Rhapsodie, the debut album
Ten pieces for solo harp, released on 12 August 2026. The album takes its name from Marcel Grandjany’s Rhapsodie, a work written to show what the harp can do on its own, and that is the idea behind the whole record: the harp as a concert instrument in its own right, from Bach to Wales.
It ends where I began, with Ar Lan y Môr, the Welsh folk song I grew up singing, in my own arrangement.
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My own arrangement of Ar Lan y Môr - Live at the Crouch End Festival
The pieces
J. S. Bach, Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565
Written for organ and one of the most recognised openings in music. On harp, the toccata’s runs sit naturally under the hands and the fugue becomes a study in clarity, each voice picked out on a single set of strings.
Rossini, arr. Bochsa, Rondo on “Zitti, zitti” from Il barbiere di Siviglia
Nicolas-Charles Bochsa, the virtuoso harpist and composer, built this sparkling rondo on the whispered escape trio from Act II of The Barber of Seville, in which Almaviva and Figaro help Rosina tiptoe out of the house and down a ladder. Bochsa dedicated it to his Welsh pupil Maria Jane Williams of Aberpergwm. Comic, quick and a test of nerve.
Henriette Renié, Contemplation in E-flat major
Renié was the great French harpist and teacher of the early twentieth century, and Grandjany’s own teacher. Contemplation is exactly what the title says: a long, unhurried melody over rolling chords, and one of the most beautiful slow pieces in the repertoire.
William Mathias, Santa Fe Suite: Landscape, Nocturne, Sun Dance
Written in 1988 by the Welsh composer William Mathias after a working visit to New Mexico, commissioned by harpist Caryl Thomas and the Welsh Arts Council, and first performed by her at Wigmore Hall. Landscape is open space and heat haze, Nocturne a long singing line, Sun Dance pure Spanish-inflected rhythm. A Welsh composer’s view of the American south-west, and a piece I have wanted to record since I first heard it.
Marcel Grandjany, Rhapsodie pour la harpe, Op. 10
Composed in 1921 and dedicated to Renié, this was Grandjany’s first large-scale solo work. It grows out of a Gregorian Easter chant into something almost orchestral, and it gave the album its name.
Jesús Guridi, Viejo Zortzico in G major
A Basque composer’s tribute to the zortziko, the traditional Basque dance in 5/8 time. Written in 1949, it is by turns stately and playful, and its uneven five-beat pulse is a joy to play.
Gabriel Fauré, Impromptu, Op. 86
Fauré wrote this in 1904 as the test piece for the Paris Conservatoire’s harp competition, and it has been the harpist’s Everest ever since: nearly ten minutes of rapid figuration, sudden changes of colour and a slow central section that has to sing through all of it.
Traditional Welsh, arr. Anna Phillips, Ar Lan y Môr
Beside the sea. The song I learned as a child in Wales, in my own arrangement, to end the album at home.