Newell, again, suggests as much in her description of the piece as one “raising some unusual and subtle musical problems, dictates a special kind of ‘technique within a technique.’ As an instance, the performer gains clarity by stopping the vibrations of the strings immediately after playing various chords and passages.” I did, however, particularly like the third movement with its jolly-but-slightly-satirical use of roulades and fanfares, as Newell put it, “contrapuntally developed with infinite variety up to the giocoso conclusion.” It occupies that strange no-man’s-land between Romantic and early Modern music, using a few unusual chord patterns (and chord positions) while maintaining a lyrical melodic line, but careful listening will show you that this is a very technically involved piece, and perhaps that was what Newell was referring to. The Casella sonata, touted by Newell in the liner notes as “unquestionably a masterpiece of the genre,” I found to be a good piece if not on a par with the music that Alberto Ginastera later wrote for Nicanor Zabaleta.
Perhaps this was one reason why Newell tossed in the rubbishy harp solo from Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor onto her harp solo recital, trying to generate some sales to people who wouldn’t have known Alfredo Casella from Alfred Drake. Like so many independent classical labels of the early LP era, starting a record label was relatively easy it was the production, marketing and promotion that were difficult, in this case particularly so since Philharmonia only released serious classical recordings. These recordings were made for the Shulman brothers’ Philharmonia Records label, not to be confused (which it sometimes was) with the British Philharmonia Orchestra. According to the liner notes, “Her student and close friend, founding editor of the American Harp Journal Sam Milligan, said that she had ‘the cleanest technique I ever heard.’ She retired in the early 1970s and devoted her creative activity to painting watercolors, calligraphy and enamels.” For this reason alone, this outstanding CD, produced by Jay Shulman, is a valuable testament to her extraordinary talents. Unfortunately, since she lived until 1981, Newell seems to have given up performing sometime in the 1950s when she went into teaching, thus there are no recordings of her playing after about 1957. 2 for Flute, Viola & Harp with violist Milton Katims and flautist John Wummer for a Columbia LP in 1949.) In later years, Newell played the harp on not one but two recordings of Benjamin Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols with the Robert Shaw Chorale. Not only could all three improvise, they could also swing, which, as Girard pointed out in later years, is nearly impossible to do on the harp because of all the pedaling involved which requires extraordinary coordination with one’s hands. Thus Newell was, along with Casper Reardon and Adele Girard, one of the three greatest jazz harp players who ever lived. Alan Shulman, who also had a keen interest in jazz, was so knocked out by Newell’s ability to play jazz harp that he organized a small band called The New Friends of Rhythm, partly to showcase her extraordinary talents. After moving to New York, she freelanced with the Bell Telephone Hour Orchestra, WOR’s Wallenstein Sinfonietta and the NBC Symphony Orchestra, which is where she met the extremely talented Shulman brothers, Alan (cello) and Sylvan (violin). In the male-dominated era of the 1930s and ‘40s, she became principal harpist with Artur Rodziński’s Cleveland Orchestra and also played with the National Symphony Orchestra. A child protégé out of Denver, Colorado, she studied first with Kajetan Attl and then at the New England Conservatory of Music with Alfred Holý. This unusual but, in my view, valuable CD showcases the talents of one of the most extraordinary harpists who ever recorded, Laura Newell (1900-1981). BAX: Harp Quintet.* IBERT: Trio for Violin, Cello & Harp.* MALIPIERO: Sonata à cinque* / Laura Newell, harpist *with members of Stuyvesant String Quartet: Sylvan Shulman, Bernard Robbins, vln Ralph Hersh, vla Alan Shulman, cel / Artek AR-0067-2 DONIZETTI: Lucia di Lammermoor: Harp solo (arr.
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