Dear all, on this harpe site there is an article about Cosima Wagner and the harp lute (page 9-10)
http://www.harfe-vdh.de/winter2006.htm#18 Cosima Wagner took over managing the Bayreuther Festspiele after the death of her husband in 1883. 1888 "Die Meistersinger" was performed for the first time in the Bayreuth Festspielhaus. In a letter to the conductor Hans Richter Cosima proposes to use the 'harp lute' instead of the lute. She also mentions, that at the debut of the opera at Munich 1868 the lute was played in the orchestra, not on stage, but she could not remember, why. obviously they decided to use a steel strung chromatic harp made by Pleyel,Lyon & Cie at that time. www.harfe-vdh.de/images/chromatische.jpg I could not find anything yet about the keyboard instrument that seems to substitute the harplute nowadays. it reminds me of the "Celeste" that is used for the Papageno-Part in "The Magic Flute". A keyboard in the orchestra, a dummy on stage............. Martina Rosenberger www.etcetra.eu -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
