On this day, 10th October 1799, Broderip and Wilkinson registered Mademoiselle Merelle’s harp tutor at Stationers’ Hall. In two volumes, her New and Complete Instructions for the Pedal Harp … Containing all the necessary rules, with exercises, preludes, etc, calculated for acquiring facility, steadiness and precision on the instrument was a mere 50 pages in total, but it took the beginner from ignorance to an astonishing level of dexterity by the end of the second book! It was dedicated to her pupils, whom one would imagine must have taken quite some time to master the exercises until they could play the exotic flourishes that brought the tutor to its triumphant conclusion.
I am rather pleased to note that Mrs Bertram and her daughters appear to have borrowed a book containing this work, from the University Library at St Andrews. They ran a girls’ boarding school – who knows who actually played from this book!
A Seattle website called Harp Spectrum (2002-2014) contains an article by Mike Parker, in which he says that Mlle Merelle was a London harp teacher.(1) Whether she was the first woman to publish a harp tutor, is not something I’m in a position to comment upon at the moment. Hers does seem to be the first one authored by a woman and registered at Stationers’ Hall in London, but that’s no guarantee that others weren’t published elsewhere in the world – or published in the UK but not registered at Stationers’ Hall.
There are very few copies surviving. It was therefore with a small cry of triumph that I discovered a digitised copy in Denmark! You can look for yourself, here:-
New and Complete Instructions for the Pedal Harp. In two books.
There are lots of arpeggios and broken chords – and (at first glance) no national melodies, which is markedly different to piano tutors of the same era!
Mlle Merelle also published Les Folies d’Espagne, avec des nouvelles variations pour la harpe, registered by Broderip & Wilkinson on 13 June 1799, and a book of harp tunes, Petites Pieces pour le Harpe, registered by the same publishers at Stationers’ Hall on 24 March 1803. Again, few copies survive. The first is also in digital format at the British Library, but I believe only on-site.
(1) The Eighth Pedal – Fact or Fiction?
by Mike Parker
Karen McAulay, Musicologist 