photo source: Stefan Battige

Stefan Battige (Tyskland)
Stefan plays several historical harps (metal-strung Clarsach, Medieval harp, Gothic harp, Italian arpa doppia, and modern Celtic harp) with focus on medieval music and Celtic traditional music, ballads, dances and improvisation with many nuances. He will give a lecture/workshop about "Historical harps - historical playing techniques? Basics and Possibilities".

Look at the picture of a Gothic harp at Brunnby church in Skåne (Sweden), painted around the year 1480: Even though we cannot trust the number of strings on the picture, the paintor certainly knew how these instruments looked like. But how were they played during that time, and what sort of music was possible on such a harp?

Or look at the Medieval harp, and the double-row harp from later times when chromatic music became modern (both harps present at the Music History Museum of Copenhagen): Stefan will show what we can learn from historical harps and their respective playing techniques.

He will also demonstrate the buzzing function of bray pins on Gothic harps, creating a bumblebee-like sound, completely different from the romantic sound of the modern pedal harp and its related Celtic harp. Buzzing sound devices on harps have been known in Denmark up to the 18th century - as can be seen on this hook harp with a bray rod at the museum in Copenhagen.

Stefan will even feature the particular sound of the metal-strung Clarsach, which was the traditional harp of Scottish and Irish harpers from the Middle ages up to the late 18th century (their music is nowadays most often played on neo-Irish harps with gut or nylon strings, thus completely changing its character...). A Norwegian picture of a harp which very realistically resembles the form of these early Irish harps can be found at the portal of the Uvdal stave church in Numedal, Norway from the 13th century.
There is also evidence for the presence of metal-strung harps in Denmark: Two Irish harpers and one Scottish harper who were employed in the Royal Danish Court Band ( more details). One of them, Darby Scott, is depicted with his broad and heavy Baroque clarsach on an oil painting from 1622 at the Music History Museum in Copenhagen (read more details on the museum's website).
And last but not least - the nine Norwegian folk harps (present at several museums in Norway and Sweden) had most probably metal strings as well. We know nothing about the playing technique on these instruments, but since metal strings impose several constraints on the music and playing technique, the metal-strung Clarsach may serve as orientation.