5025414-B32cdc-053479222527.Pdf

1 1 Carolan’s Welcome Turlough O’Carolan (1670-1738) 1:50 14 The Lone Vale Traditional (Scottish) 2:01 2 Banish Misfortune Traditional (Irish) 1:46 15 Flee Over the Water Traditional (Scottish) 1:28 16 Hoop Her and Gird Her Traditional (Scottish) 1:45 3 The Battle of Harlaw Traditional (Scottish) 1:51 17 If I Had a Bonny Lass Traditional (Scottish) 1:11 4 Pipe on the Hob Traditional (Irish) 1:53 5 Cliffs of Moher Traditional (Irish) 1:13 18 Lady Atherny O’Carolan 2:29 6 Hey My Nanny & Guzzle Together Traditional (Scottish) 1:57 19 The Seas are Deep O’Carolan 1:39 20 Tune Without Title (#172) O’Carolan 2:36 7 Carolan’s Dream O’Carolan 3:31 8 Sheebeg and Sheemore O’Carolan 2:55 21 The Monaghan Jig Traditional (Irish) 2:31 22 The Kid on the Mountain Traditional (Irish) 2:24 9 The Flowers of Edinburgh James Oswald (c.1711-1769) 3:27 10 Miss Noble O’Carolan 1:59 23 Blind Mary O’Carolan 3:18 11 Fanny Power O’Carolan 2:28 24 George Brabazon O’Carolan 1:27 12 The Flaggon Traditional (Scottish) 1:47 25 Separation of the Body and Soul O’Carolan 2:53 13 The Stool of Repentance Traditional (Scottish) 1:21 26 The Butterfly Traditional (Irish) 2:32 total time 55:59 2 There are Celtic Music specialty There are differences grand and for fallen Scotsmen in countless wide. To this we might add the radio shows and on-demand small, subtle and great. Distinct wars to this very day. Music was incalculable offerings to arts and audio channels. Celtic Music CDs nations with different histories inspired by all of these. industry from the Enlightenment are sold in health food and yoga will evolve different artistic era, and in the Great Man theory But even if you consider threats stores. We know it when we hear natures, and this is played out in of history, Robert Burns. to an unbroken history of it. Right? a joyful noise in our Celtic lands. independence with Malcolm Burns did not invent the Romantic So, what is it? There’s a loose Ronn McFarlane’s heritage and recognizing Cnut as King in era (let’s give Goethe the nod definition (or maybe tacit lifelong interest in Scottish music the 10th century, or the Anglo- for formulating the premise of agreement) that Celtic Music is allows us to walk first (as Neil Norman reforms of the so-called it all), and Macpherson with found in those European cultures Munro put it) “song-haunted over Davidian Revolution of the 12th the Ossian epics and Sir Walter where the Celtic tribes invaded. the Moors.” century, or the short time under Scott’s hugely popular romances Aside from Ireland and Scotland, Cromwell—Scotland holds spread the desire to see this land We think of Scotland so Wales qualifies, as does Brittany, a people of “unconquerable across Europe. But for collecting often through the battles the Galician part of Spain, the will” and a fiery free spirit—we and adding to the song heritage that reinforced or threatened Isle of Man. If we focus just on need only recall the 2016 of his native land, Bobby Burns independence: William Wallace the Gaelic language group and vote concerning Great Britain is our hero. Aside from his own and Robert the Bruce, the Wars fine tune it to just Scotland and separating from the European publishing (and embellishing) of of Independence, the losses at Ireland, we really know what we Union. songs of his native land, he gave Flodden Fields, the noble cause are hearing, right? many to the publisher George when Bonnie Prince Charlie and Did the fierce Scots will and Thomson, who then commis- Do we? While there is plentiful his allies were finally defeated at escape from domination allow sioned performing editions from cross-pollination between these Culloden, the terrible driving of for the greater preservation of Haydn and Beethoven. Scottish two nations and an ancient peoples from the Highlands with distinctive music in Scotland? music thus entered the drawing shared heritage, they are not the The Clearances that followed. One can argue yes, and between rooms of Europe. same place, and their music is There were internecine battles Culloden with the dispersed not a single common recipe using galore—Harlaw being a perfect Jacobites and those who fled the In a short time every poet and slightly different ingredients. Irish example (more of which anon)— Clearances, Scotland, its people composer made the journey to stew is not haggis. and the Solitary Piper played and its music, spread far and Fingal’s Cave and Ben Nevis, 3 and we went from Dr. Johnson’s The great Scottish fiddler Bonnie on 80 years, gifting the world “I’ve always loved this music. famous tour of Scotland , where Rideout suggests that the more with scores of dances and songs In the early 1980’s I began he was typically irritated by