The works here range
from those written for single and double
action pedal harp. All are played with
consummate grace and room-to-spare dexterity
by the principal harpist of the Philadelphia
Orchestra. Many are of course transcriptions
– and they sound none the less splendid
for all that – though greater amplitude
of textual and colouristic potential
probably resides in the works of executant-composers
such as those by Elias Parish-Alvars,
whose delightful Nocturne is here.
The rippling figurations
of the Donizetti serve notice of Hainen’s
virtuosity but the sustenance of melody
lines and the tonal shading is equally
notable. The Glinka is a pleasant surprise
– light but delightfully lyric and crisply
accented – and the Reinhold, by contrast,
sounds especially tricky, especially
in its early pages. The arrangement
of Rosetti’s Keyboard Sonata No.2 makes
for a resonant twelve minutes’ worth
of explicitly Haydnesque music-making.
For an example of the
superior kind of voicings that a real
virtuoso can exploit from the harp I
suggest a listen to the eight and a
half minutes of Spohr – really splendid
stuff textually and digitally. An evocative
recital then and evocatively recorded.
There sounds like a moment of transient
distortion on my copy (Liebesträume
No.3 at around 3.30) but it’s very brief
and hardly disturbs the passage of this
elegant programme.
Jonathan Woolf
see also review
by Patrick Waller