Harp Concerto Op.25

Ginastera’s Harp Concerto is one of the few modern works of its kind to have found a regular place in the repertoire. It is one of even fewer in which the composer faces the challenge of writing in a contemporary style for an instrument inextricably linked to the tonal system. It took Ginastera as long as eight years to write it, starting work on it in 1956 when it was commissioned by Edna Phillips, principal harp of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and completing it only after she retired. The first performance was given by Nicanor Zabaleta with the Philadelpia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy in 1965. A note in the score confirms that the work was “composed for and dedicated to Edna Phillips” while another note thanks Zabaleta “for his devoted dedication to this work and for his valuable advice.”

Any composer not himself a harpist would be grateful for such advice when writing for an instrument with a technique like no other in the orchestra. Ginastera was particularly indebted since, far from relying on the ready-made package of glissandos, arpeggios and other conventional devices, he took the risk of expanding the range of the harp vocabulary. As an Argentine who had made an early reputation with the music for his ballet Estancia, set on the pampas where the virile malambo was the essential dance rhythm and the guitar was the essential instrument, he had his own ideas on how he would do it. In a concerto throbbing with malambo rhythms much of the extended technique of the harp part derives from that of another plucked instrument, the guitar, which for Ginastera had an almost magical significance.

The rhythmic vitality that characterises much of the work is evident from the start, triple time on the violins and violas crossed by sextuple time on woodwind and the extensive percussion section. The main theme is introduced by the soloist and taken up by violins and woodwind before the transition, which subsides gradually into silence, to the more expressive second subject also introduced by the harp. This is the basic material for an eventful development and for imaginative recolouring such as that produced at one point by tapping knuckles or fingers on the harp soundboard. After a solo passage of arpeggios, the recapitulation begins with the main theme on the oboe. A new transition leads to the recall of the second subject on woodwind and an attenuated ending where the harp rises through a favourite Ginastera motif of fourths and thirds based on the open strings of the guitar.

The beautifully scored central slow movement is divided into four sections: the first is for strings in melodious counterpoint, the second for the harp with woodwind interpolations, the third an atmospheric combination of harp and mainly celesta colours strongly reminiscent of Bartók’s night music, the last a recapitulation of the first.

Ginastera has modestly compared the last movement to an introduction and rondo. That description does little justice to the Liberamente capriccioso which, an extended solo cadenza rather than a mere introduction, is an inspired fantasia on the rising guitar motif with which it begins. Among its most intriguing features, just after a forceful passage of upwards-arpeggiated fff    chords, are sighing semitonal pedal glissandos and an effect known to harpists as sons sifflés produced by stroking the lower strings with the palm and creating an eerie whistling sound.

At the climax of the cadenza the orchestra impatiently breaks in with the mixed 3/8 and 6/16 rhythms of the Vivace, strings and tom-toms urging the harp to introduce the snappily syncopated main rondo theme – which, to the delight of woodwind and percussion, it does. A second theme sustains the orchestral exuberance and the intoxicated soloist is encouraged to indulge in more new colours including chords plucked by the finger nails. The last return of the main theme precedes a coda confined at first to harp and percussion and dominated by them in the explosively energetic closing bars.