Tag: harp

Lavinia Meijer – “Stay in the Dark”.

Hey people! 🙂 

 

For today I picked a harp piece by the Dutch-Korean harpist Lavinia Meijer – not the first one by her on here. – This piece was composed and originally performed by German pianist Lambert. 

 

Below you can listen to it on Spotify, and here is the link to it on SongWhip, which says that this song is on YouTube but it’ll actually show you the original if you click on the YouTube link there. 

 

Song of the day (8th May) – “Christy-Lyn – “Gillian’s Waltz”.

For yesterday’s overdue song, I picked this very happy-sounding waltz played by Christy-Lyn. She is a harpist and harp teacher from South Africa, She is also the founder of the online learning platform and YouTube channel called Learning the Harp. I’d previously shared her version of the nightingale by Deborah Henson Conant. This tune was written by Scottish fiddler Gordon Gunn. 

 

JenliSisters – “Celtic Ballad”.

Hey people! 🙂 

 

Another female folk duo I discovered very recently. JenliSisters are Mathilde and Heloise de Jenlis. I don’t know very much about them yet, but as far as I know they are originally from France and it looks like they’re either based in Belgium or Ireland, or used to live in one country but moved to the other. Mathilde plays the violin and Heloise plays the harp. I think it’s a beautiful piece. 

 

Valérie Milot & Antoine Bareil – “America”.

Hey people! 🙂 

 

Valérie Milot had been mentioned twice before on this blog. The first time I shared her performance of the first part of Germaine Tailleferre’s Sonata for Solo Harp, and the second it was Transfigured Sentiment by Marian Mozetich, which she played with her long-time friend and collaborator cellist Stephane Tetreault. Today I have another interesting piece played by this Canadian classical harpist, together with violinist Antoine Bareil who is also her husband. In 2011, the duo have released an album called Old Friends, which is a classical tribute to Simon & Garfunkel. I have to say that, , more often than not, I tend to not be a huge enthusiast of classical arrangements of pop songs, unless said pop is very quirky, and I’m especially picky when it comes to the harp. I also don’t have any stronger feelings for Simon & Garfunkel, despite I was once told that, as someone who considers herself a folkie, I absolutely should. 😀 So I was really surprised when I first came across this album, because I ended up really liking it, despite totally not expecting it! Milot and Bareil’s arrangements are very creative and original. But it’s their version of America that is by far my favourite. It’s sounds so fun and kind of whimsical, but also just beautiful! 

 

Triona Marshall – “The Marquis of Huntley’s Old Snuff Mill”.

Hey people! 🙂 

 

For today I chose a traditional tune, originally coming from Scotland. Triona Marshall who plays it is an Irish harpist hailing from Port Laoise. Aside from being a solo harpist, she has also performed with The Chieftains. 

 

Llio Rhydderch, Tomos Williams & Mark O’Connor – “Seren Syw” (Beautiful Star).

Hi hi people! 🙂 

 

Today’s song is a very interesting arrangement of an old, Welsh love song, for the triple harp, trumpet and drums, coming from Llio Rhydderch’s album Carn Ingli. Definitely not the first time I’m sharing something from it. This tune has been performed by so many different artists in so many different styles that I’m quite surprised that I still haven’t shared any version of it before, or maybe I just don’t recall it. It is more widely known as Cariad Cyntaf (First Love) and the words to it are from the perspective of a young man who is in love, which presumably is unrequited or somehow otherwise complicated. 

 

Anne Crosby Gaudet – “Ocean Stones”.

Hey people! 🙂 

 

For today, I have a solo harp piece for you, composed and played by Anne Crosby Gaudet – the Canadian harpist and harp teacher who composes her music specifically with harp learners in mind. Like a lot of her other compositions, this piece is lovely and relaxing, and inspired by nature. 

 

Clannad – “Crann Úll” (Apple Tree).

And for today I chose a traditional Irish-language tune sung by Clannad. They first released it on their 1980 album which is also called Crann Úll. It’s a work song collected by Irish musician Seamus Clandillon, who overheard it in the 1920s. 

 

Song of the day (31st March) – Marianne Gubri – “Il Reame” (The Realm).

Hi hi hi people! 🙂 

 

I hope you’ve had a really happy Easter! I haven’t posted here in quite a while, but now with Lent being over, the song of the day series will appear more regularly again, not just on Sundays. This is a song I picked for yesterday, but didn’t get to post it on time, as I had quite a busy Easter Sunday. It’s a piece from a harpist whose music I came across only fairly recently. Marianne Gubri studied the Celtic harp in Brittany, but as far as I’m aware, she is based in Italy and aside from being a harpist, she is also a musicologist and a music therapist, among other things. This very interesting-sounding, multi-part composition appears to be her original. 

 

Lavinia Meijer – “Le Onde” (The Waves).

