The harp has always been an instrument of fantasy. From King David, Orpheus and the angels of the Italian Renaissance to the shimmering glissandi of Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé, the image of the harp is fantastical; it is one of magic, colour, imagination and charm. However, the modern harp - the double action pedal harp - is capable of much more than providing colour and charm. It is also an instrument of powerful expression. As demonstrated in each of the fantasies I have chosen here, the instrument can speak, sing, whisper and shout; move, frighten and mystify. While composers across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have used extended techniques and sonorities in their search to emancipate the harp from its ‘traditional’ image, I have instead chosen to perform arrangements of a number of older compositions in order to stay as true to the great Germanic masters and the French and Russian Romantics as possible. Through a program united by the free form of the fantasy, I hope to show that, without departing from its ‘traditional’ sound, the harp is an instrument capable of an astonishing range of expression and sound; it is much more than just the instrument of the angels.  © Sivan Magen, 2014