Harp Concert - Margaret Watson

I ask Margaret Watson if she likes being called a ‘harpist’ or a ‘harper’; the first, I’ve learnt, generally refers to a classical style musician; the second to a more folksy, Celtic type. “I’ll answer to anything” she says jauntily, down the phone. “I try to cover all tastes of music in a concert like this. I try to play songs which people won’t expect of the instrument. I try to shock people”. I ask her how she might do this. “People don’t expect Glenn Miller” she says. “Or Gershwin, or Lloyd Webber. Or Welsh folk. Or Maori music. They do expect Greensleeves, which I’ll play, but I want to show the versatility of the harp”.

Margaret will bring two instruments along to the show, an antique gold harp dating back to 1820, which she calls “Big Foot - for obvious reasons” and a more modern instrument “which is practically an appendage, I take it wherever I go”. She will be wearing two costumes, one for each half of the set: she makes her own to suit every occasion. “I’ll not be wearing medieval costume at Anne of Cleves, though” she says, “because it tends to be off-putting to people when you play the likes of Gershwin”. She is happy to let people have a little strum of her harps in the interval. “I like to let people know a little bit about the long history of the instrument”, she says. Unlike Harpo Marx, she tells me, in answer to my final question, she doesn’t use her little finger when she plays. AG