Apollo

Marta and I have switched roles for the evening ; she is practicing the harp while I write a blog post ! We have just returned to the hotel from a very nice evening with a couple of the other harpists, on the beach of the Mediterranean and to a restaurant for copious amounts of hummus, eggplant, and falafal. We wandered around the historic port city of Jaffa and experienced an exotic world I’ve only known through tales and movies. The atmosphere was completed by the mesmerizing Arab melodies eminating from a nearby mosque calling people to worship.

This competition is very well organized. There are enough harps here for every contestant to have his/her own harp, plus several harps left over that nobody is playing. As a result, we get to keep my harp right here in our room. I arrived relatively late to the competition and found that everybody had already chosen the harps they would play.  When I got there, there were only two Lyon & Healy harps left, but there were plenty of Salvis. I think everybody here is used to playing on L&H so they didn’t consider the Salvis. If they had, they surely would have discovered the beautiful Apollos, and there would be none left for me. After trying the L&Hs, I went into the room with the Salvis, just to see what my options were. As soon as I saw the Apollo model harps, I said to Marta, « You must prevent me from choosing one of those ! » They are the sirens of the harp world – webbed feet, elegantly twisted columns, and huge extended sound boards – and their sound is dangerously seductive.  At some point in the past I must have decided that playing an Apollo was like cheating – the sound is big and lush, but I had decided that it was messy or unclear or uneven or too ringy, I can’t even remember what faults I had pegged it with.

We rationally decided to erase all preconceived notions and make a new choice from among what we had available. Even after all my preparation playing on a L&H back in Paris, I gravitated immediately toward the Salvis. I like the warmth and depth of their sound, and even the feel of the strings under my fingers. Maybe I just have more European tastes now. In the end, I was seduced by the Apollo, and we are now having a passionate love affair (please don’t tell my Atlantide, whom I love in a much more steady way).  I was further rewarded as I began practicing my first-round pieces on my new Apollo, relishing the enormous sound and projected bass notes. Harmonics fall right where I want them to be. I was delighted to find that there is even a pedal slide in the Salzedo Scintillation which the Apollo executes so smoothly that it actually bends the pitch of the note as the disc pin lets go of the string… mmm !

It is a big harp, physically hard to manage for most, as evidenced by the A-pedal at the extreme right end of the base which has been slanted inward. But I have unusally long limbs and feel like it is just my size; the A-pedal is a bit of an annoyance in fact. I have seen competitions won on Apollos before. I hope it will bring me good luck.