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27 Mar 03 - 08:25 AM (#919528) Subject: Early English harp-playing. From: greg stephens It is recorded that during the invasion of England by the Danes, King Alfred disguised himself as a harpist and walked into the Danish camp, entertained them with a few well-chosen songs and in the process checked out their battle plans. The coalition forces seem to be having a bit of bother figuring out what is going on in Basra and Bagdhad, so I thought it might be a good idea if Tony Blair got out the old guitar, a sheet, tea-towel and the trusty bottle of walnut juice. |
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27 Mar 03 - 08:35 AM (#919540) Subject: RE: Early English harp-playing. From: IanC There's quite a good resource on early depictions of harps in Britain and Ireland here. Interestingly, the earliest Irish depiction is circa 1100, by which date there had been a good many English depictions (pictures of harp playing were quite common in Anglo-Saxon manuscripts). Seems the harp was quite a common English instrument. :-) |
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27 Mar 03 - 10:20 AM (#919640) Subject: RE: Early English harp-playing. From: greg stephens Lord Howard,in England around 1480, emplyed a harper called Little Richard (well, probably Lyttel Richarde actually). I thought you would like to know that. Also, further to the Alfred story above, a few years later a Danish King called Aulaff similarly entered the camp of the English King Athelstan and sang with a harp while spying. Interestingly, his stratagem was exposed when one of Athelsatn's soldiers spotted Aulaff burying the money he had earned for his songs. Whether this was because Aulaff was ashamed to earn money from music because he thought it was demeaning, or ashamed from having deceived someone into offering hospitality, is not recorded. The soldier who spotted him was right in his deductions. No real professional musician buries his money after a gig. Liverpool comedians keep it in a biscuit tin under the bed, but that is another story. |
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27 Mar 03 - 09:28 PM (#920172) Subject: RE: Early English harp-playing. From: GUEST,Julia According to Alison Kinnaird in her book "Tree of Strings" the earliest evidence of the triangular frame harp is carved on a Pictish standing stone at Nigg in Easter Ross Scotland circa 800 AD.No triangular framed harp is depicted elsewhere before these. The Scottish stones show a fairly large instrument- the harper is seated with the harp resting on the ground and the forepillar level with the top of his head Triangular harps do not appear in Ireland until the 11th century on the Shrine of St Mogue.This is a smaller instrument resting in the player's lap.One theory about the smaller size is that the Scottish harps were strung with gut which could be long while the Irish strung their harps with wire which needed to be shorter.The first refernce to a harp in Wales is in a 13th century Llyfr Du o'r Waun manuscript that records the ancient Welsh laws. The harp may have been there before the 13th century, but this is the first documentation of it. Triangular harps became popular in most Medieval European courts. The "harp" found at Sutton Hoo in England was a quadrangular instrument with 6 strings- the Anglo-saxons probably played this type of instrument rather than the triangular harp. |
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28 Mar 03 - 02:55 AM (#920274) Subject: RE: Early English harp-playing. From: greg stephens Julia: that's very interesting. Is that Scottish harp in 800AD the first depiction of a triangular harp in the British Isles, or the first one anywhere? You seem to be suggesting that English references to harps actually refer to square instruments before some unspecified date...does your book say when the triangular harps started coming in? This is all very interesting. |
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28 Mar 03 - 04:07 AM (#920293) Subject: RE: Early English harp-playing. From: IanC If you look at the link I provided, you'll see that the Nigg stone is mentioned. it can't be closely dated and is said to be "8-9th Century". There are also a number of early illustrations on the site though not one, unfortunately, if the Nigg stone. The Dupplin one (illustrated) may be older and there's a 9th Century one in Masham, England. :-) |
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28 Mar 03 - 05:47 AM (#920328) Subject: RE: Early English harp-playing. From: greg stephens IanC: I had a look for this Nigg stone, and a yahoo search on Nigg and harp threw up a site colled niggoldtrust.org.uk(I think) as the second or third hit. It offered various visuals of the stone which I couldnt access(ntl cable internet). I've learnt you always have to be a bit suspicious of the dates people place on these stones and other artefacts. Vague guesses by archaeologists soon get enshrined as fact. And circular arguments abound, with archaeologists relying on historians guesses, and historians relying on aechaeologists guesses, with not a great deal of evidence being included in the proceedings. However, it seems reasonably clear that (1) there were plenty of things called harps in use in various parts of Britain c 800AD, but (2) there is no evidence that they were of the familiar modern triangular shape before some time in the region 800-1000 AD, when lots of illustrations start appearing in Scotland and England, and subsequently in Wales and Ireland. (But the places where the illustrations appear first can not be assumed to be where the instuments appeared first). From 1000AD there is a huge amount of good evidence about harpists throughout the British Isles. Alas, we don't know anything whatsoever about the music they played till well into the Middle Ages. And I still think Tony Blair should get the old guitar out. |
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29 Mar 03 - 05:22 AM (#921115) Subject: RE: Early English harp-playing. From: fogie There are two well preserved ancient clrsachs or harps in the museum (of Scotland?) in Edinburgh, which might be on line? |
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29 Mar 03 - 07:23 AM (#921140) Subject: RE: Early English harp-playing. From: Pied Piper There is a great book by Ossian Ellis, based on his analysis of the Ap Huw Penllin manuscript of Harp Tablature. I can't remember the title but I'll try and locate it for you. Basically he has concluded that the harps were tuned in various modes, most Pentatonic and the melodies improvised over a pattern of 2 chords. Some of it is very like Piobroch, but that's another story. All the best PP |