Arpa Doppia
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An Arpa Doppia is a Double Harp common throughout Europe between the 16th and 19th Centuries.
[edit] Spanish Double Harp (1550-1700)
It was the lack of a full chromatic compass that the theorist Juan Bermudo identified as the main 'defect' of the harp in the mid-16th century. His 'remedies' included tunings with 8 or 9 notes to the octave (more than the 7 'white' notes, but less than the full 12-note chromatic scale) and tunings adapted to each mode, with different accidentals in each octave. But he noted that some players had already added all the required strings: this was done by putting the 'black note' strings in a second row, that crossed over the main row in the way that your fingers interlock when you clasp your hands. This was called the 'arpa de dos ordenes' - the two-row harp.
Surviving instruments and pictures of 17th century Spanish harps show instruments that are very wide in the bass, although narrow in the treble. This shape, and the playing position (with the right hand plucking at the top of each string, while the left hand plays the string in the middle of its length) produce the characteristic sound of the Spanish harp: brilliant and clear in the treble, resonant and full in the bass.
[edit] Italian 'arpa doppia' (1575-1800)
16th century Italian harps had much narrower sound-boards than Spanish harps of the same period: this may be why the Italians were forced to place the two rows of their double harp (arpa a due ordini) in parallel. In his 'Dialogo della musica', the theorist Vincenzo Galilei describes an arpa doppia with the strings in two parallel rows: 'white' notes in one row, 'black' notes in the other. The rows switch sides in the middle of the compass, so that in the treble the 'white' notes are on the right, but in the bass, they are on the left.
By around 1600, harps were made much larger, giving an extended bass range comparable to that of the chitarrone or theorbo (the double-bass member of the lute family). These larger harps had three rows of strings (arpa a tre ordini): 'white' notes in the outside rows (one row for each hand) and 'black' notes in the middle row. Nevertheless, these instruments were still called 'arpa doppia' - "double" here refers to the large size and bass range of the harp, rather than to the number of rows. This is the instrument for which Monteverdi wrote his famous solo in his opera 'L'Orfeo'.
The French theorist Mersenne mentions several harp virtuosi of international reputation in his 'Harmonie Universelle' of 1636. The Roman harpist Orazio Mihi was considered the equal of his contemporary, the harpsichordist Girolamo Frescobaldi. But the Frenchman Jean le Flesle played the triple harp 'en perfection'. Le Flesle was harpist to the English Queen and appeared in the court masque 'The Temple of Love' playing the role of Orpheus sitting in "a Barque of Antique design, adorn'd with a great masque head of a Sea-God; touch'd with silver and gold...the Barque moved gently on the Sea, heaving and setting and sometimes rowling" while Orpheus played to "calme the seas with his harp".
