The Enduring Magic of the Harp Top 10 Harp Favourites

by Hermione Lai  August 30th, 2026

The harp is one of the oldest known string instruments, dating back to ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. Although we find many different types and models, the basic shape features a triangular frame with strings running between the neck and the soundboard.

The standard orchestral harp features 47 strings, and it uses seven pedals at the base to alter string pitches and change keys. The instrument is played by plucking the strings with the fingers, usually while seated.

The harp has strong political and symbolic value, especially in Ireland, where it has long served as a national emblem. In Christian tradition, heaven is depicted as populated by angels playing harps. As its corporate logo, the Irish brewer Guinness has used the harp since 1759.

Harps can produce a broad range of intoxicating sounds, from warm plucked notes to shimmering glissandos and arpeggios. The repertoire for the harp is vast, and here is a top 10 list of some of the most beautiful harp music ever written.

Harp

Félix Godefroid

Félix Godefroid (1818-1897) might not be a household name, but several generations of players and listeners have enjoyed his harp compositions and didactic works. In fact, when he made his debut in Paris in 1847, he was quickly dubbed the “Paganini of the harp.”

Félix Godefroid, by Marie-Alexandre Alophe

Godefroid hailed from Namur in Belgium and studied at the Paris Conservatoire and later with Elias Parish-Alvars. He was a travelling harp virtuoso, visiting the Middle East, Spain, England, and Holland. He even wrote an opera titled La harpe d’or, which included a harp fantasy that he himself played from the wings.

His studies for the harp focus on left-hand technique, and many of his 300 pieces have maintained a firm place in 19th-century harp literature.  

The Parisian instrument makers Pleyel and Érard were bitter rivals, and they continually modified and improved their harps’ designs. To showcase their respective technical and musical innovations, both companies commissioned the leading French composers to write music for their new and improved instruments.

Chromatic harp

In 1904, Pleyel asked Claude Debussy to write his Danse sacrée et danse profane (Sacred and profane dances) for harp and orchestra. In turn, Érard commissioned Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) to compose a piece that would showcase the expressive range of the new double-action pedal harp.

Ravel responded with his Introduction and Allegro for harp, flute, clarinet and string quartet. This unique composition contrasts the smooth sound of the woodwinds, the percussive sound of the harp, and the warmth of the strings. The work is often described as a miniature harp concerto, with the instrument introducing important themes, providing shimmering accompaniments, and playing a major solo cadenza.

Claude Debussy: Danse sacrée et danse profane  

Debussy’s Danse sacrée et danse profane was commissioned by the firm of Pleyel in 1904. The instrument maker wanted it for use in competitions associated with a newly inaugurated class in the chromatic harp at the Brussels Conservatory.

Claude Debussy, by Atelier Nadar

Pleyel’s chromatic harp featured two rows of strings that cross each other without touching. One side has 7 strings per octave, while the other has 5. Think of it in terms of the piano, with 7 white and 5 black keys per octave.

This particular harp was designed to eliminate the need for pedals by providing 78 separate strings for every note on the chromatic scale. Debussy’s composition contains two movements: a slower sacred dance with slow-moving modal sonorities, contrasted with a lilting waltz.   

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Concerto for Flute and Harp, KV 299  

The harp was Marie Antoinette’s favourite instrument, and it was also the most popular instrument of the day. As such, the harp had started to replace the harpsichord in the salons of the upper bourgeoisie. It was the instrument of fashion.

Marie Antoinette played the harp every day, and she had several beautifully decorated instruments at her disposal. She composed her own tunes and melodies and encouraged composers to write music for it.

Mozart in Paris

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart arrived in Paris in 1778, and since Marie Antoinette was indisposed, he took on several private students. In April 1778, he was engaged to give composition lessons to Marie-Louise-Philippine Bonnières, the youngest daughter of the Duke of Guînes. His young charge was a capable harpist, and the duke an excellent flautist. As such, the duke commissioned Mozart to compose a concerto for him to perform with his daughter.  

