–e–f–g–a–b–c'–d'–e'–g'b' and notated a major 6th higher. The four
lowest strings were unfretted. A
generic term for certain types of guitar that developed in England between 1798
and 1828, all slightly shorter than the conventional guitar and characterized
by a soundbox 38–45 cm × 33–40 cm × 8–15 cm with a vaulted back. There had been
many experiments with such instruments, e.g. the décacorde, a ten-string
lute-guitar hybrid invented and composed for by Gabriel-Louis Besson at Versailles in the late
18th century. The harp-guitar developed by Edward Light of London in 1798 (fig.1) was based on the English guitar. It had eight gut strings
with a vibrating length of about 64 cm, tuned f–g–c'–e'–g'–c''–e''–g''
(the top six strings the same as the English guitar). Mordaunt Levien of Paris
added three brass stops (pédales) on the back of his seven-string guitare-harpe,
enabling the strings to be raised a semitone. He patented the instrument,
including the pédales, in 1825. Edward Light devised a harp-lute-guitar,
with a theorbo-like second pegbox and 11 strings tuned B–e–f–g–a–b–c'–d'–e'–g'b' and notated a major 6th higher. The four
lowest strings were unfretted.
By 1811 (when music for the instrument was registered at Stationers’ Hall) Light had invented the harp-lute (fig.2b), which had semitone-raising stops like the Levien guitare-harpe and a harp-like pillar terminating in a scroll head (later a Corinthian capital), which returned to the soundbox by a sort of ‘harmonic curve’ on which was fixed a fingerboard. His large flat-backed variant with oval soundbox, the harp-lyre, was referred to in an advertisement in an issue of the Caledonian Mercury of 1815. These instruments developed relatively quickly. Angelo Benedetto Ventura, formerly a partner with Light, produced a similar, 12-string harp-lyre, the ‘Imperial ottavino’, and an ‘Imperyal’ lyre, and in 1814 added a couple of strings to create the ‘Imperial’ harp-lute. Charles Wheatstone added a second fingerboard and called the result a ‘Regency’ harp-lute. These instruments were actually tuned a 6th higher than the harp-lute-guitar, and their music was written at pitch. The lower eight strings were open; the upper limits of the range varied with the number of strings, but was at least two octaves above c'. Not to be outdone, Light patented in 1816 an improved ‘British’ lute-harp with up to 13 ‘ditals’ (analagous to harp pedals) for raising open strings one semitone. By 1819 this had become the dital harp (fig.2a), with up to 20 strings, and frets only for the top five or so strings (see ex.1 for its tuning). The use of lever- or piston-operated stops reached its most complex stage of development in Ventura’s ‘Harp Ventura’.
The intended purchasers of these hybrids were London ladies and, to a lesser extent, their provincial and Parisian counterparts. Inspired by the supposed example of Princess Charlotte of Wales (whose patronage was claimed by both Light and Ventura), ladies were exhorted to accompany their songs with these decorative (albeit increasingly unwieldy) instruments (in this respect the fashion for the harp-lute was similar to the almost-coincidental Parisian fashion for the Lyre-guitar), but this market vanished with the advent of the mass production of pianos.
Tutors for the instruments were published by R. Downes (‘Regency’ harp-lute), T. Bolton and F. Chabran (harp-guitar and harp-lute-guitar), Light, Parry, Wheatstone and Ventura. Published music consisted of songs and instrumental arrangements and some simple compositions and variations, mostly in 16-, 24- or 32-bar binary form with tonic-dominant harmony.
Michael Praetorius, in his Theatrum instrumentorum (1620), had depicted an unnamed precursor to the harp-lute.
R.B. Armstrong: Musical Instruments, ii (Edinburgh, 1908)
J. Godwin: ‘Eccentric Forms of the Guitar, 1770–1850’, JLSA, viii (1975), 90–101
S. Marcuse: A Survey of Musical Instruments (London, 1975), 232–3
STEPHEN BONNER