Le Temps d’Érard: Music for Harp and Piano on Original Érard Instruments

Description

Le Temps d’Érard
The Maison Érard, one of the most famous names among harp and piano makers, was active over a period of more than a century and a half, filing no less than thirty patents for the piano and thirteen for the harp. Innovations bearing the Érard signature are still present in today’s instruments. From the company’s foundation in 1788 in Paris, the brothers Sébastien and Jean-Baptiste enjoyed great success in the production of a type of piano almost unknown in France. In 1790, due to the revolutionary uprisings, they opened a further factory in London, which was dedicated until 1821 solely to the manufacture of harps. In a particularly delicate historical period of great economic hardship, Sébastien resided in London to train workers in the production of instruments, rarely returning to Paris to update his brother on new inventions and file patents; Jean-Baptiste continued to run the Parisian company. The two brothers remained separated for several years, but maintained correspondence with each other regarding the progress of their respective establishments. The first patent for harps and pianos, filed in 1794 in London and followed by the Parisian one in 1798, contained, among other improvements, an invention that quickly became the harp string altering mechanism par excellence: the fourchettes. These gradually replaced the mechanism à crochets, in use since the advent of the pedal harp. Throughout the second half of the 18th century, pedal harps – including Érard’s fourchettes – were equipped with a mechanism capable of altering each string by a single semitone. Given the high demand for harps, the need to increase the chromatic possibilities of the instrument went hand in hand with the need to improve production techniques. The numerous luthiers in both countries competed for a long time to come up with numerous inventions to give the harp the ability to play in multiple tonalities. But it was the Érards who crossed the finish line first in 1810. The double-action pedal harp of their invention made it possible to have three sounds per string, flat, natural and sharp. At the same time, the Érards worked on various improvements to pianos. After initially making so-called carré instruments – rectangular in shape – the two brothers developed the first grand models as early as 1789. In 1821, in London, the double escapement was perfected, radically changing the technical and musical possibilities of the piano by making it possible to strike the same key with great speed. The harmonic bar, dated 1838, a metal device designed to support the high-pitched strings and give them great purity of sound, bears the signature of Jean-Baptiste’s son, Pierre. The compositional idiom of both instruments was thus irreversibly modified by the Érard family.
The pieces on this recording project are performed according to historically informed performance practice and have been chosen on the basis of the instruments used, and the period of their construction: harp no. 3408 in style Louis XVI très riche from 1908 and grand piano no. 78054 modèle réduit from 1898. The harp – lacquered with green Vernis Martin with gold flakes – is part of the later production and has similar construction and acoustic characteristics to the harps patented by Pierre Érard in 1835. However, it features the improvements introduced in 1873 to the instrument’s mechanics, when the company was under the leadership of his wife Camille. Until 2013, the harp was in the collection of Jean-Michel Damase, a well-known composer and son of the great harpist Micheline Kahn. The piano – made of waxed frisée rosewood – is a grand, but smaller, model introduced from 1874. The tailpiece features the typical Érard piano arrangement with parallel strings and the harmonic bar. The Duo Cordé thus proposes compositions written between the 19th and 20th centuries, also highlighting the close connections between Maison Érard and prominent artists of the time. Many pianists and composers: one above all, Liszt, who favoured their pianos for their wide and powerful sound; but also Beethoven, Busoni, Fauré, Haydn, Gounod, Saint-Saëns, Ravel, Verdi, Wagner and many others. Prominent names in the harp world include Bochsa, Gatti-Aldrovandi, Laskine, Renié, Thomas, Tournier, Zabel. The collaboration between Érard and musicians was profoundly fruitful. Think for example of the commission made by the Maison Érard to Ravel for the Introduction et allegro M. 46; the Grande fantaisie op.61 by Parish-Alvars, dedicated to Pierre; or Liszt’s 8 Variations S. 148, dedicated instead to Sébastien.