Although Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) never held a teaching position at the Paris Conservatoire, he served on various juries and selection committees. He made sure that his student Gabriel Fauré was appointed director, and that Alphonse Hasselmans was appointed professor of harp in 1884.

Saint-Saëns, circa 1880

In all, Saint-Saëns composed three works for the harp, with the Fantaisie for Solo Harp, Op. 95, dating from 1893. It is one of the best-known pieces for the instrument, and its two movements are still used as a Paris Conservatoire examination piece.

The Fantaisie explores the whole potential of the harp in terms of expression and colour. Because it combined lyrical writing and technical brilliance, it has remained a cornerstone of the repertoire.   

Josef Hasselmans became the first director of the Strasbourg Conservatoire in 1854, and Richard Wagner called him a “very good-natured, amiable fellow.” He is also remembered for two major schools of double-action harp playing.

His son Alphonse Hasselmans (1845-1912) first studied with his father in Strasbourg, and eight successful solo concerts in Paris in 1877 brought him appointments as solo harpist with the Paris orchestras of the Conservatoire, Opéra, and Opéra-Comique.

Alphonse Hasselmans

Hasselmans wrote 54 pieces for the harp, and many of his compositions were inspired by his performance and dedicated to him. His solo harp etude La Source dates from 1898 and is dedicated to his student Hélène Gayat. Often nicknamed “The Brook,” the rippling textures and cantabile line make it one of the most beloved works in the harp repertoire.  

Paul Hindemith (1895–1963) was one of the most versatile musicians of his time, and he could play all instruments of the orchestra, except for the harp. However, his Sonata for Harp is a pioneering example of contemporary harp music.

It is part of a series of 26 sonatas for various wind and string instruments, as well as for piano and organ. Hindemith finished this work in 1939, just weeks after the outbreak of World War II, and just before he departed for the United States.

Paul Hindemith

It is a three-movement work, and the final movement in a slow tempo is inscribed with an ode of mourning by Ludwig Christoph Heinrich Hölty. The poem relates a dying harpist’s last wish that, after his death, the harp be placed behind the church altar as a memorial, to sound of its own accord much like the Aeolian harps of antiquity.    

Eli Parish (1808-1849) hailed from a small port in Devonshire, yet he became one of the most illustrious musical figures of the 19th century. Franz Liszt excitedly wrote, “From beneath his forehead speak his dreamy eyes, expressive of the glowing imagination which lives in his composition.”

Parish Alvars

Not to be outdone, Berlioz stated, “This man is a magician. In his hands the harp becomes a siren, with lovely neck inclined and wild hair flowing, stirred by his passionate embrace to utter the music of another world.”

Elias Parish-Alvars, a name he freely invented, bought his first double-action harp from Pierre Erard in May 1842, and this more robustly constructed and mechanically superior instrument opened up new musical horizons. He developed innovative techniques integrating pedal and manual skills in unprecedented ways. After all, two harps are always better than one.  

Marcel Tournier (1879-1951) was a student of Alphonse Hasselmans at the Paris Conservatory. He would eventually succeed his teacher as professor of harp in 1912, holding that position until 1948.

Tournier composed several solos for harp, and several chamber works that feature the harp prominently. His solo harp suite Images No. 4 is known for its pictorial character, featuring movements with evocative titles such as “La volière magique,” “Cloches sous la neige,” and “La danse du moujik.”

Marcel Tournier

This work is one of his best-known contributions, as it paints contrasting musical scenes with a blend of virtuosity and colour.

Nicolas-Charles Bochsa: Six Preludes

Robert Nicolas-Charles Bochsa, the harpist

Nicolas-Charles Bochsa (1789-1856) was one of the most prolific composers for the harp.

His reputation as a harpist rested on his compositions for this instrument, as he expanded its technical and expressive range.

Bochsa was appointed harpist to the emperor in 1813, and he was even commissioned to compose a requiem for Louis XVI. He was a busy and shifty man who was appointed professor of harp and general secretary of the RAM in London.

