musical instruments
The Waddesdon Manor Harp
In case you don't know, I wrote about 18th century French harps for my M.A. dissertation and I am obsessed with theses things. LOOK AT IT. It's so unnecessary and unapologetic. And I appreciate an instrument that is a pain in the ass: difficult to play, delicate to move, and expensive as hell. And it does. Not. Care. I love these harps, and I recently(ish) went and visited this one at Waddesdon Manor because I am nosy and like making harp friends.
I went with some friends to Waddesdon Manor in Aylesbury, which is the home of the British branch of the Rothschild family. Basically they were nouveau riche and lookin' to spend some serious cash on all kinds of 18th century stuff that all the fancy people were into, so the house is full of expensive Louis XVI furniture, Sèvres porcelain, and lots of Reynolds and Gainsborough portraits they bought (these are two of my favorite portrait artists and I DIE when I see any of their work). Cue the gasp of horror at having to BUY a Gainsborough of another nobleperson and not just snapping your fingers to get him to come paint you at your house! LIKE A PEASANT!
Can we take a minute to appreciate the soft boudoir lighting they had going on in here?
Anyway, I slunk around the corner of one of the main rooms while cursing the Rothschilds under my breath for hogging all the Gainsboroughs and Reynolds when I spied this golden beauty lurking in the back of the room! I have become such a freak that I generally flinch when I see a vagely triangular shape because I think it's a harp, but I could tell from far away that it was from the 1780s and I wanted to be its friend. So I emailed the curator and asked to come see the harp, and she said to come on a Monday when the Manor would be closed to the public. Cut to me in a black cab at the front gate of the house politely shouting into an intercom that I was not a sueprcreep and had an appointment to come legitimately creep in the house. They finally let me in and the curator met me in front of the house and snuck me along some corriders to get to the offices where I left my things, then we descended into the darkness of the public rooms where all the curtains were shut and lights were turned off. It was dark and spooky and I was alllllll over it. And there were ZERO tourists there, unlike when I visited the first time and it was so crowded in some rooms I almost fainted.
Now, I don't know much about this particular harp because I wasn't able to open it up and take a peek inside the soundbox to check for the maker's plaque. I can tell you that it's a typical single action pedal harp in the French style, which was popular from about 1760 to 1815 or so. Single action means you can press each pedal down once, so there's a starting position and a raised position (natural and sharp notes); each pedal operates a hook on all the strings of the same note to change their pitch. They came from Germany to France at the beginning of the 18th century, and by the 1780s (when this was most likely built) they had become golden Rococo masterpieces. This particular single action had been heavily conserved and was pretty fragile, so I don't blame them for not letting some rando bust it open (or even touch it). But also, OBSERVE THE GOLDEN LOVELINESS.
It's missing a pedal and someone was a little rambunctious with the soundboard and snapped it, but otherwise is in great shape! It can't be played, but that's pretty rare for harps this old; you would normally have to spend a lot of time and money on maintenance generally, and usually what happens with these is that they end up in the attic and get eaten up by bugs or else the string tension slacks and it affects the wood. It's much easier to keep something like a bassoon or violin playing for 200 years because they are much less fragile, smaller, and aren't full of iron mechanisms that get crusty after a while of not playing them. You have to oil that shit! Instruments are high maintenance children. Old instruments are the kid from Problem Child--definitely the Devil but also kind of cute so, whatever.
I would talk more about the history of the harp, but that's another post in itself! I had to try VERY hard not to just copy+paste my dissertation in here, because it's SO INTERESTING. Would you guys be interested in a harp-history post? With lots of pics?? Maybe multiple posts? LET ME KNOW!
University of Cambridge
I just went for the cheese scones at Fitzbillies.
In September I went to a musical instrument conference at the University of Cambridge. The conference was hilarious because it was partly organised by the Institute of Acoustics, and apparently a lot of the academics researching and writing about instruments are physicists and astronomers because they know about sound bouncing around in a conical shape and such. Half of the presentations were lots of math equations up on a Powerpoint slide and I was a little terrified, but there were also some insane 3D scanning and renderings going on.
Now, there are two things I think about when I think of Cambridge. The first is my friend Denys, who studied abroad there for a year and who lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts while she was at MIT. The second is Brideshead Revisited, or else every other kinds of early 20th century novel about sad privileged white boys being super sad because, you know, sleeping on a bed made of money is uncomfortable at times. Of course, now Cambridge is more than simply a posh boys' club; women can go to Cambridge now and it's full of super smart, terrifying geniuses like my friend. But lots of things stayed the same and the whole place is very weirdly historic. The river is a big thing, and there are lots of flat boats you can rent (they call it punting) to pretend you are in Bridget Jones reciting Keats while drinking a Diet Coke. Or so I assume. Anyway, the river and its surrounding bits were really pretty and picturesque, and there were cows everywhere to complete the whole countryside motif.
The most medieval part (I think) is King's College Chapel, which has all the important components of high medieval architecture and what everyone on house-shopping shows on HGTV is looking for: high ceilings, lots of natural light, CHARACTER, and tons of storage. This chapel in particular has really amazing spindly ceiling bits that fan out like a plant. There's also some SERIOUS stained glass going on in there. The glass looks amazing when it's sunny out, and the whole place looks very bright and airy because the stone is light in color and the whole place is basically a glass box, whereas cathedrals are sometimes darker from their shape and exterior things blocking light (or dirty old stonework).
Another friend who went to Cambridge for undergrad was explaining all the rituals and traditions and such and I got a little overwhelmed, but she said that you sit in your College in the chapel, thus the awesome members only plaque above. She also directed me to Fitzbillies, the cafe in the first picture, where they serve cheese scones. I went back to that place way more times than I should have in three days, but I have no regrets about those delicious damn scones.
I really enjoyed wandering around Cambridge because it had plenty of funky old parts like alleyways and ancient pubs and such. It was nice too because I came right before all the new undergrads would get there, so it was pretty peaceful and I didn't get run over by a swarm of cyclists like I thought I might. I was really into the whole medieval thing. In fact, I met someone at the conference who showed me around Peterhouse, the oldest College at Cambridge with a dining hall that was supposedly the oldest building in England still used for its original purpose. SO MANY MEDIEVAL GOINGS ON!
And there will be even more medieval goings on in my next post: Canterbury Cathedral!
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