Hey people! 🙂 

 

For today I chose a piece composed by Ludovico Einaudi, beautifully played by harpist by Lavinia Meijer. Lavinia released it on her 2013 album called Passaggio, which contains her arrangements of Einaudi’s compositions. The original comes from Ludovico Einaudi’s 1994 album Le Onde, which as far as I know has been one of his more successful albums. The inspiration behind it was Virginia Woolf’s novel, The Waves. 

 

Norland Wind – “Storm in a Teacup”.

Hey people! 🙂 

 

Let’s listen to this lively piece by Norland Wind today. I introduced Norland Wind on here last year, which was also when I myself became acquainted with this interesting collective, but for those who don’t know them, it’s a project initiated by German harpist Thomas Loefke, a group of musicians from all over northwestern Europe who play Celtic music with a strong Nordic influence. Storm in a Teacup is the title track of an album they released in 2013, and was composed by Danish composer Henning Flintholm. Aside from aforementioned Thomas Loefke, other people we can hear in this piece are Norwegian guitarist Kerstin Blodig (who’s also into Scandinavian languages), Scottish multi-instrumentalist Ian Melrose (who used to be a guitarist in Clannad, among other things) and English/Scottish multi-instrumentalist Hal Parfitt-Murray (who also has a connection to Denmark). 

 

Loreena McKennitt – “Cymbeline”.

Hey people! 🙂 

 

My today’s song of the day choice is Shakespearean, as you can gather from the title. It is William Shakespeare’s poem that appears in his play Cymbeline, sung by Cymbeline’s sons – Guiderius and Arviragus – and concerning death. Loreena McKennitt set it to music. It appears on Loreena’s album The Visit. She was exposed to a lot of Shakespeare’s works while working at the Stratford Shakespearean Theatre for a couple of years in the ‘80s, and she was looking for some work of Shakespeare’s that would have a Celtic connection to it. That is how she came across this poem. 

 

Susan Scott – “O’Carolan’s Draft / Planxty Mrs. Judge”.

Hey people! 🙂 

 

For today I picked a set of two pieces, composed by the famous blind Irish harper Turlough O’Carolan, and played by American harpist Susan Scott. I shared one other piece two years ago on here played by Susan Scott – Debussy’s Clair de Lune. The first of the two tunes in this set is better known as O’Carolan’s Draught, and as such I shared it played by another American harpist – Margie Butler. – The second tune, as its name says, is dedicated to one Mrs Judge, who might have been one of O’Carolan’s patrons, but sadly I don’t know anything about her, but the tune is lovely in my opinion and I’d never heard it before coming across Susan Scott’s rendition. 

 

Rachel newton – “For Love”.

Hey people! 🙂 

 

For today I picked a song from Rachel Newton’s album West. Rachel Newton’s music has been featured quite a lot on my blog already, but for those of you who are unfamiliar with her, she is a Scottish folk singer and harpist, who performs both traditional Scottish songs and her original material, and aside from her solo career she is also part of various other projects and plays with many British folk artists. This is a traditional Scottish love song. 

 

Aryeh Frankfurter – “Captain O’Kane”.

Hi people! 🙂 

 

For today I chose a harp tune played by Aryeh Frankfurter. I really like his arrangement of it, although it’s generally a very nice piece. Most likely, it was composed by Turlough O’Carolan – a blind Irish harper, a lot of whose other compositions, played by many different artists, I’ve already shared on here before. – 

 

Clannad – “Skellig”.

Hey people! 🙂 

 

For today I chose this really powerful-sounding song by Clannad, inspired by the two rocky Skellig islands in county Kerry, which were a popular pilgrimage destination, specifically the larger one called Skellig Michael, where an early Christian monastery was founded that is now a Unesco heritage site. This island was also a refuge for Irish Catholic during the time of penal laws in Ireland. 

 

Llio Rhydderch – “Dafydd y Garreg Wen – Dafydd of The White Rock”.

Hey people! 🙂 

 

For today I chose another piece by Welsh triple harp player Llio Rhydderch. It is a traditional piece composed by David Owen, a Welsh harpist who lived in the 18th century on a farm called y Garreg Wen (The White Rock). The tradition claims that he composed this air on his deathbed. There are also words that were set to it many years later that talk about him playing the harp before death and parting with his family. I think the tune already sounds very characteristic and striking on its own in my opinion, but Llio Rhydderch, as is always the case with her arrangements, makes it sound even more beautiful. 

 

Mary Lattimore – “The Quiet at Night”.

Hiya people! 🙂 

 

I was listening to Mary Lattimore again yesterday (I do it fairly often, as in just a year I’ve gone from feeling rather meh about her to finding to be my favourite modern harpist), and I thought I’d like to share something by her on here again. I decided on this hauntingly otherworldly composition which comes from her album At the Dam. This is the first track from this particular album of hers that I’m featuring on my blog. 

Â