Pachelbellies Stephen Dunstone

Pachelbellies For - Mixed Ability 4-part harp ensemble Please click the "About this work & Performance Notes" heading below for further details This book is supplied as a score and set of 4 parts   Buy this music now £10.50 +p&p

Artist Profile and catalogue of works - Stephen Dunstone

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Pachelbellies

There are four parts as follows::-

Harp 1
Harp 2
Harp 3
Harp 4

 

I wrote Pachelbellies originally for a pupil who had been asked to play at a relative’s wedding. The problems were that (a) she hadn’t been learning long; (b) she found it hard to read music; and (c) anything that required her two hands to play different things simultaneously left her somewhat flummoxed. These aren’t really the ideal attributes for a wedding harpist. However, there were also three positive points: (a) she was very good at arpeggios shared between the hands; (b) she could remember patterns and chord sequences very well; and (c) there was going to be a violinist at the wedding.

The obvious solution was to give her a repeating sequence of lovely-sounding arpeggios and write a melody for the violinist to play over the top. She had been studying Pachelbel’s Canon in class, so it seemed a logical step to use the same chord sequence that Pachelbel used, and reshape it to create a new piece.

I lengthened the amount of time given to each part of the harmonic progression, so each segment in the sequence lasts for a whole bar, which allows any melody to have a flowing cantabile arc. That very first version for harp and violin obviously only had one melody line and one harmony part; but, as you can see, in this ensemble version there are two harmony parts which interweave their quavers, and two melody parts which move together in a frequently parallel dance. Harp 2 takes over the upper part for verses 5 and 6, before the parts switch back again for the final verse.

Pachelbellies has been performed in many places, in various configurations, but possibly one of the most striking was when it was performed at the 2022 World Harp Congress in Cardiff in an ensemble of around 60 harps. Although in the very first iteration of the piece the melody was played on a violin because that was all that was available, the 4-part ensemble works well with any suitable treble instruments on the two melody parts. And if you’re short of harpists it still works with only one harmony part (preferably Harp 3).

The harmony players might find it useful to keep the chord sequence in their heads, rather than laboriously reading every note of every “verse”, so I’ve printed the chord names for the first run of the sequence in the score and the harmony parts. Knowing the sequence could also be useful if you have (for example) a guitarist or two who want to join in with their own improvised accompaniment.

Title:	Pachelbellies
Composer:	Stephen Dunstone
Instrumentation:	4 Lever or Pedal Harps
Level:	Mixed Ability but not difficult
Format:	A4 stapled score and set of 4 A4 parts
Weight:	140gm
ISMN:	979-0-57046-291-9
Our Ref:	SD1026
Publisher:	Creighton's Collection
Printer/Distributor:	Creighton's Collection
Edition/Year:	2005
Origin:	UK