Dolmetsch harps legacy

A photograph captioned “Gildas Jaffrenou construct sa première harpe (1936)”² shows him with an instrument copied from the Dolmetsch wire-strung harp, so it must have been the Dolmetsch “First clarsach” that Heloise took over with her to Brittany. Gildas’s first harp was a failure, and was destroyed ⁴.

After this Gildas Jaffrennou went in a different direction; he made his second instrument in 1947 “under the guidance of Mrs. Arnold Dolmetsch”⁵. This one was successful; a photo of Gildas with this harp shows it to be a normal-looking lever harp with feet and semintone mechanisms, reminiscent of a MacFall Tara harp ⁶. The following year, Gildas was asked by Jord Cochevelou for information about harp construction. Jord made a harp in 1951, following Gildas’s instructions. He had intended it for his wife, but instead his son Alan became besotted with it and played it. Alan later took the stage name Stivell and became world-famous as a Breton harper. The first harp that Jord Cochevelou made for Alan was fitted with gut strings.

It was not until 1964 that Alan got a harp with wire strings; I don’t know who made this one. Gildas Jaffrennou’s 1973 book includes instructions for making wire-strung “bardic” harps, (as well as gut- or nylon-strung “Celtic” harps styled after the Clarke Irish harp). While it is clear that Jaffrennou’s failed first harp was copied from the Dolmetsch clarsach, it’s not clear where the ideas for Alan Stivell’s wire-strung harp and Jaffrennou’s “Bardic harp” came from, whether these designs come via Dolmetsch or somewhere else.

Alan Stivell used the 1964 wire-strung harp to play the Dolmetsch arrangements of the medieval Welsh music on his LP Renaissance of the Celtic Harp. This record was hugely influential internationally in raising awareness of Celtic harp music.

Scotland

Of course Heloise Russell-Fergusson was based in Scotland but she doesn’t seem to have played the Dolmetsch harp there at all. She did correspond with Arnold Dolmetsch in 1932 about replacement strings; did she have trouble with the harp? It is very lightly strung and the touch would have been very different to her Clarke harp. Heloise sold the Dolmetsch harp in 1945.

The person who acquired it in 1945 was a child, who took lessons from Edith Taylor at Rahoy. The harp’s new owner kept it and played it, but only at home privately. They said it was to be played on the left shoulder, the opposte to “other harps”. They finally sold it in 2017.

In the 1940s and 1950s, Miss Edith L. Ogilvy Taylor of Rahoy, Morvern, was a harpist who played a Dolmetsch clarsach with wire strings ⁷. I don’t know how early she got it; she was active as a harpist and as Secretary of the Clarsach Society from the early 1930s, when she was based in Dunblane. The photograph below, shows her with a Dolmetsch harp, presumably her own. It is very similar to Heloise’s 1932 “first”, from similar wood, with similar but slightly different figuring in the grain.

Edith Taylor with a Dolmetsch clarsach harp
At Perth Mod, 1947. L-R: Heloise Russell-Fergusson, Edith Taylor, George Gordon 2nd Marquess of Aberdeen and Temair. Thanks to Helene Witcher for the photo and to Stuart Eydmann for information. See also Dundee Evening Telegraph, Friday 03 October 1947, p.1

Other photos of Edith Taylor at Rahoy in the late 1940s show her playing it left-orientation.

I think that this might be the programme made in Ardgour, broadcast on the Home Service basic, on Sunday 6th July 1952, 1.10pm ⁹

However, Edith Taylor was very unusual and I don’t think there was any continuing legacy of playing on clarsachs with wire strings, at least not in public. When the well-established Scottish clarsach player Alison Kinnaird got an instrument with wire strings in the late 80s /early 90s she could not find anyone with any knowledge of playing technique until she met Ann Heymann visiting from America.

Ireland

Gráinne Yeats had a copy of the Mabel Dolmetsch gramophone record and the notated score. However I am not sure how much that fed into the revivial of early Irish harp - I think Gráinne considered this stuff Welsh and so only of peripheral relevance.

USA

The American harpist Rosalyn Rensch ordered a wire-strung harp from the Dolmetsch company in 1956 ¹⁰.

Someone must of tooken no. 10 to the USA at some point. Iris Nevins inherited it from a person in New Jersey, who picked it up at an auction “many decades back”, and passed it on to me in 2015

References

1. [Francois Hascoet], ‘Gildas Jaffernnou, luthier’, Telennourien Vreizh - Harpistes de Bretagne, No.5, Autumn 1984, p. 15-16 ^

2. Roland Becker & Laure le Gurun, La Musique Bretonne, Spézet 1994. Thanks to Stuart Eydmann for showing me this.^

4. Alan Stivell, Telenn: la harpe Bretonne, Éditions Le Télégramme 2004^

5. Gildas Jaffrennou, Folk Harps, MAP 1973, Also Francois Hascoet, L’interet pour la harpe celtique, Revue TV-HdeB, n^o5, p. 15-16 (Autumn 1984) ^

6. Roland Becker & Laure le Gurun, La Musique Bretonne, Spézet 1994.^

7. Luc Montigny (1951) "A Dutchwoman and the Gaelic", Scots Magazine new series vol LV no. 4 July 1951 p.301^

8. Collinson, Frances (1966) The Traditional and National Music of Scotland. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1966. ^

9. Radio Times, Issue 1495, 4 July 1952, p.12. Also G.M.L. ‘A Radio Commentary’, The Glasgow Herald, 11th July 1952 ^

10. Charles Lynch, The Scrapbooks of the Rosalyn Rensch collection vol 1^

“ En 1935, Gildas Jaffrennou prit les mesures de la harpe de Heloise Russel-Fergusson et en construisit une premiere dans son atelier de Carhaix. Cette harpe ne sonnait pas bien car les cordes etaient mal adaptees et elle fut abandonnee. „
Francois Hascoet, 1984¹

“ Miss Edith Taylor, the first honorary secretary of Comunn na Clàrsaich, has one of these on which she once played for the writer at a BBC ‘Country Magazine’ programme from Lochaline, Morvern „
Francis Collinson, 1966⁸