a cone. It was formerly composed of staves joined together as in the lute and mandoline. Erard was the first to make it in two pieces of wood, generally sycamore, with the addition of a flat soundboard of Swiss pine. The body is strengthened on the inside, in order to resist the tension of the strings, by means of ribs; there are five soundholes in the back, which in the older models were furnished with swell shutters opened at will by the swell pedal, the fourth from the left worked by the left foot. As the increase of sound obtained by means of the swell was infinitesimal, the device has now been discarded. The harp is strung by knotting the end of the string and passing it through its hole in the centre of the soundboard, where it is kept in position by means of a grooved peg which grips the string.

(4) The neck consists of a curved piece of wood resting on the body at the treble end of the instrument and joining the pillar at the bass end. In the neck are set the tuning pins round which are wound the strings.

(5) The comb is the name given to two brass plates or covers which fit over both sides of the neck, concealing part of the mechanism for shortening the strings and raising their pitch a semitone when actuated by the pedals. On the front plate of the comb, to the left of the player, is a row of brass bridges against which the strings rest below the tuning pins, and which determine the vibrating length of the string reckoned from the peg in the soundboard. Below the bridges are two rows of brass disks, known as forks, connected by steel levers; each disk is equipped with two studs for grasping the string and shortening it. The mechanism is ingenious. When a pedal is depressed to the first notch, the corresponding lower disk turns a little way on a mandrel keeping the studs clear of the string. The upper disk, set in motion by the steel levers connecting the disks, revolves simultaneously till the string is caught by the two studs which thus form a new bridge, shortening the vibrating length of the string by just the length necessary to raise the pitch a semitone. If the same pedal be depressed to the second notch, another movement causes the lower disk to revolve again till the string is a second time seized and shortened, the upper disk remaining stationary. The hidden mechanism meanwhile has gone through a series of movements; the pedal is really a lever set upon a spring, and when depressed it draws down the connecting rod in the pillar which sets in motion chains governing the mandrels of the disks.

The harp usually has forty-six strings, of gut in the middle and upper registers, and of covered steel wire in the bass; the C strings are red and the F strings blue. The compass thus has a range of 6 octaves from. The double stave is used as for the pianoforte. The single action harp used to be tuned to the key of E♭ major.

The modern harp with double action is the only instrument with fixed tones, not determined by the ear or touch of the performer, which has separate notes for naturals, sharps and flats, giving it an enharmonic compass. On the harp the appreciable interval between D♯ and E♭ can be played. The harp in its normal condition is tuned to C♭ major; it rests with the performer to transpose it at will in a few seconds into any other key by means of the pedals. Each of the pedals influences one note of the scale throughout the compass, beginning at the left with D, C, and B worked by the left foot. Missing the fourth or forte pedal, and continuing towards the right we get the E, F, G and A pedals worked by the right foot. By lowering the D pedal into the first notch the D♭ becomes D♮, and into the second notch D♯, and so on for all the pedals. If, for example, a piece be written in the key of E major, the harp is transposed into that key by depressing the E, A, and B pedals to the first notch, and those for F, G, C and D to the second or sharp notch and so on through all the keys. Accidentals and modulations are readily played by means of the pedals, provided the transitions be not too rapid. The harp is the instrument upon which transposition presents the least difficulty, for the fingering is the same for all keys. The strings are twanged with the thumbs and the first three fingers.

