The palette of restoration features ranges from purely conservation / maintenance work over playability adjustments up to a total renovation, whereby the available substance of the instrument and its state of repair will determine the approach required.
Restoring a harp is more than even a harp repair, but less drastic than a harp renovation.
A careful restoration takes the biography of a harp into account and allows only moderate and reversible intervention (less is often more) so that the charm of a venerable piece can breathe on.
For enthusiasts of antiquities the conservation of a harp is the mostly practised method, as this harp is not requested to be played. However, there may be a collector who wishes to hear his harp in a concert in his living room. I may gladly arrange a harpist who is familiar with historical harps and who plays period music.
As a harp restorer I reanimated the voice of numerous harps - from Louvet and Naderman up to Holtzman and Erard - thus they are charming many happy harpists for recordings and concerts. Even an early pedal harp by Hochbrucker now sounds in bright freshness after I restored it in painstaking detail work. Today this harp belongs to the Musée de la Musique in Paris. It is represented on a special page:
» The HOCHBRUCKER harp