He left behind plenty of bankruptcies and broken hearts in his wake and eventually died in Sydney, Australia, in 1856. And while his compositions for harp are not profound, he constantly discovered new effects and exploited the full possibilities of Erard’s new double-action harp. He also wrote a harp method that was long regarded as a classic.

The harp repertoire is truly vast, and it certainly deserves more attention. Would you please let me know what other works deserve to be featured?

12 Forgotten Women Composers Born In the Early Romantic Era

 by Emily E. Hogstad  April 18th, 2026

The early Romantic Era, which roughly corresponds to the first half of the nineteenth century, brought an explosion of emotional depth and individuality to classical music. 

The stories we usually hear about the composers of the time focus almost entirely on men: figures like Chopin, Schumann, and Liszt.

In reality, dozens of women composers were also writing symphonies, operas, piano works, and chamber music that matched their male contemporaries in imagination and skill…and sometimes exceeded them.

The surviving works of rediscovered women composers remind us that the true spirit of the Romantic movement was never confined to men alone.

Here are twelve forgotten women composers who were born in the early Romantic Era.

Louise Bertin (1805–1877)

Louise Bertin

Born into an intellectual Parisian family, Louise Bertin was the daughter of the editor of the Journal des débats: a relationship that granted her access to Paris’s artistic elite.

She was a musical child and studied composition with François-Joseph Fétis, who taught a number of famous French composers of the day.

She was one of the few women of her time to compose large-scale operas.

Her Fausto (1831) and La Esmeralda (1836) – the latter with a libretto by her friend Victor Hugo, based on his recent novel The Hunchback of Notre-Dame – showed extraordinary dramatic instinct…but also provoked controversy, with critics claiming she’d only gotten it produced because of her family’s influence.

After La Esmeralda’s failure, Bertin turned away from opera and toward chamber music and poetry.

Leopoldine Blahetka (1809–1885)  

Leopoldine Blahetka was born just outside of Vienna in 1809 to two teachers. Her father was friends with Beethoven.

As a child, she studied with Joseph Czerny (Carl Czerny’s father), Friedrich Kalkbrenner, and Ignaz Moscheles.

Leopoldine Blahetka

She made her debut when she was nine, and by eleven, she was including her own works on her recital programs.

As an adult, she toured Europe as a piano soloist for around twenty years.

Her contemporaries Chopin and Schumann both thought highly of her.

Josephine Lang (1815–1880)   

Josephine Lang was born in 1815 in Munich to the Munich Kapellmeister and his opera singer wife.

Although her health had been poor since childhood, she was a brilliant prodigy. She made her debut at eleven and started composing around the same time. (Felix Mendelssohn was one of her teachers.)

Josephine Lang

After a performance for the king and queen of Bavaria, the queen noticed her poor health and sent her to the mountain spa town of Wildbad Kreuth to improve her health.

While she was there, she met her future husband, lawyer Christian Köstlin. They married in 1842 and had six children together.

After his death from cancer, she sought refuge in music. She is especially renowned today for her lieder.

Kate Loder (1825–1904)   

Kate Loder was born in 1825 in Bath, England, to a flutist and his piano teacher wife.

She studied at the Royal Academy of Music and performed Mendelssohn’s first piano concerto in London in 1843, when she was seventeen.

At eighteen, she became the first woman harmony professor at the Royal Academy.

Kate Loder

She married a surgeon in 1851 and had three children with him.

She stopped playing piano in public, but continued composing and teaching.

Teresa Milanollo (1827–1904)   

Teresa Milanollo was born in Savigliano to a luthier.

At four, after seeing a violin played at church, she insisted upon being taught, despite the fact that top-level women violin soloists were unheard of.

She was a child prodigy, and her family toured Europe during her childhood.

Teresa Milanollo

In time, she joined forces with her sister Maria, who also took up the violin and was five years her junior. Teresa was Maria’s only violin teacher.