The quality of tone does not vary much in the different registers, but it has the greatest brilliancy in keys with many flats, for the strings are then open and not shortened by the forks. Various effects can be obtained on the harp: (1) by harmonics, (2) by damping, (3) by guitar tones, (4) by the glissando. (1) Harmonics are produced by resting the ball of the hand on the middle of the string and setting it in vibration by the thumb or the first two fingers of the same hand, whereby a mysterious and beautiful tone is obtained. Two or three harmonics can be played together with the left hand, and by using both hands at once as many as four are possible. (2) Damping is effected by laying the palm against the string in the bass and the back of the finger in the treble. (3) Guitar or pizzicato notes are obtained by twanging the strings sharply at the lower end near the soundboard with the nails. (4) The glissando effect is produced, as on the pianoforte, by sliding the thumb or finger along the strings in quick succession; this does not necessarily give the diatonic scale, for by means of the pedals the harp can be tuned beforehand to chords. It is possible to play on the harp all kinds of diatonic and arpeggio passages, but no chromatic, except in very slow tempo, on account of the time required by the mechanism of the pedals; and chords of three or four notes in each hand, shakes, turns, successions of double notes can be easily acquired. The same note can also be repeated slowly or quickly, the next string being tuned to a duplicate note, and the two strings plucked alternately in order to give the string time to vibrate.

Pleyel’s chromatic harp, patented in 1894 and improved in 1903 by Gustave Lyon, manager of the firm of Pleyel, Wolff & Co., is an instrument practically without mechanism which has already won great favour in France and Belgium, notably in the orchestra. It has been constructed on the familiar lines of the pianoforte. Henry Pape, a piano manufacturer, had in 1845 conceived the idea of a chromatic harp of which the strings crossed in the centre as in the piano, and a report on the construction was published at the time; the instrument, however, was not considered successful, and was relegated to oblivion until Mr Lyon revised the matter and brought out a successful and practical instrument. The advantages claimed for this harp are the abandonment of the whole pedal mechanism, a metal framing which insures the strings keeping in tune as long as those of a piano, and an easily acquired technique. The chromatic harp consists of (1) a pedestal on castors, (2) a steel pillar without internal mechanism, (3) a wide neck containing two brass wrest-planks in which are fixed two rows of tuning pins, and (4) a soundchest in which is firmly riveted the steel plate to which the strings are fastened, and the soundboard pierced with eyelet holes through which the strings are drawn to the string plate. There is a string for every chromatic semitone of the scale of C major, the white strings representing the white keys of the piano keyboard, and the black strings corresponding to the black keys. The tuning pins for the black strings are set in the left side of the neck in alternate groups of twos and threes, and those for the white in the right side in alternate groups of threes and fours. The strings cross half-way between neck and soundboard, this being the point where they are plucked; the left hand finds the black notes above, and the right hand below the crossing. There is besides in the neck a set of twelve tuning buttons, each one of which on being pressed gives out one note of the chromatic scale tuned to the pitch of the diapason normal. It is obvious that the répertoire for this harp is very extensive, including many compositions written for the piano, which however cannot be played with any legato effects, these being still impossible on this chromatic harp.

History.—While the instrument is of great antiquity, it is yet from northern Europe that the modern harp and its name are derived. The Greeks and Romans preferred to it the lyre in its different varieties, and a Latin writer, Venantius Fortunatus, describes it in the 7th century of our era as an instrument of the barbarians—“Romanusque lyra, plaudat tibi barbarus harpa.” This is believed to be the earliest mention of the name, which is clearly Teutonic,—O.H.Ger. harapha, A.-S. hearpe, Old Norse harpa. The modern Fr. harpe retains the aspirate; in the Spanish and Italian arpa it is dropped.

The earliest delineations of the harp in Egypt give no indication that it had not existed long before. There are, indeed, representations in Egyptian paintings of stringed instruments of a bow-form having affinities with both primitive harp and nefer (a kind of oval guitar) that support the idea of the invention of the harp from the tense string of the warrior’s or hunter’s bow. This primitive-looking instrument, called nanga, had a boat-shaped sound-chest with a parchment or skin soundboard, down the centre of which one end of the string was fastened to a strip of wood, whilst the other was wound round pegs in the upper part of the bow. The nanga was played horizontally, being borne upon the performer’s shoulder. Between it and the grand vertical harps in the frescos of the time of Rameses III., more than 3000 years old, discovered by the traveller Bruce (fig. 1), there are varieties that permit us to bind the whole,