Playing two harp parts on one harp? (Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun)

Debussy’s l’après midi d’un faune was originally written for two harp parts, but there comes a time in every harpists’ career where the orchestra asks for 📣 1 harp please!

This happened to me in Boston Conservatory’s Conductor’s Orchestra in Spring 2020. At that time, I was the regular harpist and since this was just a reading, (plus there was a limited budget), the professor found little need for two harpists to show up for a 15 minute slot. Just think about the tuning, moving, setting up, tearing down…

I was told to play as much as I could from both parts but otherwise, default to Harp 1. The parts weren’t wasn’t terribly difficult, and I felt a responsibility as the harpist (or perhaps in this case, the entire harp section) to write a single harp reduction that combined the two parts as much as possible for the student conductors to better hear the entire harp part.

With that, my Debussy One Harp Reduction was born. ✨ While I don’t believe that combinable harp parts should become a norm, I understand that these situations do occur.

Toujours anime

The good thing about l’après midi d’un faune is that the two parts can be combined quite reasonable, since the harp parts are mostly doubling or dovetailing. The only tricky section was at Toujours animé, where Debussy writes two distinctly different parts! However, a nice work around was taking the treble line from Harp 1 and the bass line from Harp 2. I had no qualms removing the octaves in Harp 2, because the strings are also playing the exact same line during this section. Additionally, if the coordination is too tricky for the harpist, the lower LH part can be omitted.

In addition to the Debussy, there are some other harp parts which orchestras have quite commonly ask the harpists to combine (e.g. Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Ballet or Verdi’s La Forza del Destino). These ones have been done by harpists but note that some other requests would be deemed completely ridiculous (e.g. Debussy’s La Mer, Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra, any Strauss/Wagner/Stravinsky).

🤔 So I guess, it depends on what the composer originally intended with these two harp writings. For example, Berlioz wanted multiple harps for more volume in Symphonie Fantastique and despite being a standard orchestral excerpt, it happened that harpists have found ways to combine both parts. However something like Holst’s Planets 🪐 would be impossible as the movement Uranus includes a section whereby he writes for one harp in one key/pedal setting and the second in another key/pedal setting so that he essentially has access to all the notes of the chromatic scale.

🤯 Genius.

And completely not combine-able.

So anyway, I left my arrangement with BoCo for the next harpist. Of course, I prefer to remain true to the score and how the composer intended it.

But sometimes, when the orchestra asks for it and the harpist just does not have time to arrange it, I guess these arrangements would come in quite useful in the moment!

My “Harp Writing for Composers” Workshop

Writing for the Harp

Who better than composers to write more music for harp?

🎼 Harpists often say that we have not enough repertoire. I too, am constantly on the hunt for the next new non-harpy harp music so there is absolutely a need for more composers to write music for us ✍🏻 That’s why one of my passions is working with composers and conducting workshops to teach them more about this mysterious instrument.

I’ve conducted this workshop for composers a couple of times now. My intention is always to help them better understand the harp as an instrument, some basics of writing for us and gain some ideas from our extensive techniques.

Often I’m told that the composers have learnt things that they’ve never read about. I guess orchestration books are typically not so extensive and simply hearing from the instrumentalist’s perspectives is always better as we experienced all these things first hand!

My workshop also includes an extensive handout for the composers which you can access here. It is a collection of my findings and research and I hope to continually update it. It’s by no means extensive but I hope that with this, we can encourage more composers to write for this instrument!

I’ve done this several times now; in Singapore for Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts students, in Boston Conservatory’s Composer’s Seminar, Berklee College of Music’s Instrumentation class and New England Conservatory’s Orchestration class. From this, I’ve worked with many composers in their harp parts or solos and have had the privilege to premiere some of these works! Sharing some of them here:

I honestly just want new funky pieces for harp and if these workshops could do just that, it would be absolutely amazing 🌟