The Salzedo Method
“Salzedo has done for the harp what Bach did for the organ, Paganini did for the violin, and Liszt did for the piano, which is to enlarge the technical and expressive potentialities of their chosen instruments.”
Two main schools of playing the harp exist in North America today, each of which were promoted by seminal harpists of the 20th century, Carlos Salzedo (1885-1961) and Marcel Grandjany (1891-1975). What is commonly referred to as the “Salzedo Method” is a style of playing developed by Carlos Salzedo and continued in the teaching studios of his students, including those of Lucile Lawrence, Alice Chalifoux, Edna Phillips, Lynne Wainwright Palmer, Judith Liber, Marilyn Costello and Judy Loman. This tradition continues to be passed along to the next generation of master teachers of the style, including Yolanda Kondonassis, Alice Giles, Paula Page and Ann Hobson Pilot, among others.
Salzedo believed that the movement of the harpist’s hands and arms must be both functional and aesthetically pleasing. The technical instruction of the method emphasizes a natural movement of the body while playing the harp, focusing on the proper body alignment while seated, the angle of the elbow and wrist to the strings, the hand and finger position, closing of the fingers after playing, and the overall quality of tone production. The Salzedo method has produced generations of professional harpists who occupy major positions in some of the foremost symphonies and performing ensembles around the world, and Salzedo trained harpists are highly respected for their clear, projecting, rich and even sound.
Through studying the Salzedo method, not only will a harpist be learning from a rich written tradition, but an oral one as well. The gestures developed by Salzedo are considered essential to the production of tone and visual artistry, and are exactingly passed down from teacher to student. Both technically and artistically, Salzedo’s method emphasizes a musical experience that pleases both the eyes and the ears. Therefore, what the audience sees, including the gestures or “raising” of a harpist’s hands, highlights a composition’s full range of emotions.
Carlos Salzedo was also known as a pioneering composer who championed a modern style of composition, successfully transporting the harp into the twentieth century as a powerful and vibrant solo instrument. In his groundbreaking book “Modern Study for the Harp” (published in 1921), Salzedo cataloged and developed new tonal effects and techniques that tremendously expanded the coloristic range of the harp, and included new works that created a modern vocabulary for subsequent generations of composers. As a testament to his artistry and understanding of the instrument, many of Salzedo’s compositions are now standards of the international harp repertoire.
In addition to modernizing the style in which the harp was played, Salzedo also submitted sketches for the design of two new harp models to Chicago harpmakers, Lyon and Healy. The result of this was the production of the Art Nouveau “Style 11” (1925) and the stylistically innovative Art Deco “Salzedo” Model (1928), designed in collaboration with artist Witold Gordon. Both of these models are still made by Lyon and Healy today, and are used by many of the world’s top harpists.
Style 11 Gold, base detail
the Salzedo model
Carlos Salzedo (1885-1961)
Carlos Salzedo: From Aeolian to Thunder, available at www.harp.com
Suggested further reading:
Pentacle: The Story of Carlos Salzedo and the Harp, available at www.amazon.com
the Salzedo model