(From Birmingham)
(Comprising Two Harpa,
Soprano, Violin and Violoncello)
Directed by MINNIE STOCKHAM
THE modern concert harp, with whose 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 harp must have had quite a slight and rather deep tone. There is no appearance in the oldest known forms of it, of any device which could have withstood the strain of strings stretched at all tightly. In a small and fairly simple form the harp was adopted somewhere in the middle ages by the Celtic races, and Welsh, Irish, and Scottish Celtic harps are still played, usually by a singer who accompanies himself or herself, much as the old minstrels must have done.
For many years inventors were busy 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.