Sonata in G - C.P.E. Bach
Maqamat LIAmi - Ma'ayani
Children's Hour Suite - Grandjany
A Pack of Fancies for a Travelling Harper - Boydell
La Source, Op. 23 - Zabel
The Sonata for harp by C.P.E. Bach was written as for a keyboard of the period (around 1762) and does not indulge in any of the characteristically opulent effects associated with the concert harp. Undisguised, the melodic line sang out and Geraldine O'Doherty deftly shaped the phrases, with their almost vocal sounding ornaments, in a manner not attainable on the harpsichord.
For the second piece in Friday's lunchtime recital in the NCH John Field Room she moved forward two centuries to Maqamat by the Israeli composer Ami Ma'ayani. Maqamat is the plural of maqam, a modal scale in Oriental-Arabic music and the work is the first in a series of four arabesques. Despite the Eastern affiliations it owes much to the Western harp style and to my ear the Adagio of C.P.E. Bach's Sonata had more of the arabesque in its sinuous melody than Maqamat.
Grandjany's Children's Hour Suite is more familiar territory and like Zabel's La Source which ended the programme exploits the sonorities of the harp in an agreeable way. O'Doherty played them evocatively without overdoing the brilliance. Between them she played Boydell's Pack of Fancies whose four movements, like C.P.E. Bach's, are comparatively austere and all the more refreshing for that.
