That’s what Sherri and I strive to do. Sherri draws her improvised arrangements from her studies of hymns and chants evocative of each Sunday and based on the liturgical season, and on the evolving capabilities of the harp… its expression of faith and inspiration reaches back to the time of King David and is finding a new voice.

When Sherri is the officiant, I play organ preludes. Example: on May 11, I played some works of Brazilian composer Silvio Baccarelli (1931 – 2019). First trained as a priest, he directed a world class concert choir whose international performances included celebration of the centenary of the composer Heitor Villa-Lobos in Madrid in 1987.

Profoundly moved by word of a disastrous fire in Heliopolis (a depressed area of São Paulo) that left hundreds homeless, he devoted the rest of his life to establishing an extensive music program for the youth of Heliopolis.

“Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.”

– George Matthew Jr.

Organist, St. Thomas & Grace Episcopal Church
Middlebury College Carillonneur since 1985
GCNA Certified Carillonneur (Guild of Carillonneurs in North of America)

My new harp at home.

I’ve enjoyed playing my harps for you on Sunday mornings and I hope you’re enjoying them too. If you’re wondering a bit about them, here is a brief intro: they’re not like most harps you may have met in the past. Wire strung harps are a kind of rare unicorn in the harp world. They’re not the classical music harps you see in orchestras. And they’re not the “Celtic” harps you sometimes read about in area musical events. So, what makes these particular harps different?

First of all, they are strung with wire. Not nylon strings, which is the case with the popular Celtic harps. So they are at very high tension (thousands of pounds of pressure) and are specially reinforced to withstand this force without being damaged. The small Irish harps you may have seen being played at your local farmer’s market or folk music concert would be severely damaged within a few minutes from the sheer tension that these strings put on the instrument!

Copper-Phospher-Bronze alloy harp wire with end toggle to keep the string from pulling up through the soundboard.

Secondly, they are all custom built to order. They’re not off the shelf, bought from Amazon, etc. On average they take a year to be built, with my most recent harp having taken two years! The people who build them are small family business owners in the U.S.A, with typically 30 years of experience, very large woodworking shops, family employees and offering apprenticeship programs to promising young people interested in a vocational/entrepreneurial career. They frequently started off as fine cabinet makers before transitioning to making musical instruments. Each builder has his own unique approach to crafting an instrument and works closely with the commissioning harpist on how the final harp should turn out.

The harp I play each Sunday in the workshop of Argent Fox Harps, Kirkwood, IL.
The harp on the right is for another customer.

They also consult with string makers, who calculate what is known as a “string band”, that is the array of wire strings that will work correctly with the ratio of neck curvature and proportions of the instrument… and not break when being brought up to full tune! The string makers are also long-established family businesses. They will readily supply replacement strings as needed should any break.

These harps are modern interpretations of medieval Irish and Scottish harps. They have many contemporary (and useful) features not found on 14th and 15th century harps. The basic shape is the same but there have been many significant design updates offered by builders in the last few decades to allow harpists to play a wider range of musical literature on them.

https://youtu.be/q0tz-GahRLs

Here is a one minute video featuring some autumn scenery at St. Thomas & Grace. I’m playing my new double-strung wire harp built by Dan Speer of Argent Fox Harps, Kirkwood, IL.

More later!

Sherri Matthew

Argent Fox Double Strung Wire Harp

On November 16, 2022 George and I drove out to Hampton Beach, NH to meet Dan Speer of Argent Fox Harps and pick up my third wire-strung harp, a double strung with a full set of Truitt sharping levers. Dan packed her up and took her on the Amtrak train to NH, where he was doing some family research and we drove from VT, several hours away to meet him and his wife and father-in-law.

Dan’s Lady Marilyn double-strung wire harp is made of sweet cherry and and has an aircraft birch soundboard. Her strings are copper phosphor bronze. The Truitt levers glide smoothly and evenly. Initially I had the harp tuned to the key of C, but after a while I realized that if I tuned it to the key of Bb, I could engage the B and E levers to put the harp into C when needed (and any sharp keys) and leave them down to play in F or Bb.

Here is a group photo of my new harp with my other two, Triplett Luna and Stoney End Esabelle:

The wire harp family: Stoney End Esabelle, Triplett Luna and Argent Fox Lady Marilyn (Forest)

Esabelle was commissioned in honor of Isabelle kitty, who died in 2014 of complications from feline diabetes after two years of twice-daily insulin treatment. There is a little poem, photo and paw print impression inside this harp in her memory.

In 2017 another diabetic kitty I was taking care of (who belonged to my late parents), named Forest also passed away. I decided to put his paw print inside Lady Marilyn and call her Forest Harp. So now this harp has two names!

Both Esabelle and Forest Harp are made of environmentally sustainable wood: walnut and cherry respectively, with Luna harp’s soundboard made of Pennsylvania curly maple (not clear on the status of African bubinga).

The double wire harp is very easy and very natural to play… the strings are tuned parallel to one another and so it is like having one harp for each hand! Echo effects, turns and mordents on one row of strings while playing “straight” on the other, syncopation by alternating sides, and playing accidentals without having to flip levers are all possible on a double-strung harp!

Every Sunday I’ve been playing my new harp at St. Thomas & Grace Episcopal as part of the service prelude, postlude and for Communion. I’ll also be playing her for Christmas Eve services and for Christmas Morning Prayer. All of the harps have proved very popular at church and blend beautiful with the historic pipe organ. Their ability to provide chromaticism in different ways also increases their flexibility and they can access a much wider array of musical repertoire than would a strictly historical diatonic wire harp. We’ve also discovered parishioners are seeking out our church to hear them!

During Advent I have been playing traditional Polish Advent hymns and have been researching Scandinavian music to play in the upcoming weeks for our Swedish and Norwegian church and community members. I have also discovered a large treasure trove of Hebraic Psalms that were transcribed into modern sheet music from the cantillation marks of the Hebrew Scriptures, suggestive of what King David may have played on his harp (lyre, kinnor?)

As we like to say, The Episcopal Church Welcomes You!

Currently I’m working on arranging selected hymns from the Episcopal Hymnals of 1916, 1940 and 1982 for my large Triplett Luna harp, for Sunday morning service use.

Some hymns are in keys which are not friendly to my aging harp, which has been in the key of F (one flat) for as long as I can remember. This harp does not take kindly to having its E and A strings detuned so that one can play something in the keys of Bb, Eb, etc. It usually will “retune” itself in a few minutes, i.e., pulling its strings back up to where they were, which is why I leave it in F and use the sharping blades to put it in keys like G, D, etc.

I’ve been using MuseScore 3 to typeset and transpose selected hymns and at present I have a large collection of them in a three-ring binder.

I’ve also been working on Morning, Compline and Evensong hymns. I’ve found all of these make very beautiful prelude and postlude pieces for introducing and closing services at St. Thomas.

Triplett Luna Harp at St. Thomas Episcopal, Brandon, VT

Hymnal image source: Pbritti, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons