HARP, the largest of the class of stringed instruments of which the strings are twanged or vibrated by the fingers. The harp is an instrument of beautiful proportions, approximating to a tri angular form, the strings diminishing in length as they ascend in pitch. The mechanism is concealed within the different parts of which the instrument is composed : (I) the pedestal, or pedal box, on which rest (2) the vertical pillar and (3) the inclined convex body in which the sound-board is fixed (4) the curved neck, with (5) the comb concealing the mechanism for stopping the strings, supported by the pillar and the body.
The harp usually has 46 strings, of gut in the middle and upper registers, and of covered steel wire in the bass. The compass thus has a range of 62 octaves and in respect of notation the double stave is used as for the pianoforte. The modern harp with double action is the only instru ment with fixed tones, not deter mined by the ear or touch of the performer, which has separate notes for naturals, sharps, and flats, giving it an enharmonic compass. On the harp the ap preciable interval between D# and Eb can be played.
The harp in its normal condi tion is tuned to CI) major; it rests with the performer to trans pose it at will in a few seconds into any other key by means of the pedals, each of the pedals in fluencing one note of the scale throughout the compass. The harp is the instrument upon which transposition presents the least difficulty, for the fingering is the same for all keys. The quality of tone does not vary much in the different registers, but it has the greatest brilliancy in keys with many flats, for the strings are then open and not shortened by the mechanism.
It is possible to play on the ordinary harp all kinds of diatonic and arpeggio passages, but not chromatic, except in very slow tempo, on account of the time required by the mechanism of the pedals. Hence the invention of Pleyel's chromatic harp, patented in 1894 and improved in i 9o3 by Gustave Lyon, manager of the firm of Pleyel, Wolff & Co. This is an instrument practically without internal mechanism, constructed on the familiar lines of the pianoforte. There is a string for every chromatic semi tone of the scale of C major, the white strings representing the white keys of the piano keyboard, and the black strings corres ponding to the black keys. The strings cross halfway between neck and sound-board, this being the point where they are plucked; the left hand finds the black notes above, and the right hand below the crossing. The chromatic harp has many useful features, but it has shown no signs so far of displacing the ordinary double action instrument.
The earliest delineations of the harp in Egypt point to its having had its origin in nothing more elaborate than the tense string of the warrior's or hunter's bow. Such an early instrument is the nanga, between which and the grand vertical harps in the frescoes of the time of Rameses III., more than 3,00o years old, there are varieties that permit one to bind the whole, from the simplest bow-form to the almost triangular harp, into one family.
The earliest records that we possess of the Celtic race, whether Gaelic or Cymric, give the harp a prominent place and harpists peculiar veneration and distinction. Upon a cross belonging to the ancient church of Ullard near Kilkenny, the date of which cannot be later than 83o, a harp is plainly indicated; the sculpture is rude, but the instrument is clearly shown to have no front pillar. This remarkable structural likeness to the old harps of of moving single parts. Our problem, then, will be to keep the vlanes of tone distinct. Organ-mixtures, if not properly drowned by the fundamental tones, would shock the boldest multi-planar harmonist by the mess they would make of classical harmony.
Extremes meet, and we are recovering a sense of the values of unharmonized melody ; not melody which wants to be harmonized, nor melody which achieves harmonic sense by draughtmanship, but the austere achievement, far more difficult than any "atonal ity," of a melody that neither needs nor implies harmony. And so we return to nature. (D. F. T.)