percussive speech pattern of we still sing and play. This is Ronn performing and recording “rude speech of a barbarous Scottish Gaelic may inform the McFarlane’s world, and he lives Scottish music, since there people, who had few thoughts music; she will play a tune that in it well. is a written repertory of to express, and were content, is both in Scottish and Irish Scottish tunes written out Being Irish, as Oscar Wilde put it as they conceived grossly, to be manuscripts and illustrate the for the lute in a number of with appropriate dryness, is quite grossly understood,” to Dorothy difference that the Scottish manuscripts dating from the another thing. About the tragic Wordsworth’s rapture upon first “snappiness” imparts. 17th century. But alas, there history of Ireland, the centuries of seeing the mountain pass at is no repertory of Irish lute Bonnie also created the recording repression and despair, the failed Glencoe: ““I cannot attempt to music. Yet there is an obvious that looked into the history of a rebellions and the unimaginable describe the mountains. I can sympathy between the music terrible summer’s day in 1411 sorrow of the Great Famine, one only say that I thought those…. of Ireland and Scotland, so I when cousins fought until the may study and one may know, were the grandest I had ever undertook to make arrange- fields ran red with blood near but never comes to grips with. seen.” ments of some of my favorite the royal town of Inverurie. This That the humor, fey sensibility, Irish and Scottish tunes So, Scottish music is often was the cruel Battle of Harlaw. and unvarnished joy of the Irish that had never quite made described as characterized by With the historian (and author people and their art is what we it into the historical lute the things you can imitate: the of “Scotland’s Music”) John take to heart, is one of the great repertory. (An oversight, I’m Scotch snap (short accented Purser, you can trace how the miracles of world civilization. sure.) note followed by a longer note); accrued musical memory of half a The sorrowful epic of Ireland may the five-tone pentatonic scale millennium is alive in the Scottish The harp music of Turlough help explain why so few sources (think Ancient Greece, most soul. Ronn has made his own lute O’Carolan often fits the lute of early Irish music survive, world folk music; fun test from transcription of the Harlaw Battle amazingly well; and the but sheds great light to those music school: how far can you song for this recording. traditional Scottish and Irish collectors who persevered and sing “Loch Lomond” before you dance music can also be a The rest of the Scottish tunes those amazing tunes we have. leave the pentatonic scale?); the good fit, though one needs to come from the Perthshire fiddler Why Irish music at this stage in laments, the dances, and ever choose the tunes with care. Neil Gow, born in 1727 and living Ronn’s life?: and always, the pipes. The arrangements of Scottish 4 5 music found in the Balcarres thousands of dances and songs Lute Book (compiled around back into the households filled 1700) make a great example with the Irish and Irish-at-heart. of how to arrange popular I don’t think we can summarize melodies and dances for the any differences between the lute. I used that as my model music of these two lands by when I started out on this citing the old fiddlers who project.” claimed “Irish music is Scottish The first Irish model comes to music with the corsets off!” But us from the brilliant blind harper it is all surely music of the heart of County Meath, Turlough and soul. Perhaps William Butler O’Carolan (1670-1738). Traveling Yeats should have the last word. the land, writing “planxtys” for He observed about the Celts that his genial hosts, he left a body of “everyone is a visionary, if you more than 200 works in his rich scratch him deep enough. But career. Since the Irish-revivalist the Celt, unlike any other, is a Seán Ó Riada with his Ceoltóirí visionary without scratching.” Chualann ensemble first recorded —Robert Aubry Davis O’Carolan in the 1960s, hundreds of recordings have followed. The second source is from the County Cork-born Chicago cop and eventually Police Captain (!) Francis O’Neill. A musician at heart, he began publishing Irish tunes and dance music in the early 1900s, bringing many 6 RONN McFARLANE GRAMMY-nominated lutenist, with music and taught himself Ronn McFarlane brings the lute— to play on a “cranky sixteen- the most popular instrument of dollar steel string guitar.” Ronn the Renaissance—into today’s kept at it, playing blues and musical mainstream, making it rock music on the electric guitar accessible to a wider audience.

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