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In the middle of the XIX century the musical component of Russia’s cultural ties with Europe significantly increased. This was due to the emergence of romanticism – a revolutionary phenomenon in all forms of art. The touring activity of its creators was a characteristic feature of musical romanticism. Outstanding composers, masterly playing their instruments, introduced a lot of new things to the technique of playing them and to the imaginative sphere of music. They sought to promote their skills in major cities around the world, including St. Petersburg and Moscow. The announcement of their performances and laudatory reviews in the press seemed to fully reflect the state of Russia’s relations with European musical reality. However, the organizational side of the tour, which required a lot of effort on the part of the host and on the part of the tour operators, was not disclosed in the official press. This hidden work was carried out thanks to acquaintances abroad of representatives of the domestic elite with the best musicians in Europe and through their private correspondence. It was done through personal contacts of the Russian enlightened amateurs, which more accurately reflected the depth and nature of our country’s ties with the culture of other countries. The author studied the archival sources in search of information about the appearance in Russia of some guest performers, the structure of their performances and life. The memoirs of contemporaries contain interesting details and direct impressions of the musicians’ playing. This article attempts to show the true value of harpists’ concert touring in our country, their resounding success, noted by the official press. The author highlights the educational role of Russian highly educated music lovers in establishing ties with the best professional musicians in Europe in the middle of the XIX century.

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Firmly rooted myths about the harp as an instrument in something exceptional and extraordinarily beautiful it is difficult to correlate with the current practice of playing it. The author tries to explain to composers and the mass of listeners what are the differences between these ideal ideas about the instrument with the game of modern artists and tries to find the possibility of these differences smooth out. The author sees such opportunities first of all in finding the causes of “bad” sound at the time of the game. They can be covered in the advantages or disadvantages of the device and condition of the modern instruments and in defects of statement of hands of the player. The last, in turn, may depend on the peculiarities of the physiological and psycho physiological nature of the player. Based on his teaching experience the author explains the dependence of the difficulties of sound production on the structure of arms, hands, fingers and even the growth of the harpist and offers ways to overcome some of the physical shortcomings. The author emphasizes that a special role in the work on improving the sound has a gradually developing ability of the student to hear himself as without constant critical listening to his game development of the musician is impossible. In addition to defects in sound production, which can also be determined by the low level of teaching, the sound quality is influenced by the harpist’s playing culture the terms of which largely converge with the requirements of the culture of the game on all the instruments. This is a game without errors, smoothness of sound, rhythm, accuracy in the transmission of the author’s text, purity of intonation. But the harpists in addition to these general requirements to the culture of the game when working on a musical text, there are special difficulties that are caused by the structure of the harp itself; continuous buzzing of its strings, imperfection of its pedal and fork mechanisms. To preserve the purity of harmony the harpist must have a high level of technology of clearing of unnecessary (buzzing) strings: separate fingers, separate hands-free or both of hands together. For instant, silent permutation of the pedals and precise coordination of simultaneous movements of the fingers, hands and feet, he must have an excellent vestibular apparatus. To tune the harp desirable absolute pitch. In addition, as each harp has its own acoustic features (ringing or booming, long or short sound) and different menzures, the harpist forced achieving its beautiful sound to fit the manner of sound production to this instrument. We also have to take into account the conditions of the game on the harp: the humidity and the density of the air and the acoustics of the halls.