Variations on a theme in the ancient style (played by Carlos Salzedo)
Memorial Tribute by Edgar Varèse
Research Issues
The issues important for this research:
The harpist-composer:
- A short biography
- his/her quality as a player
- his/her quality as a teacher
- did he/she use a personal method while teaching
- Why did he/she start composing
- Did he/she take composition lessons (with whom)
- Did he/she influence other composers and how
- Did he/she influence the development of the building of the instrument
- How did this harpist-composers contribute to the contemporary way of harp playing (teaching, methods, idiomatic writing, compositions)
Education
First by the parents, St Cecilia School of Music, Bordeaux, then the Paris Conservatoire. Composition with
Why the harp
As a second instrument at the Conservatoire in Paris. He played the piano and his brother played the violin. His father did consider him not to have the physique to play a wind instrument, so the harp was chosen.
Why compose
Quote Salzedo: ‘one must be a born composer’
Reception by other harpists
He started a new harp school in the US and most of his students adored him. His compositions were played by most of his students. On ‘chanson dans la nuit’ Salzedo whispered during a recital by one his students: ‘I never expected, or intended, that to become a recital piece’
Reception by audience
During war time the Camden Herald reported (1943): ‘It is gratifying to realize that the Summer Harp Colony is upholding the same high standards and activities in Was as well as in Peace, thereby adhering to the Government War Program, which rightfully recommends that the cultural end of our way of life be carefully preserved for the future generations.’ (Page 33) Quote Leopold Stokowski (1957): ‘Salzedo has done for the harp what Bach did for the organ, Paganini for the violin, Chopin, Liszt and Debussy for the piano, which is to enlarge the technical and expressive potentialities of their chosen instruments. This was urgently needed for the harp, because so few composers understand the true musical personality of the harp, but write for it as if it were a piano’
see also Dewey Owens page 74 – 77 : audiences and critics did receive his compositions very willingly
How did he/she contribute to the harp repertoire
As a composer he wrote mainly harp repertoire, many solo compositions, harp duo’s, a harp concerto and a lot of arrangements e.g. Sonatine by Ravel for flute, cello and harp (Trio de Lutèce). Quote Ravel: ‘why did I not think of this combination’
What innovations did he/she discover; how did he/she influence harpplaying then and in the future
Together with Lucile Lawrence he wrote:
Method for the harp, first published in 1927. Not the idea of writing a method is new, but discovering new effects and describing them thoroughly, so other composers could use them as well, is.
Salzedo : talking about the ‘limitations of the harp’: they exist in the minds of limited composers and ill-informed critics’ ….’they have a deplorable ignorance of instrumentation […] even composers who write works for large orchestras sometimes reveal a strange indifference to the distinct psychology of each instrument’
Could he/she be considered ‘modern’ at their time or still now
Quote by Louise Varèse in the biography of her husband:
‘Carlos Salzedo was widely known and is remembered principally as a remarkable harpist and teacher. [………] Varèse used to say that if Carlos has chosen the piano instead of the harp he would have had a career rivalling any pianist of his generation. The harp repertory had been trivial and trashy before Salzedo enriched it with his own compositions, as well as with skillful, tactful, faithful arrangements of other composers, Debussy notably. He also invented technical means for providing his instrument with innumerable new sounds and colours’(Page 94)
Salzedo did experiment and was open to all kinds of performances with other kind of arts, like dance (Adolf Bolm, Nijinsky) and Lee De Forest, inventor, experimenting with sound motion pictures (1919) and cooking (page 78 & 79)
Quote Fauré on page 69 (1910): ‘if today’s young composers would be able to write something like those four measures, there would be hope of getting out of the impasse that music seems to have drifted into”
The main Associations Salzedo was involved with:
International Composers’ Guild, the Beethoven Association, International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM), the National Association of Harpists and The Pan-American Association of Composers (Varèse)
Quote from Musical Leader 6th June 1929:
Mr Salzedo is a modernist at heart; he has been the champion of modern music, a composer of works in modern idioom, he has stood for everything progressive in all the arts and he has had the courage to carry the same modern spirit into the decorating of his home.
How important has he/she been as a teacher
Salzedo’s fingering could be considered ‘timeless’, also his interest in other forms of art and his joy of being a musican.
‘You have to work like the devil to play like an angel’
Salzedo therefor advises studying the scores of the living ‘pioneers’ and indicates Claude Debussy as the greatest master of orchestration of all time (page 87, Lucia Bova)
In the summer of 1916 Salzedo and Nijinsky formulated a theory of gestures for the harp known as ‘Instrumental Esthetics’