The sisters became two of the most successful classical musicians in mid-century Europe, on par with Liszt and Paganini.

Maria died of tuberculosis in 1848 as a teenager. Teresa was devastated. But after a period of time away from the public eye, she returned to the concert stage.

She married a military engineer and amateur musician in 1857 at the age of 29. As was customary, she gave up her career to support her husband.

Laura Netzel (1839–1927)   

Laura Netzel was born in Rantasalmi, Finland, in 1839, the youngest of six children. Her father brought the family to Stockholm when she was a year old.

She was a musically gifted child and studied piano, voice, and composition in Stockholm. She made her debut there at eighteen, playing the Moscheles piano concerto in G-minor.

Laura Netzel

She also nurtured a talent for composition that she kept quiet for a long time. At 35, she submitted a piece to a Stockholm women’s chorus under the pseudonym “Lago.” Lago became an increasingly popular composer, but she kept her identity secret until the 1890s.

In 1866, she married a gynecology professor named Wilhelm Netzel. She became famous for the charitable work she undertook, with a special emphasis on supporting women and working people.

Alice Mary Smith (1839–1884)   

Alice Mary Smith was born in 1839 to a wealthy family in London.

She was a musical child and took lessons from William Sterndale Bennett and George Alexander Macfarren.

She published her first song in 1857, when she was still in her teens.

Alice Mary Smith

Her first symphony was written when she was 24 and performed that same year. She also wrote an operetta, cantatas, overtures, two symphonies, chamber music, a massive amount of choral music, and more.

In 1867, she married a lawyer, but she didn’t give up composing.

Ingeborg Starck Bronsart von Schellendorf (1840–1913)  

Ingeborg Starck was born in St. Petersburg in 1840, the daughter of a saddle-maker and his wife, both amateur musicians.

Their daughter Ingeborg began playing the piano as a little girl and composing a year later. By fourteen, her music was appearing in print.

Ingeborg Starck

In 1858, she traveled to Weimar to study under Liszt. Three years later, she married fellow Liszt student and piano virtuoso Hans von Bronsart. They had a daughter in 1864 and a son in 1868.

In 1867, her husband was appointed Intendant at the court theater in Hanover. Wives of court officials were forbidden from making money, so she was forced to quit her career as a soloist and ended up turning to composing during the second half of her life.

She gravitated toward large forms and wrote four operas.

Elfrida Andrée (1841–1929)   Play

Elfrida Andrée was born in 1841 in Visby, Sweden, to a liberal doctor and his wife.

The family embraced the women’s movement, and Elfrida was encouraged to study music and compose. She even became one of the first officially appointed female organists in Scandinavia.

Elfrida Andrée

In 1897, she became the conductor of the Gothenburg Workers Institute Concerts, which made her the first woman to conduct an orchestra in Sweden.

She wrote an opera, two symphonies, a wide variety of tuneful chamber music, and a number of other works.

Louise Héritte-Viardot (1841–1918)   

Louise Héritte-Viardot was born in December 1841 to Louis Viardot and Pauline Garcia-Viardot, the most popular mezzo-soprano of her age. (It’s worth noting that Pauline was also a talented pianist and composer.)

Louise was largely self-taught, musically speaking.

In 1863, she married a diplomat named Ernest Héritte and had a son with him, but they separated.

Louise Héritte-Viardot

To support herself, she taught voice in St. Petersburg, London, Frankfurt, and Berlin.

Many of her compositions have been lost, but the ones that survive suggest a truly delightful talent.

Marie Jaëll (1846–1925)  

Marie Jaëll was born in 1846 in Alsace. She began studying piano at the age of six, and quickly developed into a child prodigy.

In 1862, the year she turned sixteen, she entered the Paris Conservatory. After just four months of study, she won the first prize in piano.

Marie Jaëll

She married her colleague, virtuoso pianist Alfred Jaëll, in 1866. She was almost twenty; he was 34. The couple often worked together.

