Marcel Tournier 6 Noels For Harp

Korean-born Dutch harpist Lavinia Meijer states as her goal "to make the harp better known as a solo instrument, with all its possibilities which are often still unknown to the wider audience." With this release she accomplishes her goal, not so much technically as musically. The harp does not do so much here that the attentive listener to the big early film scores won't have heard before. But Meijer's album falls nicely into the group of releases that are reconstructing the virtuoso solo repertoire of a century ago, rediscovering gems that were swept aside by self-serving modernist imperatives.

Yolanda Kondonassis' skill on the harp is legendary. So too are her arrangements for the instrument. Many times you hear arrangements that restate the composer's original themes, but don't make the music fit the instrument. I often feel this way about much of Bach's music on the piano. Other times you find arrangements that stretch beyond the original in ways that get in the way. For me, the best example of this is the Stokowski arrangements of Bach's organ works for orchestra.

Boris Tishchenko, often considered to be the direct musical heir of Shostakovich, maintained a prolific output across all genres. The concise vocal trios – one written in memory of the composer’s brother – are alternately plaintive and urgent. The five movements of the Harp Concerto are played without pause, and the work is significant for expanding the harp’s expressive range and requiring the soloist to alternate between two instruments.