Fanny Guillaume-Castel presented the above paper at this year's AMIS conference in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, June 8-11. When talking about the pedal harp in the eighteenth century, it is almost impossible to avoid the figure of Marie Antoinette, queen of France from 1774 to 1791. Historians and musicologists have recognized her long-time practice of the harp, as she is described playing in many historical documents, and was painted playing in at least one of her official portraits. Because of the events resulting from the French Revolution, notably the dispersion of royal furniture, it has bee ..read more

Lewis Jone and I presented the above paper at this year's AMIS conference, 8-11 June 2022, Calgary, Alberta, Canada. This paper examines the work of Jacob Hochbrucker (1673–1763), who invented the pedal harp in 1697, and his sons, Simon (1699–after 1762), Johann Christoph (1715–1762 or later), and Johann Baptist (1732–1812), in making and, through widespread performance and teaching, spreading use and awareness of the instrument. It seeks to integrate analysis of the design of Hochbrucker’s harps, of which four well-preserved examples are extant, with selective examination of the initial prese ..read more

A recent monograph on the musical activities of Marie-Antoinette continues a long tradition of stating—without citing any evidence—that Marie-Antoinette learned the pedal harp during her childhood in Vienna, prior to coming to France in 1770. [1] Perhaps the assumption behind this received wisdom is that the harp was a standard instrument for aristocratic women throughout Europe in the eighteenth century. I challenged this assumption in a 2008 article, in which I argued that the intense feminisation of the pedal harp that endures to this day began in a very specific place and time: in Paris i ..read more

As published in The American Harp Journal, Winter 2022, pp.9-14. It probably won't surprise you to hear that the harp and crime are inextricably linked. Both, in one form or another, have been around for almost as long as the human race. It also won't surprise you to hear that the harp and its makers and players were sometimes victims of theft. You may, however, be surprised by the ingenuity and complexity of some of these crimes, from straight-forward thefts motivated by desperation to chancers handling stolen goods for profit, and aspirational thieves who not only wished to line their pocke ..read more

A harp with a rather interesting history has recently come to my attention. It is an Erard-London single action, bearing the serial number 410. The entry in the Erard production ledgers held at the Royal College of Music describes this instrument as ‘noire, bordures Etr[usques], tout autour figures or bruni’. It left the Erard workshops on 8 June 1801 and was sold a few months later to ‘Lady Countess Shaftesbury, N° 50 Portland Place’. The ledger entry also mentions that the Chevalier de Marin, famous harpist and composer then in London, was paid a commission for the sale. Erard (London), Sin ..read more

Ledger entry from 1808 for the gift of a piano and a harp to the pianist Daniel Steibelt (1765–1823) and his wife Catherine Dale (1778–1825). Erard sales ledger (1806–09), folio 221. N° inv. E.2009.5.102. Fonds d'archives Erard, Pleyel et Gaveau, Musée de la musique, Paris © Cité de la musique-Philharmonie de Paris. I would like to share with readers of The Early Pedal Harp a video of a talk I just delivered at the conference 'Beethoven and the Piano: Philology, Context and Performance Practice', organised by the Bern University of the Arts and the Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana, Lugan ..read more

That Sebastien Erard was the first of the new harp makers in London is undeniable. Not only was his company the nexus for the harp-buying public, it was from there that many second-, third- and forth-generation makers would come. Apprenticeship, despite being in decline as a mode of training, was at the heart of harp making, and Erard indentured future harp makers in the fields of wood-working, mechanics and finishing; however, he also employed cabinetmakers, and clock- and clock-case makers. Movement between makers was common. The following family tree, a preview taken from my forthcoming boo ..read more

What follows is one half of a joint paper that Lewis Jones and I delivered as part of The Cass Research Seminar series, London Metropolitan University, on 21 November 2019. Lewis spoke on the transient aspect of the historical harp, and I spoke on the tangible, in this case that of a harp by Jakob Hochbrucker (dated 1728) at Musée de la Musique, Paris. My thanks go to Beat Wolff for his generosity in sharing information about this harp (and many others), and to Thierry Maniguet, Curator at Musée de la Musique, Cité de la Musique, Paris, for allowing us to examine said Hochbrucher harp. This ta ..read more

This paper was first presented at the Galpin Society Conference, Oxford, England (2013). Between 1794 and 1845 sixteen makers and inventors registered twenty-two patents for the harp. Three schools of innovation emerged: those concerned with the improvement of the action or mechanism by which modulation was achieved; those which addressed perceived structural weaknesses; and those which sought to improve tone or to produce new musical effects. Patent enrolment protected intellectual property but also advertised a product to both the industry and wider public. Where successful, it afforded grav ..read more

This is a provisional catalogue, to which I would welcome additions and corrections, of the published music for solo harp, and accompanied solo harp, of Neville Butler Challoner (1784-1851). It does not include Challoner’s many duets and ‘concertante duets’ for harp and pianoforte, with or without optional accompaniments, or his works for pianoforte duet ‘with an accompaniment for the harp ad lib', of which I am preparing a separate list. John Sainsbury’s A Dictionary of Musicians, to which Challoner presumably would have contributed information, provides a biographical foundation up to 1824 ..read more