Harpeggione?
Yes, Lara St. John can be as terrible a punster as I. But she can also assume an air of propriety, when necessary, and opted to call her new album – recorded with principal harp of the Berlin Philharmonic, Marie-Pierre Langlamet – simply, “Schubert.”
On the disc, Langlamet performs Schubert’s piano parts, every blessed note as written, on a double-action pedal harp, an instrument the composer could not have known, and yet suits his creations wonderfully. The result is an insinuating, sinuous program of impromptus, lieder (including, appropriately enough, “Songs of the Harper,” with Deutsche Grammophon artist Anna Prohaska), a sonatina (with St. John) and the “Arpeggione” Sonata, with Berlin Philharmonic cellist Ludwig Quandt.
The disc is a follow-up to St. John and Langlamet’s earlier collaboration, “Bach Sonatas” (which in interviews St. John described as being for violin and “harp… sichord”). Both were issued on her own label, Ancalagon, named for her pet iguana, who in turn was named for a dragon in J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Silmarillion.”
The label has been home to recordings by the New York-based chamber orchestra, The Knights, and St. John’s polka band, Polkastra, as well as a Juno Award-winning disc featuring Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante, made with her brother, Scott St. John, then a member of the St. Lawrence String Quartet.
Lara St. John and Marie-Pierre Langlamet are my guests this week on “The Lost Chord,” this Sunday night at 10 ET, with a repeat Friday morning at 3. Or you can catch the show later as a webcast, at http://www.wwfm.org.