In 1833, Liszt began an affair with Marie d’Agoult, who married to Count Charles Louis Constant d’Agoult. To avoid scandal, Marie abandoned her husband and daughters and moved with Liszt to Geneva. From August 1837 to November 1839 the two lovers undertook a trip to Italy, staying at Lake Como, Venice, Milan, Florence and Rome. These places were an inspiration to the composer, and the second volume of the Années de pèlerinage is indeed dedicated to Italy. Sposalizio is the first piece in the collection (completed only in 1849) and is freely inspired by Raffaello’s painting Lo sposalizio della vergine, exhibited at Milan’s Pinacoteca di Brera. As in other of his compositions, such as the symphonic poems or the famous Sonata in B minor, Liszt originates almost all themes from a single cue. In this case, the short opening motif – here entrusted to the solo harp – is ingeniously varied, diminished, made into a protagonist or as an accompanying murmur. Paying homage to Liszt for the close relationship he had with the Érards, Duo Cordé offers their own transcription of Sposalizio, taking their inspiration from both the first edition of the piece and a version for two pianos by Aleksandr Glazunov. This adaptation is not a mere redistribution of the original sound material, but rather an expansion of it, with the aim of giving the composition a new version without altering its original content. Various special effects of the harp are included, in the style of many transcriptions at the turn of the 19th and 20th century – près de la table, harmonic sounds – and possible mixtures of timbre with the piano.
John Thomas’s Grand Duet in E♭minor is the Welsh composer’s most substantial work, published in a double version for harp duo or for harp and piano. In contrast to other works for the same ensemble, which are more characterised by elaborations and variations on themes taken from the traditional Welsh repertoire, the Grand Duet stands as a composition of greater depth while maintaining a brilliant, almost Biedermeier style approach. The themes are treated according to the canons of the classical-romantic sonata form, and the virtuosity required of the two instruments is remarkable, giving the work a marked character of a gran concerto patetico. The true contrasting element is the heart of the work: a broad and mournful Adagio, almost a long consolation, in which the two themes are very similar to each other and always alternately entrusted to the harp and piano at each reprise.
The same Lisztian constructive approach is present in Fantasiestück Op.87, a work by French composer and distinguished cellist Paul Bazelaire, and dedicated to the great harpist and composer Henriette Renié. The matrix of all the themes is in fact the slender initial melodic line, introduced by the piano. The composer skilfully elaborates it in dense contrapuntal and imitative episodes, or takes fragments of it to generate other thematic material, constantly giving the impression that it is something new. Fantasiestück Op.87 – here in its world premiere recording – is a piece full of virtuosity and charm, exploiting the full potential of both instruments, revealing unexpected combinations and constantly changing tone mixtures.
Some 20 years later, at the height of his creative maturity, George Elbert Migot – a pupil of Widor, d’Indy, Gedalge and Vierne at the Paris Conservatoire – wrote Prélude à deux for two harpsichords or for harp and piano – according to the indications in the score. Migot’s desire was to recover and bring into his present the reins of the French Baroque, particularly that of Couperin and Rameau. In Prélude à deux, this is more than evident: the writing is essential, densely contrapuntal, adorned with trills and acciaccaturas that nod to Couperin’s Pièces de clavecin, but in a style resolutely linked to Migot’s era – if not going even further.
Tema y variaciones Op.100 by Joaquin Turina closes the program. It is the first piece of the Ciclo plateresco, a series of compositions for different instrumental ensembles. The adjective plateresco derives from the Spanish architectural style typical of the 15th and 16th centuries, characterised by a rich ornamentation of silver – plata. As in Migot, we witness a curious glimpse of the past combined with a desire to bring it into the present. Several traditional Spanish genres are cited in the score – farruca, falseta – inserted by Turina in the form of the theme and variations, declining in a musical sense the ornamentation of the plateresco style. Tema y variaciones presents itself as a kind of Lisztian paraphrase, which does not merely list the variations one after the other, but elaborates their contents in a cyclic and rhapsodic manner with melodies that are presented each time in different guises, taking on features from spanish folk dances and with increasingly richer accompaniments.
Giuliano Marco Mattioli
Andrea Rocchi