La Source is probably the best known of Albert Zabel’s compositions for the harp.

Born in Berlin on 22 February 1834, Albert Heinrich Zabel studied the harp at that city’s Institut für Kirchen- musik, where his teacher was Louis Grimm, a former student of the English-born virtuoso, Elias Parish Alvars. Zabel’s concert career began at an early age, when he toured Germany, Russia and England as a member of an ensemble directed by Johann Gungl, who, in 1848, settled in St Petersburg. From 1848-1851, Zabel was solo harpist with the Berlin Opera, but in 1855, he too moved to St Petersburg, becoming solo harpist with the Imperial Ballet – a post which he held to the end of his life. It is therefore likely that he was the first harpist to play in such Tchaikovsky ballet scores as ‘Sleeping Beauty’ and ‘The Nutcracker’, and it is possible that it was his style of harp playing which inspired the brilliant cadenzas Tchaikovsky included in these ballets.

Harp teacher at Anton Rubinstein’s St Petersburg Con-servatory from its inception in 1862, Zabel was named Professor in 1879, and honorary distinguished professor in 1904. His late works include a comprehensive ‘Method’ (1900) and a Concerto in C minor (1904-5).