A fish caught in time, like the Paraguayan harp.

The Paraguayan harp is a kind of musical living fossil. Like the coelacanth, a fish that has barely changed since the Carboniferous period 360 million years ago, this graceful construction of wood and 36 strings journeyed to Paraguay from Spain in 1517, and has remained true to its original form.

Part of its charm is its lack of technical refinements. Like many early instruments, such as recorders, early flutes, krumhorns and whole families of stringed instruments, this relic from the Renaissance more than compensates for lack of versatility and volume with its clear, warm and highly distinctive tones, especially when played by one of Paraguay’s master musicians.

One of these masters is César Cataldo, who performed a delightful sampling of contemporary and traditional songs from his native land at the IDB’s Cultural Center on December 1. From simple stretched strings—scarcely differing from the harp’s putative ancestor, the hunter’s bow—Cataldo produced a wide range of sounds and moods. He used his fingernails to create bright, almost metallic tones to showcase the melody. The pads of his fingers drew from the strings the soft, heavily colored tones that evoked musings and mystery. The tunes, slow and graceful or fast and rollicking, alternated among the traditional polkas for which Paraguay is famous, and ballads and songs inspired by the country’s rich Guarani indigenous tradition.

As with the instruments of centuries ago, the all-wood construction of the Paraguayan harp makes it light and easily portable. But some minor evolution has taken place over the centuries. The lower strings were once made of leather from the belly of horses and the upper strings were of steel. But most harps today are outfitted with nylon strings. Similarly, the original wooden tuning pegs have been replaced with geared pegs, as on modern guitars, making them easier to tune, not a trivial consideration when dealing with five octaves-worth of strings.

Technical innovation has not included the pedals that enable the concert harp to play half tones, and therefore in different keys. Nevertheless, the Paraguayan harp is admirably suited to arpeggios, glissandi, and chords in octaves, thirds, and sixths. Nor is there apparently any interest in following the lead of European makers to outfit Paraguayan harps with electronic pickups.

Charm in the unfamiliar. If some of the pieces at the IDB recital sounded similar, the same could be said of any other musical idiom with which one is unfamiliar. Parents have long made the same comments about the music their children listen to, and Vivaldi’s detractors have called him a manufacturer of five hundred sewing-machine concertos that all sound more or less the same.

But even the neophyte to the Paraguayan harp cannot help but be charmed by songs such as the Pájaro Campana, where the call of the bird it clearly audible. Or El Tren Lechero, where the harp’s strings mimic the rhythmic chug, chug, chug of a train, which as Cataldo remarked, was so slow that what started out as fresh milk arrived as cheese.

As with other harp players, Cataldo is a master at improvisation. In the old days, professional harpists in Paraguay learned to play by ear. But today, aspiring harpists can take lessons from virtuosos such as Cataldo. The harp is also taught at the national conservatory in Asunción. Cataldo has composed over 50 popular songs and was a founding member of several popular folk groups.

The harp was originally introduced to Paraguay by the Jesuits, founders of the missions for which Paraguay is famous. The Jesuits used music as part of the cultural, technological and biological tool kit to evangelize the local people and ultimately create a nation famous for its blended traditions. Notably, more than 90 percent of Paraguayans speak Guarani, the indigenous language, and many speak no Spanish at all. Many of the pieces in Cataldo’s IDB recital had Guarani names. In the same spirit, the Paraguayan harp remains this country’s instrument of choice, and the opportunity to hear it played in the hands of a master of the caliber of César Cataldo is a rare treat.

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