Whither can I find such sweet drops of harmony as these?

July 25, 2008 12:26 AM

Sirs! I desire a list of your most achingly beautiful harp and lute music.

I recently played Joanna Newsom's Cosmia and Come Again by Sting in quick succession, and liked the theme. I'd like to create a playlist of such music (not necessarily for lute and harp, if there are other similar instruments out there), but frankly I wouldn't have any idea where to start.
Little help?

posted by greytape to media & arts (11 comments total)

Toumani Diabaté plays absolutely gorgeous music on kora, a 21-string West African Harp.
posted by TheWaves at 1:09 AM on July 25

Amazing Irish harp and flute...really good stuff. Michael Rooney and June McCormick.

Also Eileen Gannon is wonderful.
posted by sully75 at 3:13 AM on July 25

Vivaldi's Lute Concerto.

You might also want to look for music played on the (hammered) dulcimer and the psaltery.
posted by tallus at 3:52 AM on July 25

Ludovico Einaudi's album Stanze -- solo harp. Fantastic.
posted by Hogshead at 5:23 AM on July 25

Vivaldi's Concerto for Lute and Harp

There is a Deutsch Grammophon pressing that's a bit better than this You Tube video
posted by mattoxic at 5:44 AM on July 25

Walter Piston Cappriccio for Harp and Strings
posted by nax at 8:43 AM on July 25

What about seeding a Pandora station with these songs and see what comes up?
posted by wrnealis at 9:44 AM on July 25

"Fireflies", an instrumental piece by Ariane Lydon on harp and 12-string (I think?) guitar: sample. From the album The Open Harp, which has some more gorgeous pieces. Her website.
posted by dorothy humbird at 10:09 AM on July 25

Look into the lyre also, and possibly zither. It's a vocal, not instrumental, song, but "Always with Me" (いつも何度でも / Itsumo Nando Demo) from the closing credits of Spirited Away is accompanied on lyre (and wonderful), and should be easy to find on YouTube in case you don't know what the lyre sounds like. The theme from The Third Man should be pretty easy to find there as well since it's probably the most famous zither song ever.
posted by fidelity at 12:13 PM on July 25

Mozart's flute and harp concerto. This site seems to have a lot of suggestions.
posted by walla at 7:03 AM on July 26

Nicanor Zabaleta : The Segovia of the Harp

Sylvia Woods : The Epicenter of the Folk Harp world

Some favorite disks to sample:
Deborah Friou
Ann Heymann and Alison Kinnaird
Loreena McKennitt
Kim Robertson
Sylvia Woods
Sileas
Yolanda Kondonassis

(wife's a harpist...)
posted by dpcoffin at 10:50 AM on July 26