After her marriage, she began taking lessons from César Franck and Camille Saint-Saëns, determined to become a good composer.

Her husband died in 1882. She devoted the rest of her life to studying music, the physicality of playing piano, composition, learning new repertoire, teaching, and more. Her appetite for music was voracious.

Josephine Amann-Weinlich (1848–1887)  

Josephine Weinlich was born in 1848 in a small town in present-day Slovakia.

Her father was a formerly wealthy ribbon manufacturer who lost a fortune during the Slovak Uprising of 1848-49. For his second act, he applied for a license to found a family folk music ensemble in Vienna.

We don’t know much about Josephine’s training, only that she played violin with her family band until 1865, when she started her own dance band.

Josephine Weinlich with her orchestra in 1874

In 1867, she went a step further and started a ladies’ string quartet. The string quartet grew into one of the world’s first women’s orchestras.

Under Josephine’s leadership, the orchestra toured internationally and helped to get audiences used to the idea of women playing in orchestras.

During all of this, she composed, including irresistible dance music like the piece above (Freie Gedanken, or Free Thoughts).

Conclusion

The women who composed during the early Romantic era wrote fabulous music, even as they navigated the restrictions their society placed upon them.

Whether they were leading orchestras like Elfrida Andrée, composing operas like Louise Bertin and Ingeborg Bronsart von Schellendorf, or performing for Europe’s elite like Teresa Milanollo, they all carved out professional lives in a world that never made it easy for them to do so.

Their stories reveal a forgotten chapter of the long story of music history: one that is filled with persistence, resilience, and tons of great music.

Who’s your favorite woman composer from the early Romantic Era?

Saint-Saëns: Symphony No. 3 'Organ Symphony'

Camille Saint-Saëns’s Symphony No. 3 in C minor, Op. 78, better known as the "Organ Symphony," is one of the most significant pieces of the composer's career. Completed in 1886 for the Royal Philharmonic Society in London, it marked the composer's return to the symphonic form after years focused on other genres. In this video, the symphony is performed by the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Marek Janowski. The organ is played by Iveta Apkalna. The concert took place on January 22, 2013, at the Berliner Philharmonie to mark the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Élysée Treaty between France and Germany. (00:00) I. Adagio – Allegro moderato – Poco adagio (19:08) II. Allegro moderato – Presto – Maestoso – Allegro In 1857 Camille Saint-Saëns was hired as the main organist at Paris's most fashionable church, Église de la Madeleine. While the who's who of French high society met there each Sunday to worship, the composer was less interested in social status than he was in the church's magnificent organ built in 1845 by Aristide Cavaillé-Coll. Indeed, the composer is said to have called to the two decades he spent at the organ's keys as the greatest years of his life. Europe's classical music elite, meanwhile, were equally impressed. The likes of German pianist and composer Clara Schumann and Spanish violinist Pablo de Sarasate came to listen to his dazzling improvisations, while Hungarian composer and virtuoso pianist Franz Liszt called him "the greatest organist in the world." Yet, despite his popularity as an organist, Saint-Saëns rarely composed for the instrument. One of the exceptions is the Symphony No. 3 in C minor, the so-called "Organ Symphony." Yet even this nickname can be a bit misleading if one expects to hear the organ consistently front and center. The pipe organ enters in the latter halves of the two large sections. Yet when it does, its sound instantly reshapes the piece's sonic landscape. It's used as a foundation for the orchestra’s climactic moments, adding a weight and depth that emphasizes the final passages of the piece. This approach reflects both his mastery of orchestral color and his connection to tradition, even as he pushes the symphony forward. With this piece, considered one of the most enduring works of the French repertoire, Camille Saint-Saëns also reshapes the traditional symphonic structure. Instead of the usual four separate movements, he created two large blocks of music where themes evolve and reappear, giving the piece a sense of unity. This unified structure echoes that of Franz Liszt's oft-analyzed Piano Sonata in B minor, which comprises a single movement that covertly holds within it four distinct movements (allegro, adagio, scherzo and finale). Saint-Saëns also employs Liszt's concept of thematic transformation, whereby different themes, aka "leitmotifs," are transformed through inversion, modulation, fragmentation and other means — and then reappear throughout the piece. Perhaps it comes as little surprise that Saint-Saëns dedicated his organ symphony to Liszt. Based in the German capital, the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra ("Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin") is the country's second-oldest radio symphony orchestra and was founded in 1923.

