Soundings: A Lyre Review – Vol. 3, No 1 - Now Available in the LANA Store as a Download
/Soundings: A Lyre Review
Volume 3, No. 3 – Spring 2010
The Volume 3, Number 1, Spring 2010 issue of our LANA Soundings Journal features articles written by Laura Langford Schnur, Gerhard Beilharz, and Christof-Andreas Lindenberg.
“Truth, Tone and Tuning” by Laura Langford Schnur is a philosophical and historical exploration of truth in music, understood not as an external standard but as an inner, lived experience that can be perceived through attentive listening. The author connects this idea of truth to tone quality and, crucially, to tuning systems.
She traces the development of Western tuning from Pythagorean tuning through meantone and well temperaments, showing how these systems preserved qualitative differences between intervals and keys. She contrasts these with equal temperament, which standardizes all semitones and prioritizes convenience and modulation over tonal integrity. Schnur argues that equal temperament represents a historical shift from the art of tuning toward a purely technical, quantitative approach.
At the center of the article is Maria Renold’s “Scale of Twelve Fifths” (Renold or Middle Tuning), which begins from A = 432 Hz or C = 128 Hz, described as especially suited to the lyre because it supports warmth, clarity, and what she calls a more “etheric” or living experience of tone. Drawing on personal experience and reports from students, she suggests that this tuning fosters deeper musical engagement and therapeutic potential.
“Describing the Indescribable: Reflections on Julius Knierim’s Elaboration and Development of Lyre-playing Technique” by Gerhard Beilharz offers an extensive study that examines the life and pedagogical legacy of Julius Knierim (1919–1999), a central figure in the modern development of lyre playing. Beilharz presents Knierim as the musician who transformed the lyre from a primarily contemplative or therapeutic instrument into a fully playable, artistically viable instrument.
The article emphasizes Knierim’s refusal to codify his work into a fixed “method.” Instead, his teaching evolved through movement, listening, and improvisation, grounded in Rudolf Steiner’s understanding of the human senses and threefold organism. Playing the lyre is described as a “middle process” between hearing and movement, requiring the full involvement of the human being.
Overall, the essay portrays Knierim’s work as an ongoing, living inquiry into how music arises from the human being, rather than a system that can be fully captured in words.
In “The Lyre: A Tutor for a New Instrument – Part 4: The Pentatonic and the Mood of the Fifth” – Christof-Andreas Lindenberg has provided a pedagogical approach focusing on pentatonic music and the Mood of the Fifth, two tonal spaces central to lyre playing and Waldorf music education.
Christof-Andreas first presents the pentatonic as an ancient, universally human tonal language found across cultures that is especially appropriate for children and for introductory lyre playing. The article includes fingering guidance and musical examples drawn from global folk traditions.
The second half of the article introduces the so-called Mood of the Fifth, a seven-tone space organized around a central tone rather than a tonic. This tonal mood creates a feeling of balance and openness rather than harmonic resolution. Lindenberg explains how this mood corresponds to the developmental stage of children around early school age, offering containment without heaviness.
Christof-Andreas also discusses instruments such as the Choroi 7-string pentatonic lyre, which were designed specifically to embody the Mood of the Fifth. He concludes the article with songs and exercises intended for both children and adults.
Music Supplement
Index of Titles in Music Supplement V3 N1
Seeking Peace – Christof-Andreas Lindenberg
Benedictus qui venit – Josquin des Pres
Plena est Terra – Josquin des Pres
Ciaconne – Gerhard Maasz
Trio-Piece – Christof-Andreas Lindenberg
He is the Star – Graham H. Jackson
Prayer – Channa A. Seidenberg
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