Squalid and Obscure: Timbral Word Painting at the Arpa Doppia

Hannah Rose (Kit) Spencer

Name: Kit (Hannah Rose) Spencer Main Subject: Baroque Harp Research Supervisor: Kate Clark Title of Research: Squalid and Obscure: Timbral Word Painting at the Arpa Doppia Research Question: Can timbral refinement, through synthesized notation and subsequent technical exercises, enhance contrast and word painting in arpa doppia continuo realisations of Seconda Prattica songs? Summary of Results: While functionally versatile, the arpa doppia, an Italian harp of imposing size with multiple layers of resonating strings, revealed its nature as fondamento, in the subtle art of continuo. Direct contact with the open strings gave singers, accompanying themselves on the harp, unparalleled control over the instrument’s timbral potential. This is reflected in the role of the instrument within musica secreta, private concerts at the courts of Ferrara and Modena stylistically favouring word painting and chromaticism, in ensembles such as the concerto delle donna and Baroni sisters. The expressive freedom of their art influenced poets and composers and contributed to the development of the seconda prattica at the turn of the sixteenth century. Indeed, voice and harp were held up as the ideal way to perform epic poetry, a reflection of the mesmerising contrast and colour their combined forces could deliver. How do we find this unique skill-set today from a broken line of tradition, contending with limited, conflicting primary resources? There is very little surviving repertoire specific to the instrument, and other sources such as paintings are static representations with considerable variation in position and placement of the instrument, body and hands, making it hard to replicate. In the years dedicated to exploring the arpa doppia, we harpists uncover these insights through shared motions and motivations of our forebears— finding a way to play like them by trying to vividly colour the text as they did. This is a way artistic research can bring to life the spectrum of lost practice and technique. My research has resulted in the creation of timbral notation for the arpa doppia, easily added to music notation and publishing software. This notation is designed to help recreate as much as possible all the timbral refinement found by the hands of masterful singer-harpists. It documents, builds upon and preserves the invaluable research of historical practitioners, using visual, contact-based diagrams to provide clarity in understanding this evocative and highly specialised art form. With this foundation of timbre and text, it aims to reconstitute the virtuosity, influence and innovation of the original arpa doppia players, through our shared practice today.  Biography: While playing as the Australian Youth Orchestra's Principal Harpist, and as a fellow of the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, Kit Spencer's Honours degree culminated in studying Berio's infamous Sequenza II with its foremost interpreter, Alice Giles. Her passion for colour, gesture and bass lead her to arpa doppia, beginning with Andrew Lawrence King's St. Petersburg production of Landi's La Morte d'Orfeo and Monteverdi's L'Orfeo in Bauska Castle, Latvia.

FOOTNOTES

1. Owens, Dewey. Carlos Salzedo, from aeolian to thunder: a biography. Lyon & Healy Harps, 1993. APA

2. Caltabiano, Ronald. “Elliott Carter: Towards the Tenth Decade.” Tempo, no. 207, 1998, pp. 2–8., www.jstor.org/stable/944502.

3. Lott, R. Allen. “‘New Music for New Ears’: The International Composers' Guild.” Journal of the American Musicological Society, vol. 36, no. 2, 1983, pp. 266–286., www.jstor.org/stable/831066.

4. Salzedo, Carlos. Etude Moderne de la Harpe. G. Schirmer, Incorporated, 1921. pp.3

3.2 Harp Timbral Notation

While there is no known historical timbral notation of the arpa doppia, the unbroken chain of modern pedagogy yields some insights within artistic research pertinent to this pursuit. Specific timbral notation for the harp was not developed until the early 20th Century, when one of the two technical giants of 20th Century harp, Carlos Salzedo, succumbed to Repetitive Stress Injuries as a result of harp playing. This prompted him to reinvent his technique by incorporating gestures from ballet. ¹ He found that this externalisation changes the expression of the instrument, and created notation exploring different aspects of the instrument, inspired a new renaissance of harp composition, with composers such as Debussy, Ravel, Berio, Carter² and Varese³ exploring the timbral potential of the instrument armed with his method.

As Agazzari and Mersenne before him, Salzedo exalted the versatility of direct string contact:

“...the tone-effects, so diverse and as yet so little known, which spring naturally from the direct contact established between the sensitiveness of the executant's touch and the vibration of the strings producing the sounds…”⁴

Salzedo’s studies included extended techniques which used the whole of the instrument expressively, but also focused on developing control and consistency of tone. I was initially drawn to the gestural aspects of the technique, I returned to this idea of developing exercises to refine timbral control. While the subtleties of matching sound for sound are coerced from his compositions, I was curious that timbral elements were principally notated in the binary. The default position was in the middle of the strings with près de la table as the notated extended technique, or on the flesh of the finger with playing with the nails as the notated extended technique (See Figure 3.2). This led me to wonder if recording a more methodical approach to string contact would be beneficial, and aid in my pursuit of more evocative word painting.

3.3 Feuillet and Points of Contact

Figure 3.21— Salzedo, Carlos. Etude Moderne de la Harpe. G. Schirmer, Incorporated, 1921. pp.17

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