This is a pleasing
programme from a young harpist who is
making a name for herself as soloist
and freelance player. Handel is here
and harp maestro Grandjany, some Welsh
bardic strains and some contemporary
repertoire to complete a relatively
wide-ranging conspectus. Her Handel
is accomplished and buoyant though the
spatial separation between her harp
and the organ at St. Ann, Manchester,
played by Ronald Frost is unbridgeable
in this recording and we get a rather
askew perspective. Her arpeggio playing
in the Tournier is fine, and she launches
into the virtuoso decoration and variations
of Thomas’ Minstrel’s Adieu with convincing
confidence and relish. The Grandjany
is a very beautiful piece, well deserving
of recordings, though it is explicitly
Handelian – the organ accompaniment
here is very discreet.
David Watkins’ Fire
Dance won first prize at the International
Competition of the Northern California
Harpists’ Association in 1961 – it’s
fiery and splendidly written for the
instrument. It’s good to hear the Croft;
I’m obviously not up with the latest
Purcellian research because I’ve always
known the Croft Ground as the Harpsichord
Ground by Purcell (I first heard it
played, I think, by Robert Woolley).
Its transformation into organ guise
is successful and fluent. Roger Nichols
wrote his Impromptu in 1972 and it’s
a fine piece, rolling with arpeggios,
very mobile and full of fancy and colour.
It’s good to be acquainted with Oreste
Ravanello (1871-1938), sometime organist
of St. Mark’s Venice, whose Prelude-Berceuse
is full of teasing wit, though I think
the overpowering pedal note from the
organ is overdone – or is magnified
by the recording. Mathias’s Santa
Fe Suite is an evocative one – full
of wind shudder, nocturnal impasse and
cascading Spanishry in the Sun – rhythmic
and pliant.
The notes cover the
programme reliably; the recording has
some ambient noise in the church acoustic
and, as I said, the spatial problems
between instruments haven’t been satisfactorily
resolved. Still, don’t necessarily let
that put you off if you want to follow
Rachel Dent’s choice of repertoire.
Jonathan Woolf
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Rachel Dent (harp) 
