Squalid and Obscure: Timbral Word Painting at the Arpa Doppia

Hannah Rose (Kit) Spencer

Name: Kit (Hannah Rose) Spencer Main Subject: Baroque Harp Research Supervisor: Kate Clark Title of Research: Squalid and Obscure: Timbral Word Painting at the Arpa Doppia Research Question: Can timbral refinement, through synthesized notation and subsequent technical exercises, enhance contrast and word painting in arpa doppia continuo realisations of Seconda Prattica songs? Summary of Results: While functionally versatile, the arpa doppia, an Italian harp of imposing size with multiple layers of resonating strings, revealed its nature as fondamento, in the subtle art of continuo. Direct contact with the open strings gave singers, accompanying themselves on the harp, unparalleled control over the instrument’s timbral potential. This is reflected in the role of the instrument within musica secreta, private concerts at the courts of Ferrara and Modena stylistically favouring word painting and chromaticism, in ensembles such as the concerto delle donna and Baroni sisters. The expressive freedom of their art influenced poets and composers and contributed to the development of the seconda prattica at the turn of the sixteenth century. Indeed, voice and harp were held up as the ideal way to perform epic poetry, a reflection of the mesmerising contrast and colour their combined forces could deliver. How do we find this unique skill-set today from a broken line of tradition, contending with limited, conflicting primary resources? There is very little surviving repertoire specific to the instrument, and other sources such as paintings are static representations with considerable variation in position and placement of the instrument, body and hands, making it hard to replicate. In the years dedicated to exploring the arpa doppia, we harpists uncover these insights through shared motions and motivations of our forebears— finding a way to play like them by trying to vividly colour the text as they did. This is a way artistic research can bring to life the spectrum of lost practice and technique. My research has resulted in the creation of timbral notation for the arpa doppia, easily added to music notation and publishing software. This notation is designed to help recreate as much as possible all the timbral refinement found by the hands of masterful singer-harpists. It documents, builds upon and preserves the invaluable research of historical practitioners, using visual, contact-based diagrams to provide clarity in understanding this evocative and highly specialised art form. With this foundation of timbre and text, it aims to reconstitute the virtuosity, influence and innovation of the original arpa doppia players, through our shared practice today.  Biography: While playing as the Australian Youth Orchestra's Principal Harpist, and as a fellow of the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, Kit Spencer's Honours degree culminated in studying Berio's infamous Sequenza II with its foremost interpreter, Alice Giles. Her passion for colour, gesture and bass lead her to arpa doppia, beginning with Andrew Lawrence King's St. Petersburg production of Landi's La Morte d'Orfeo and Monteverdi's L'Orfeo in Bauska Castle, Latvia.

Figure 1.21—Thurau, Rainer. Zampieri Replica. Digital image. Thurau Harps. N.p., n.d. Web. Accessed 25 Feb. 2017.

1.4 Anatomy of the Harp 101 and Other Harp Terminology

The harp is an ancient and versatile instrument which has adapted to every era and continent, from the kora, or West African lute harp, built from a kind of gourd and facilitating complex improvisation and polyrhythm, to the Peruvian arpas indígenasmade lighter and able to played upside down on the harpist’s shoulder while walking, to the carbon fibre and titanium harps built to withstand the extreme cold of Antarctic concerts. The definition of a harp, therefore, primarily rests on three elements: the column, neck, and soundbox.

The Column is the long post at the front of the harp. Typically, the taller the harp is, the larger the range of pitch it can achieve. The Neck is the curved wooden piece at the top of the harp, shaped like the neck of a horse. The way the neck dips is called the Harmonic Curve. The Neck is where the Tuning Pins are. As you can see, on this arpa doppia (Figure 1.21) there are three rows of tuning pins. This means that every string, even the ones with the same pitch, are a different length. This is done by changing the thickness and tension of the strings individually. Every string is different.The Soundbox is the third part of the harp, the resonating part against the harpist. Where the Neck meets the Soundbox is called the Shoulder, meeting the shoulder of the harpist as they play.

The plane where the strings meet the Soundbox is called the Soundboard. The arpa doppia in Figure 1.21 has holes in the soundboard decorated by rosettes, but modern harps have holes at the back of the soundbox. This is because the strings put more tension on the soundboard than the early harps, it needs to be strong. The soundboard of the arpa doppia here is its most delicate part, carefully carved to enhance the resonating qualities of the soundboard.

A Course is a row or layer of strings. Throughout history, harps have evolved to support greater chromaticism. Today, harpists use one row of strings and a mechanism with thousands of moving parts to control accidentals with foot pedals. Renaissance and Baroque harp makers added extra rows of strings instead. This harp has three courses, two enharmonic diatonic courses on the outside in the F major scale, and then one course of accidentals between them. If a sharp or flat is required, the harpist reaches in between the strings to play the middle row.

Further Harp Terms

Arpa Doppia refers to Italian harps with more than one course of parallel strings, popular in Italy from the mid 16th Century to the mid 17th Century.

Arpa de dos ordenes or Spanish cross harp refers to an instrument popular in Spain in the 17th Century. It has two courses of strings which cross over in the middle.

The Davidsharfe was the German harp of the high Baroque. Influenced by the Arpa Doppia, it could have multiple rows, and also bray-pins, pieces of metal or wood which interfered with the string to a buzzing sound.

Overstriking is when the harpist plucks the string too hard, leading to a flatter, harsher sound than intending, and the strings clashing into one another.

Près de la table means to play at the bottom of the strings, close to the soundboard.

The Welsh triple harp is the three coursed harps inspired by the arpa doppia, adopted in the British Isles originally predominantly in the 17th and 18th Centuries. It is used today predominantly for Welsh folk music.

2.1 What is this Fundamentally? Original Source Material for the Arpa Doppia

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