Gwyneth Wentink: Harp of the Matter

"A shy girl, she smiles a bit awkwardly when she comes on stage, sits at the instrument, and takes a few seconds to concentrate. In that short time, her face changes - the girl becomes an artist. Then she plays and the strings thunder, whistle, sing. Colors changes, from tinkling bells to murmuring water, from intimate whispering to loud voices. Her fingers dance on the strings in an unearthly fashion, sliding, plucking. The audience was spellbound."
- BRABANTS DAGLAD (The Netherlands)

That is how she was described by a leading journalist from her country, which sums up this extraordinary performers talent quite succintly.


If I could put two cherub wings on her back and put her on a cloud with her harp, she won’t have looked out of place in a assembly of angels.
That's Gwyneth Wentink for you, harp player extraordinaire. 27 years old, tall, slim and blessed with a natural grace seen only in ballet dancers. She is a harp artiste from the Netherlands, internationally acclaimed and as I saw that day, humble to a point.

Not many of us in Bangalore would have seen a harp in action. Much less an internationally acclaimed young artiste with such a unique and beautiful looking musical instrument. As she stood there in front of us that thursday evening,
she looked like some little girl giving her first solo performance, a notion that was quickly dispelled as the evening progressed.

The Instrument: The harp itself was a gold enamelled creation, with baroque engraving, as tall as the lady herself (which would put the harp at almost 6 feet ) and as she said later in reply to a question, it weighs a respectable 40 kilos and costs 40,000 euros. It was constructed in Italy and it is transported between continents in a military style reinforced box which i could see behind the dais.

The concert was held in the Landmark Bookstore in the Forum Mall, among the home shopping section on the first floor. I don’t know how she must have felt at the location but this isn't exactly the ambiance I would have preferred an artiste of her caliber to perform in.

A raised dais had been set up for the performance, by the time we reached there she was already there checking the details. A large triangular object covered in red satin was taken up to the dais and the harp was unveiled. I must add here that there was a collective audible gasp from the audience at the sight of the instrument.
And gasp inducing it was, tall and majestically golden and with a multitude of strings stretching down its length vertically, it did resemble a long forgotten relic from a different era sent to our age. I could imagine the harp in a Lord of The Rings setting where a celestial nymph would sit near a lotus filled pond and caress the strings lost in the memories of her warrior sweetheart.
There was something very forbidding about the instrument.

Gwyneth then gave us a small talk on what she would be playing and a brief history on the harp and the music around it. Then she sat and inclined the harp towards her, supporting it on her right shoulder. That was the instant when her angelic pixie face got transformed into one of immense concentration and dedication. Her fingers flew across the strings, plucking them out of their sleep and making them dance to her tunes. I have never seen someone playing a musical instrument so gracefully,
her hands seemed to caress the strings, sometimes jolting them and at times tickling them, producing a sound that to my untrained ears resembled that of a grand piano but had a texture that was more airy, pure and seemed borne on the wings of clouds.
The notes had the smell of fresh rain on them, waltzes in the moonlight, the joys of a lost childhood and longing for the beloved.

She gave a background talk on every composition that she played, and on the mechanics of the harp, the tuning process and the strings (It has 47 strings, made of metal, guts and nylon). She spoke about herself and answered some questions from the audience. It was a revelation to know that she had performed with Hari Prasad Chaurasia too, in Amsterdam no less, and warmed up the collective hearts when she used the word ‘Bansuri’ and not 'Flute' for the maestros’ instrument.
The only irritants were the photographers, some of them in the audience with their bazooka sized lenses and some I believe from the media houses. I can only imagine how much concentration an artiste has to employ in order not to get distracted by the constant clicking and whirring and the flashes around her/him.
I have personally seen Ustad Zakir Hussain himself berating a senior photographer during a concert when the shutterbug had tried to get too close for comfort, attempting to get a close shot of the maestros on the dais.
Speaking of the artiste, during the performance the serene solemnity on her face made her look ethereal, she seemed cloaked in a light mist, oblivious to the world around her, only at the last note of her performances would she look up with a questioning look in her eyes, as if to ask 'was that good?'.
I believe it's a testament to an artists dedication and humility where she takes care to understand the region where she is performing, taking care to imbibe the cultural sensibilities of that region. She spoke of Indian instruments with reverence and had taken care to dress up in a green salwar suit which when added with her height, did make her stand out in the gathering.
All in all, quite a memorable evening, save for those philistines who got up and walked away from the chairs just as she was tuning her harp.