The Key Conductor: Pierre Monteux

by Maureen Buja 

French conductor Pierre Monteux (1875–1964) always seemed to be the right man at the right time. As a student of violin and viola at the Paris Conservatoire, his fellow students included George Enescu, Fritz Kreisler, and Alfred Cortot. Upon graduation, one of his first jobs was violist for the orchestra of the Folies Bergère (1889–1892), when the Folies had Toulouse-Lautrec doing their posters. He played in or conducted works by Camille Saint-SaënsSaint, including being a last-minute conductor for a performance of Saint-Saëns’s cantata La Lyre et la Harpe (the composer at the organ), earning Saint-Saëns’s undying gratitude.

Irwin D. Hoffmann: Pierre Monteux, 1959 (Boston Public Library)

In 1894, he was named both principal violist and assistant conductor of the Colonne Orchestra in Paris. The orchestra’s founder, Édouard Colonne, had known Berlioz and could work with Monteux on what the composer really wanted in a performance of his works. His next position was as chief conductor for the seasonal Dieppe Casino orchestra (while still maintaining his Colonne positions).

In 1910, the Colonne Orchestra played for the Ballets Russes season, and Monteux met Stravinsky for the first time. He played viola for the world premiere of The Firebird in 1910, and the next year led the rehearsals for the premiere of Petrushka. He ended up conducting the premiere as well, at the insistence of the composer.

Along with impressing Saint-Saëns and Stravinsky, he also caught the eye of Claude Debussy, particularly because of his ability to rehearse and present new music. When the Colonne Orchestra was giving the world premiere of Debussy’s Images pour orchestra, it was Monteux who led the orchestral rehearsals, and Debussy conducted the premiere (26 January 1913).

After the January premiere of Images, it was onto Debussy’s ballet Jeux and then, on 29 May 1913, the infamous premiere of The Rite of Spring and riot.

With the start of WWI, Monteux was conscripted into the French Army, but Diaghilev got him released to take the Ballets Russes on tour to North America. After the war, the Boston Symphony Orchestra approached Monteux to be their new chief conductor. He only lasted 5 years there, but changed the orchestra for the better, and handed it over to Serge Koussevitzky, who would be its music director for the next 25 years.

Pierre Monteux, 1924 (Pierre Monteux Memorial Foundation Archive)

Monteux, in the meantime, went to Amsterdam, where he became the first conductor at the Concertgebouw, serving under Willem Mengelberg, the chief conductor. The other major work on this new recording is Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms, written in 1931 for the 50th anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The influence of Bach on Stravinsky is palpable in the Symphony, particularly Bach’s St Matthew Passion, which had been widely played all over Europe during the work’s bicentenary in 1927.

Alfred Bendiner: Pierre Monteux (1947) (Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts, Gift of Mrs. Alfred Bendiner)

Taking up his conducting career at the cusp of the 20th century, Monteux took part in some of the most exciting and controversial happenings in music, from premieres of works by Saint-Saëns to the Parisian riots over Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. He brought the Boston Symphony back to life and then went on to lead one of Europe’s great orchestras.

This 150th anniversary tribute to Pierre Monteux was recorded in 1961 as a live broadcast on the BBC Home Service. The BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, as led by Monteux, give us the best of his repertoire in performances of works that couldn’t be further apart in style: Debussy’s orchestral Images, and Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms.

Pierre Monteux: 150th Anniversary Tribute: Live Performances

BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus
SOMM Recordings ARIADNE 5042

Official Website