Customer Reviews

Harp of Brandiswhiere

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Listening to this wonderful CD always transports me! It evokes rich, magical images. It is hauntingly beautiful with lush and insteresting instrumentation. Sometimes I like to just have it playing quietly in the background... but my favorite thing ever was to have it playing loudly on my car stereo system as I drove through forests in the Pacific Northwest. Magical things were sure to happen!!

Who but Sylvia Woods could have thought to write an entire suite for Celtic Harp! What a treat!

This album has been one of my favorites since I was a small child. My family wore out our casette and had to wait for technology to catch up so we could upgrade to a CD.

Sylvia Woods (who was the 1980 All Ireland Harp Champion) is a talented harp player as well as a composer. She has also written numerous books on harp intruction and harp music that are uniformally excellent.

The suite tells a fairy tale story about the power of the harp. Sylvia's compositions range from spritely to heart-breaking.

This abum inspired me to play the harp, using Sylvia's books (of course!). However, I highly recommend this album to anyone who enjoys celtic, world, or new age music.

I had the good fortune to purchase this CD many years ago. I listened to it over and over, and it transported me to a magical place. I realized after listening to this CD that I had always wanted to learn to play the harp!

I contacted Sylvia Woods, the composer and muscial genious who made this CD, and asked if I might possibly get a harp and learn to play from her! She agreed to help me, and so began a wonderful friendship that I treasure, and I am now an amateur harpist.

I consider Sylvia one of the finest harpers and teachers on this planet. She has done more to encourage the revival of the Celtic harp as an instrument than anyone else in the world. Her store in Los Angeles, Sylvia Woods Harp Center, helps many folks like me, who always wanted to play a harp but don't know how to get started.

This album has lifted my spirits for over 15 years. Its amazing to me how the musical phrases from different parts of the suite have come to me in dreams, uplifted me during health crises.....I would say its my favorite Celtic harp album of all I have.....and I have many.

The greatest gift of all was that I got to see Sylvia Woods perform the Suite live, and tell the story of the Harp of Braniswhiere. Definitely a five star rating!!!!

I hold this album to be one of the most magical and transportive suites of music composed. You must hear it to understand and to be transported into the land of Fairie. Extraordinary; other-worldly...I keep praying that Sylvia Woods will release another of its kind for the balm and restoration of my spirit.

Being a lover of Celtic harp, I bought this CD on the basis of all the supportive and glowing reviews. I found it a whole lot less magical than Charles Guard's "Avenging and Bright." In fact, I think it would appeal more as kid's music. I would have enjoyed it much more without the annoying whistling (which completely ruined the chance this CD would ever be played again, at least by me), because the harp was lovely. The CD, on the whole, felt a little too upbeat a la "Leprechaun-skips-through-the-garden" and not really at all the Celtic mystical experience it was touted to be, at least for me.