“Fantasias & Fugues: Music for Harp” = BACH: Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue, BWV 903; ELIAS PARISH-ALVARS: Grande Fantasie et Variations de Bravoure sur des Motifs Italiens, Op. 57; MICHAEL KIMBRELL: Ballade Arctique; TURINA: Tocata y Fuga-Ciclo Pianistico I, Op. 50; HENRIETTE RENIE: Legende d’Apres Les Elfes de Leconte de Lisle – Katrina Szederkenyi, harp – MSR 1527, 64:35 (6/17/14) [Distr. by Albany] ****:
This delightful album shows exactly why the harp is such a polarizing instrument. It’s all or nothing—the expressive intimacy of the thing allows only two choices—full attention or complete background music. No other alternative is available! When is it played with such delicacy of touch and riveting technical acumen as here, and when the music is all quite engaging and intricate, as it also is here, the poor listener doesn’t have much of a chance. Down goes the book you were reading and up go the aural antennas, helpless in their captivity to the ravishing nuances of 47 resonant strings.
The opening Bach is as beguiling a performance as I have heard, the 26-year old artist recently appointed co-principal harpist of the Gewandhaus Orchestra. Parish-Alvars’s Italian Fantasy is pretty much a harp standard these days, and the melodies and expressive nuances of the instrument are shown to grand effect. Michael Kimbell wrote the Ballade Arctique specifically for the Canadian Szederkenyi, the moral tale of a hunter who slew a caribou and then refused to share it with his starved companions.
The Turina is a sparkler, effervescent and impressionistic, a good example of inspiration from the guitar transferred to the harp. And the amazing cascades of sound present in Renie’s programmatic Legend after The Elves offer a good summary of the capabilities of the harp and the harpist.
This is her second album, and quite a treat it is. The sound, recorded at the iStrings Studio in Austria, is resonant, enveloping, and full. [The concert harp is difficult to record properly…Ed.]
—Steven Ritter
