Towards the end of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th century harp makers came up with a new model of harp in order to deal with the development in musical composition.

With the addition of more and more chromatic notes to the music, with modulations and key changes, it was a great challenge to perform the works on a diatonic harp, that essentially was only tuned in one key or mode at a time. The addition of whole rows of strings lead to the development of the arpa doppia – arpa doppia a tre registri – with up to three parallel rows of strings, making it possible to perform in all the keys and modes.

The instrument was probably invented in Italy soon but spread over all of Europe. Local version of this kind of harp can be found in Germany (Davidsharfe) until the early 19th century and in England (Welsh Triple Harp) even until the present day.

Maximilian Ehrhardt performs on the arpa doppia as a soloist as well as continuo player in chamber music and orchestra contexts.

His repertoire includes most of the original solo pieces and ensemble works with obligato harp parts composed in the Renaissance and the Baroque including works by a.o. Monteverdi, Händel , Mayone, Trabaci, Strozzi, Stradella, Parry, Landi and Lawes.

Maximilian Ehrhardt plays on a arpa doppia a tre registri built by Claus Henry Hüttel (Düren, 2008) after the painting L’artista con la sua famiglia by Francesco Nuvolone (Brera).

Repertoire

Solo works

(selection)

England
Works by John Bull, William Byrd, John Dowland, Giles Farnaby, Orlando Gibbons, Peter Philips, William Babell, John Parry, Henry Purcell a.o.

Italy
Works by Carlo Gesualdo da Venosa, Giovanni de Macque, Girolamo Frescobaldi, Giovanni Girolamo Kapsberger, Ascanio Mayone, Luigi Rossi, Gregorio Strozzi, Giovanni Maria Trabaci, Bernardo Pasquini a.o.

Spain
Works by Antonio de Cabezón, Manuel Rodrigues Coelho, Luis de Milán, Alonso Mudarra, Francisco Correa de Arauxo, Juan Cabanilles, Diego Fernandez de Huete, Lucas Ruiz de Ribayaz a.o.

Germany/Austria
Works by Georg Friedrich Händel, Georg Muffat, Johann Jakob Froberger, Wolfgang Ebner a.o.

Opera/Oratorio

(selection)

Oratio Vecchi
L’Amfiparnaso

Claudio Monteverdi
L’Orfeo Favola in Musica
Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria
L’Incoronazione di Poppea

Jacopo Peri
Musica sopra la Euridice

Agostino Steffani
La lotta d’Ercole con Acheloo

Georg Friedrich Händel
Alcina
Alexander Baulus
Alexander’s Feast
Ariodante
Esther
Giulio Cesare in Egitto
Saul
Serse

Henry Purcell
Dido and Aeneas

Jean-Baptiste Lully
Persée
Psyché