During the course of her prodigious career as a harpist and singer, concert and recording artist Therese Schroeder-Sheker travelled across three continents, singing in eight languages, roaming every lane and thoroughfare, performing the literature of two distinctly different periods: medieval and late twentieth century. Despite what we may think or feel about past and present eras, their two margins have the shining essentials in common: love song, lament, prayer, and epic ballad. These genres are always fresh, startling and poignant.
Today, in contrast to her previous legacy which roams a wide distance of physical miles and cultural time periods, she presents a bird’s eye view of great intimacy…

One of Decca/London's 2 CD sets, providing two discs for the price of one (even less, when downloaded from Amazon.com on MP3), this set is a bargain as well as a treat. It's lovely to hear from Mme. Robles in her concerted repertoire. The Handel, Boieldieu and Rodrigo concerti have hardly ever been in better hands (the Rodrigo transcription was made at the request of the Spanish harpist Nicanor Zabaleta, who played it brilliantly as well), and it's a delight hearing them again in such excellent sound.

The follow-up to Laura Hynninen’s award-winning Otilia album Ratsut album has been released. Yleisradio chose Hynninen’s previous Otilia album as Album of the Year 2021 and it was also nominated for Emma in 2022 in the Classic Album of the Year series.

Catrin Finch, the world-renowned classical harpist and composer, marks an exciting new phase in her remarkable musical career with the release of her album ‘Tides’ - an album of her own compositions. This release marks the first time Catrin's own compositions have appeared as a body of work on stage and on record, building on her hugely successful international classical career. It reveals a new side of an exceptional artists, driven to explore the possibilities of the harp and a lifetime of musical influences. As Catrin says, "All my musical life is here".

Through evocative, emotionally resonant music, Goodbye, Hotel Arkada, the new LP from American harpist and composer Mary Lattimore, speaks not just for its beloved namesake — a hotel in Croatia facing renovation — but for a universal loss that is shared. Six sprawling pieces shaped by change; nothing will ever be the same, and here, the artist, evolving in synthesis, celebrates and mourns the tragedy and beauty of the ephemeral, all that is lived and lost to time. Documented and edited in uncharacteristically measured sessions over the course of two years, the material remains rooted in improvisation while glistening as the most refined and robust in Lattimore’s decade-long catalog. It finds her communing with friends, contemporaries, and longtime influences, in full stride yet slowing down to nurture songs in new ways. The cast includes Lol Tolhurst (The Cure), Meg Baird, Rachel Goswell (Slowdive), Roy Montgomery, Samara Lubelski, and Walt McClements.

In many ways, Debussy’s piano music finds its rightful home on the harp. Apart from the distinctive textural and colouristic elements in the writing itself, we have contemporary accounts of Debussy’s piano-playing that refer to his ability to make you forget a piano even had hammers. Of course, this doesn’t allow for dreamy, “impressionistic” interpretations; rather, it makes clarity and precision absolute imperatives – which qualities we find in abundance in this recital by Xavier de Maistre and friends.

As authentic as the lines on his forehead and his droopy eyes, veteran bluesman Charlie Musselwhite gets better with age. (At 62, he's a respected survivor with dozens of albums to his credit.) On Delta Hardware the journeyman musician pays tribute to, and revels in, his Mississippi roots. Although he's spent time in Chicago and on the West Coast, for this album of churning swamp and deep Southern blues he taps his formative years in the town of Kosciusko. Musselwhite's poignant voice and crying harmonica convey loss and sadness on the tense, swirling "Black Water," one of two tracks dealing with Hurricane Katrina.

Big Walter Horton was one of the key architects of modern blues harmonica. Blues legend Willie Dixon referred to him as "the best harmonica player I ever heard." Along with Little Walter Jacobs and Sonny Boy Williamson II, he is considered to be one of the most influential harpists ever. He was capable of both intense power and fragile delicacy, often in the same song. He was endlessly melodically adventurous, and always unpredictable. His only Alligator Records album, - "Big Walter Horton With Carey Bell", came out in 1972. It paired him with his young protégé, who had played under Walter's tutelage since Bell's arrival in Chicago. Walter's long-time partner Eddie Taylor joined them on guitar. It was Alligator's second-ever release, and received widespread critical acclaim, especially for the fiery harp duets that pitted the two harmonica masters against one another.

The second instalment of the Poenitz cycle on Brilliant Classics presents works for solo voice, accompanied by harp(s) and harmonium. The unique instrumental colours lend a special atmosphere to these intimate and deeply felt works, often on sacred texts. Franz Poenitz was not only a virtuoso on the harp (as is clearly evident in the rich and complex writing for his instrument in this music) but also an accomplished painter, one of his creations adorns the cover of the CD. New recording, with liner notes written by a descendant of Poenitz, Mr Andreas Fischer.

While not the first male or female jazz harp player (Casper Reardon of Jack Teagarden's bands, Adele Girard performing with her husband Joe Marsala, or Corky Hale set precedents), Dorothy Ashby was the very best and most swinging performer on the multi-stringed instrument associated with the gates of heaven. Here on Earth, Ashby adeptly plucked and strummed the harp like nobody else, as evidenced on a single reissue containing her two best LPs for the Prestige and Prestige/New Jazz labels from 1958 - Hip Harp and In a Minor Groove. Alongside her prior efforts for the Savoy label, they collectively represent a small but substantive discography for the Detroit native in small group settings. With the exceptional flute sounds produced by Frank Wess, the combo plays music that is oriented via a unique sonic palate, further enhanced by the principals in the standards and originals they have chosen…

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.

These are wonderful pieces, with only perhaps the Rodrigo at all well-known today, and then only because of his famous guitar concertos. Boieldieu was a very good composer, and his harp concerto is often breathtakingly beautiful; if the theme of the finale isn't the last word in elegant pathos then nothing is. The Villa-Lobos sounds just like–Villa-Lobos: rich, exotic, heavily scored, and voluptuous. It's a big work in four movements. The lively and lovely Rodrigo needs no introduction, save to note that it's one of his very best works in any medium.