Word: harpist
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...history of Western music from early Christian chants to the present. Like any authoritative book that covers so vast a field, it seems perfunctory at times. But the basic information is there, and great taste has gone into the selection of 240 illustrations, ranging from a loth century B.C. harpist to Jazzman Sydney Bechet...
When he sits down to help judge the world's first international harp competition in Jerusalem next week, U.S. Harpist Carlos Salzedo will face a difficult task. More than a few of the 50 competitors have studied under Salzedo and many are sure to play at least one of the master's compositions. It could be no other way. At 74, the sprightly Basque musician stands at the top of his art, a man who has spent a lifetime studying "the angels' instrument." teaching others to play and the world to enjoy its mellow music. Salzedo. says...
...young musician's reputation had reached the U.S.; Arturo Toscanini wanted a harpist for the Metropolitan Opera Company, and imported him, says Salzedo, "like a piece of cheese." Salzedo stayed at the Met for four years, then organized the U.S.'s first harp ensemble, later set off to tour Europe with a flutist and a cellist. After a stint in the French army in World War I (wounded in action). Salzedo returned to the U.S. and got to work making the harp something better than one of those "extra" instruments rarely heard outside full-dress philharmonic orchestras...
Nijinsky's Complaint. No point of style or appearance was too small for his attention. His friend, famed Dancer Vaslav Nijinsky, once complained that Salzedo did not make enough show with his hand movements. A harpist's hands should be like a dancer's toes, said Nijinsky: "Of all the instrumentalists, you are the one to be looked at when you play." Salzedo formalized hand movements into a series of flowing gestures, tells his students to emphasize esthetic as well as musical qualities. Says he: "Good looks are an important requisite for an aspiring harpist...
Holiday for Harp (The Daphne Hellman Quartet; Harmony LP). Harpist Hellman produces some stunning sonorities with an instrument bred to less exotic climes. With the sound sometimes brittle and percussive, sometimes cobwebby soft, Harpist Hellman and her helpers (bass, guitar and drums) swing with sinuous brilliance through Summertime, Swingin' Shepherd Blues, Down the Road a Piece, giving each a fine crystalline gloss...