Romantic Harp Concertos

François-Adrien Boieldieu (1775–1834) had such success with his first opera in 1793 that he decided to try his luck in Paris, even in face of the French Revolution.

There he soon won sustained acclaim with a series of immensely popular operas. The harp had enjoyed something of a vogue in the Paris salons at the end of the 18th century. Boieldieu’s Harp Concerto in C dates from around 1795 and has a typically pianistic solo part. The standard three movements are successively engaging, melodic and dramatically virtuoso. Giovanni Battista Viotti (1755–1824) was counted the greatest violinist in Europe. In 1784 he entered the service of Queen Marie-Antoinette, a move that inaugurated a semipicaresque career: in 1792 he fled the Revolution, in London he was denounced as a Jacobin, in Germany he was a refugee; back in London he lost his fortune in the wine trade and finally found an unmarked grave. Viotti was a prolific composer for his own instrument: the Adagio non troppo included here is adapted from his Violin Concerto No.19.

Elias Parish Alvars was born in Teignmouth, Devon, in 1808 and died in Vienna in 1849. Famous in his day as both composer and harpist, he was a virtuoso comparable in his way to Paganini or Liszt; Berlioz dubbed him a ‘magician’. Parish Alvars was fond of special effects (including bisbigliando), and his harp parts invariably require an outstanding virtuoso.

Certainly that is true of the Harp Concerto in G minor.