Pleyel harp
The Pleyel harp , also Lyon harp , also French harpe chromatique , is a design of the double harp .
Towards the end of the 19th century, Gustave Lyon , the head of the Pleyel music house , attempted to introduce a chromatic harp with crossed strings after he discovered two limitations of the double-pedal harp : the diatonic tuning allows semitones outside the diatonic series and chromatic ones Pieces can only be played with considerable pedal effort.
With the crossed strings, both the diatonic tone series and the semitones can be reached without having to reach through the strings. The notes of the diatonic series are below the left hand and above the crossing point of the strings for the right hand. On the other hand, the semitones are above the intersection for left and below the intersection for right. To play the semitone you have to reach up or down. This technique requires some practice because in addition to grasping the strings themselves, the movement up and down must be coordinated.
The tuning of the Pleyel harp is similar to that of the Spanish baroque harp with a diatonic string row (white piano keys) and the crossed semitones (black keys on the piano ). The construction is otherwise very similar to the concert harp.
Claude Debussy composed his “Deux Dances for chromatic harp and string orchestra” as a commissioned composition for the Pleyel harp. However, this could not prevail against the double pedal harp.