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The Radio 3 Boards > The Music Boards > Music Through The Ages > Jew's Harp Concertos?
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Author Topic: Jew's Harp Concertos?  (Read 432 times)
IgnorantRockFan
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« on: 10:28:52, 16-04-2007 »
Has anybody heard of (or even heard) a concerto for Jew's Harp?

I saw a jew's harp performance yesterday and the player mentioned that he was in the process of learning to play a concerto by somebodyorother. (I didn't catch the name of the composer.)

I'm not exactly a huge jew's harp fan, but it aroused my curiosity.

It struck me as a strange instrument to write a concerto for because it's so easily overpowered by other instruments.

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Allegro, ma non tanto
time_is_now
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« Reply #1 on: 11:25:57, 16-04-2007 »
Yep, I once heard one by Albrechtsberger for Jew's harp, mandora and orchestra.

IIRC the solo parts consisted mainly of two notes, tonic and dominant:


                                      boing -------------  boing ---- boing, boing

boing ---- boing, boing                                                                   boing --------------

etc.
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #2 on: 11:38:44, 16-04-2007 »
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because it's so easily overpowered by other instruments.

Luckily.
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
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autoharp
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« Reply #3 on: 11:45:07, 16-04-2007 »
I have a recording of one by Albrechrsberger in E - I've an idea he wrote 2 (or more ?). It's a bit of a hoot, especially the cadenza.
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time_is_now
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« Reply #4 on: 11:49:37, 16-04-2007 »
Yep, i think you're right, autoharp. The Double Concerto is I'm pretty sure in F, but I think it's on a CD (MDG label maybe?) coupled with the one you mention in E.
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The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
IgnorantRockFan
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« Reply #5 on: 12:03:26, 16-04-2007 »
Thank you, Albrechrsberger sounds like the name I heard (I had a feeling it was German sounding).

If I understood correctly, the concerto requires jews harps in different keys (the player had a device with several of them linked together -- a "claw").


Quote from: Reiner Returns on 11:38:44, 16-04-2007
Quote
because it's so easily overpowered by other instruments.

Luckily.

Ouch  Tongue

Not my favourite instrument by a long shot but I think the sound is quite pleasant (in small doses).


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Allegro, ma non tanto
autoharp
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« Reply #6 on: 12:23:01, 16-04-2007 »
Ives' "Washington's birthday" has a jew's harp part. In Memos, he writes " . . .in this piece, from half a dozen to a hundred Jew's harps are necessary - one would hardly be heard."  I've never heard the the piece live, but the idea of 100 players standing up and delivering is rather, er , beguiling.
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