Album Notes

Born in Caracas, internationally educated and -minded, Cecilia de Majo is an outstanding artistic personality.

Her harpist training, initiated at the age of six, was conducted under the tutorship of such eminent teachers and refined musicians as Marcel Tournier in Paris and Bernard Zighéra in Boston and culminated in her winning the First Prize at the Paris Conservatory of Music with the unanimous vote of the jury. Cecilia de Majo is recognized as the founder of the French School of Harp in Venezuela. There she has devoted her entire life to a generous and fruitful pedagogical activity, distinguishing herself at the same time for many years as First Harp Solo at the Venezuela Symphony Orchestra and attending a brilliant soloist career in Venezuela and abroad, giving also life to a cluster of exquisite musical ensembles, such as the "Cecilia de Majo Harp Ensemble," which was presented with great success at the 1990 IV World Harp Congress in Paris, and the much applauded "Flute and Harp Duo" with American flautist Glenn Egner.

Cecilia de Majo is not new to harp music recording. Her previous outputs on audiotapes (Classic Recital, Romantic Recital) and long plays (Romantic Duo, Venezuelan Recital, A Ceremony of Carols), well known to harpists and lovers of fine music, are long outsold. They contained unforgettable interpretations, like that of G. Fr. Haendel-Grandjany's Harp Concerto in B Flat, the Parish-Alvar's Serenade, and Samuel Rousseau's Pastoral Variations. They were impressive for their deeply inspiring sentiment and captivating warm sound, no less than for their technical virtuosity and elegant phrasing. The present CD is the result of the remastering of the artist's first two collections. They have been fully digitalized, yet not altered by audio filters, thus maintaining the original crisp sound of the studio recording. As a whole, this CD is a testimonial of Cecilia de Majo's pondered vision of Classic and Romantic music playing on the harp, in search of the difficult balance between the original spirit of the compositions, as handed down by academic teaching, and contemporary, sometimes warmer, sometimes soberer, sensibility.