Elias Parish Alvars
Life, Music, Documents Annotated Catalogue of his Works for Harp, Piano, Orchestra and Voice
by
Floraleda Sacchi
Odilia Publishing Ltd
Born in Teignmouth, Devonshire 28 February 1808 as ‘Eli, son of Joseph and Mary Ann Parish’
Father: organist, voice teacher and music handler.
First harp teacher was his father, from 1820 Nicolas Charles Bochsa in London. Finished his studies in 1828 and went to Florence, studying composition with Maximilian Leidesdorf and voice with members of the Guglielmo family.
Then back to London (1829/1830) playing concerts and touring through Europe (always the respective royal courts as his primary destination. (German, Scandinavië, Kiev, Odessa, Black Sea) and met Count Boutinoff, the Russian ambassador in Constantinople. From this period remain his collected popular melodies: ‘Travel of a Harpist in the Orient, opus 62 (1843/46)
1832 he went to Vienna, were he met pianist/composer Sigismund Thalberg, Carl Czerny. In this time he changed his name to Elias Parish Alvars
By this time, he had been writing compositions until opus 35, but they had not yet been published.
1833 touring through Hungaria, Switzerland, Italy and in 1834 he left for Vienna and Munich, where he lived for 1 year and where his first publication of his ‘Theme and Variations PA1’ was realized, under the name of ‘Albert Alvars’
1835-1842, Vienna. 1836 solo harpist at the Hofoperntheater
Collaborations with Czerny and flutist Joseph Fahrbach
Composition studies with Ignaz von Seyfried and Simon Sechter
In 1836 he became harp teacher of Jeanette Esterházy de Galantha, who remained his patroness and friend until his death.
Melanie Lewy became his student at the age of 12. She came from a very well-known Viennese musical family. Later he married her (1842). They performed as a duo as well as with others. In 1841 an ensemble was formed by E. P A, Melanie Levy, Karl Levy (brother) on horn and Richard Levy (brother) on piano, which was a great succes.
Also his recitals were a great succes and publishers were interested in his works.
June 1842 Liszt published a positive appraisal of him in the ‘Neue Zeitschrift für Musik’
February 1843 he went to Dresden and Leipzig, invited by Felix Mendelssohn. In Dresden he met Hector Berlioz who recalls him in his ‘Mémoires: In Dresden, I met the prodigious English harpist Elias Parish Alvars, a name not yet as renowned as it ought to be. […] This man is the Liszt of the harp. You can not conceive all the delicate and powerful effects, the novel touches and unprecedented sonorities, that he manages to produce from an instrument in many respects so limited […..] (From Mémoires de Hector Berlioz; comprenant ses voyages en Italië, en Allemagne, en Russin et en Angleterre. Paris 1903) page 12
And when they met later on in Frankfurt, Berlioz wrote in the same Mémoires: ‘Here I met again Parish Alvars. This man is a magician. In his hands the harp become a siren, lovely neck inclined and wild hair flowing, stirred by his passionate embrace to utter the music of another world’
1846: he was granted the title of Imperial Virtuoso and started teaching at the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde where he became ‘Professor of Harp’
1847: political instability in Europe (page 14) and the income of the family was diminished into almost nothing.
1849 (January): he died of pneumonia apparantly. The documents are not clear
1827/1828 he started composing.
Even not yet studying composition, it is obvious from his works up to opus 32, that the harpist had complete mastery of all instrumental resources
The emergence of a middel-class audience, along with the establishment of public concert halls, gave rise to a steady demand for novel attractions to entice paying spectators into the concerts. The virtuoso, embodied by Franz Liszt, was born as result of this new situation. The new Romantic style with its folkloristic colourings, forced music to seek mysterious, enchanting timbres. Besides this awakened sensibility and public demand, progress was also made in the technical design of musical instruments. E.g. the double-action harp by Erard.
A lot of operatic themes started to enter his works (1835). Unusual still: the tonal development and the conscious decision to combine major tonalities with melancholie or clearly dramatic verses (Illustrations of German Poetry opp. 71-72)
PA wrote a method (still manuscript), but did not publish it. He describes the way one should sit behing the harp and how important practicing daily exercises are and how a student should practice (especially scales). Fingering is a very important issue, sometimes he suggests the 5th finger of the left hand
One chapter is dedicated to explain the difference between the single-action harp (still used by many harpists) and the advantages of the double-action harp
Special techniques PA played and/or invented, described in his method
-Single, double and triple glissandi in both hands with enharmonic notes (invention PA
-Fluid sound. Tuning key glissando (invention of PA)
-Harmonics. Single to quadruple in left hand, single or double in right hand
-Sons étouffés
-Pedal slide, as to obtain a diminuendo that is controlled by the motion of the pedal. = portato
-P.d.l.t.
-Doubling at a lower third. Used much in his Romances
-Three-handed technique; developed by his pianist friend Sigismund Thalberg, but claimed by PA. Broken chords divided in two hand and a middle-register tessitura
-Trills. He prefered those on enharmonic notes
-Inventions: chord harmonics/ sounds produced near the soundboard/ ornaments made up of small trills on enharmonic notes/ pedal glissando’s.
The meaning of this colour is the similarity between PA and Salzedo