Conducted by B. WALTON O'DONNELL
SIDONIE GOOSSENS (Harp)
THE modern concert harp, with whoso tone in the orchestra listeners are familiar, is a very elaborate instrument as compared with its ancestors. In its primitive form, of course, it is one of the most ancient of all musical instruments, but, as far as we can guess from old pictures and sculptures, the early hurp must have had quite a slight and rather deep tone. There is no appearance in the oldest known forms of it, of any dfevice which could have withstood the strain of strings stretched at all tightly. In a small and fairly simple form the harp was adopted Bomewhere in the Middle Ages by the Ce'ltic races, and Welsh.
Irish, and Scottish Celtic harps are still played, usually by a singer who accompanies himself or herself, much as tho old minstrels must have done.
For many years inventors were bupy trying to evolve devices which would enable the harp to play in more than one key without retuning, and the form now in use was devised mainly by Erard, of the famous pianoforte firm. Thanks to his inventive brain, it is now possible, by means of pedals which the player's foot moves, to effect.- quite simply, almost any desired change of key, so that the range of the instrument is practically as complete as that of the pianoforte.