Pulling a few strings: Claire Jones, Official Harpist to the Prince of Wales. Photograph: Clarence House/PA
The news from Clarence House that the Prince of Wales has appointed a new Official Harpist - 22-year-old Claire Jones from Pembrokeshire - strikes a suitably archaic note. Jones will be the third recipient of this particular royal favour since the prince revived the post seven years ago when he appointed Catrin Finch to his household, after she had played at his 50th birthday celebrations. It seems that he just liked the sound of the instrument, and that was what encouraged him to revive a tradition that had been dormant since the reign of Queen Victoria.
Its roots, though, go back to medieval times, when every self-respecting Welsh nobleman had a bard in his household, who would accompany his songs on a forerunner of the harp, the telyn. That instrument went through a series of transformation until it became the highly sophisticated one that concert harpists use today, with its elaborate system of pedals that allows the tuning of each string to be altered by a semitone or a tone, so that it can be played in any key.
For any budding harpist, though, buying an instrument is the real stumbling block. Even a student model pedal harp will cost about £5000, and so many children are started off on one of the smaller folk instruments, with fewer strings and levers that sharpen the pitches rather than pedals. There's even a cardboard harp with 19 strings available in kit form. Since one of aims of reviving the post of royal harpist was to encourage interest in the instrument and to get more children playing it, you'd think Prince Charles's business interests might have kicked in - how long, one wonders, before we see a Duchy Originals harp kit, made with recycled cardboard of course, on the market?
