Narrative Song Rhythm in the Lays of Fionn mac Cumhaill: Performance Practices and Insights into Medieval Gaelic Heroic Song By Andreas Hirt An Honours Thesis Submitted to the Department of Celtic Studies Spring 2008 In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts Saint Francis Xavier University Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada © Copyright Andreas Hirt, 2008. 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The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. this thesis. Neither the thesis Ni la these ni des extraits substantiels de nor substantial extracts from it celle-ci ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement may be printed or otherwise reproduits sans son autorisation. reproduced without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne Privacy Act some supporting sur la protection de la vie privee, forms may have been removed quelques formulaires secondaires from this thesis. ont ete enleves de cette these. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires in the document page count, aient inclus dans la pagination, their removal does not represent il n'y aura aucun contenu manquant. any loss of content from the thesis. Canada ii Abstract Hirt, Andreas. M.A.: Celtic Studies. Saint Francis Xavier University. May, 2008. Narrative Song Rhythm in the Lays of Fionn mac Cumhaill: Performance Practices and Insights into Medieval Gaelic Heroic Song. Major Professor: Michael Linkletter, Ph.D. Narrative singing is all but nonexistant. With the rise of instruments in the sixteenth century, repetitive rhythmic groupings of three or four became the standard for musical expression. The common rhythm of narrative speech became overwhelmed and forced to alter to fit this exaggerated musical pattern. Today, narrative singing exists in ecclesiastical chant, recitativo secco, sean-nos Irish traditional singing, but most importantly, recordings of medieval Gaelic heroic song of the mythological hero, Fionn mac Cumhaill. Beginning with a survey of extant recordings of these lays, timing patterns of various languages including English, French, Italian, and Gaelic are investigated to better understand performance techniques and the nature of Gaelic poetry. This analysis also clarifies appropriate rhythmic compositional considerations whatever the language. By studying narrative vocal practices of this almost extirpated musical form, all modern musical styles and forms may be refreshed and invigorated. iii iv Preface I am indebted to a great number of people who helped me with this work; their wisdom and encouragement have resulted in this thesis. My principal thanks is owed to Dr. Michael Linkletter, professor at St. Francis Xavier University and thesis advisor, who tirelessly endured my confused presence for two years as I struggled with what I found was an incredibly vast and profound subject. I also owe a great debt of gratitude to all those who encouraged me and gave me such a love of music, language, and performance; In chronological order they are: Carmen Savoca and Peyton Hibbitt (voice teachers), Thomas Kremer (actor and director, student of Stella Adler), Catriona Niclomhair Parsons (Gaelic), Dr. Kenneth Nilsen (Gaelic), and Dr. James MacDonald (Gaelic). I am also indebted to Effie Rankin for indicating that three versions of "Catriona Nighean Dughaill" existed; she also was a fount of knowledge during my stay at Saint Francis Xavier University. These people shared a common characteristic: they allowed me to make my own mistakes. There is a wonderful expression in Italian, Chi non fa, non falla (He who does nothing makes no mistakes). If you want to learn, you have to understand that you will fail; it is a part of learning. I did a lot of learning; I failed often. The aforementioned mentors allowed me to make my own mistakes and forgave me my ignorance; their patience allowed me to come to a deeper understanding of the world. Thank you all so much. v vi Table of Contents List of Figures ix 1. Introduction 1 2. The Fenian Lay 5 2.1. Characters and Social Situation 6 2.2. Corpus of Lays 11 2.3. Dates of Composition 14 2.4. The Influence of Macpherson's The Poems ofOssian 18 3. Oral versus Literary Composition of Lays 23 3.1. The Written Genesis 26 3.2. The Oral Genesis: The Work of Parry and Lord 29 3.3. Literacy and Illiteracy Coexistence 33 4. How Gaelic Poetry was Created 41 4.1. The Gaelic Caste System 41 4.2. Composition Practices of the Filidh 43 5. Narrative Song Conventions 51 5.1. Performance Practices of the Baird 51 5.2. Musical Accompaniment 56 6. Metre in Fenian Lays 61 6.1. Basic Construction of Fenian Lays 61 6.2. Vernacular Changes to Fenian Lays 63 7. Rhythm of the Words: a Brief Survey of Languages in Europe 69 7.1. Syllable-Timing in the Classical Languages 71 7.2. Stress-Timing in Most Northern European Languages 75 7.3. Syllabic and Stress Confusion 79 7.4. Timing in the Gaelic Language 82 7.5. Annotating Poetry According to Attributes of Each Language 83 7.5.1. Classicist Method 83 vii 7.5.2. The Structuralist Method 84 7.5.3. The Generative Method 85 7.5.4. The Temporalist Method 85 7.5.5. Stress and Silent Stress 86 7.5.6. Blankenhorn's Method for Gaelic 90 7.6. Poetic Structure versus Performance 91 8. Rhythm in Music 93 8.1. The Hierarchy of Beats 93 8.2. Fitting the Gaelic Language into a Strong Rhythmic Pattern 96 8.2.1. Forcing Gaelic Poetry into the Hierarchy of Beats 98 8.3. Pitch Inflection in the Indo-European Languages 104 8.4. Church Chant Forms that Match Speech Patterns 105 9. Musical Propensities of which to be Careful 109 9.1. Mispronunciation of Words 109 9.2. The Propensity to Structure Music Ill 9.2.1. The Propensity to Add Notes Ill 9.2.2. The Propensity to Structure Rhythm 113 9.2.3. The Propensity to Rhythmically 'Flatten-Out' 114 9.2.4. The Propensity to 'Flatten-Out' Pitches 115 9.3. Vibrato Reduction 115 9.4. Lack of Rhythm in Fenian Lays 118 9.5. Transcribing Recordings of Gaelic Music 120 10. Conclusion 123 Appendix A (Laoidh Fhraoich) 127 Appendix B (MacFarlane's Lay Tunes) 129 Bibliography 133 viii List of Figures Figure 1: Laoi na Mna 53 Figure 2: King David Playing a Lyre 59 Figure 3: A Reproduction Lyre from Sutton Hoo 60 Figure 4: Timing of Stressed Syllables in an Average Sentence 76 Figure 5: Timing of Stressed Syllables with Added Non-stressed Syllables 76 Figure 6: Timing of Stressed Syllables with Removed Non-stressed Syllables 77 Figure 7: 'Hallelujah' from Handel's Messiah 94 Figure 8: Catriona Nighean Dubhghaill 102 Figure 9: Catriona Nigh 'n Dughaill 102 Figure 10: Catriona ni'n Dughaill 103 Figure 11: The Four Authentic Modes 107 ix X 1. Introduction Although at one time quite popular, narrative singing is all but extinct today. Culled from a once vast landscape of musical styles, narrative singing was a highly prised and important performance medium. This type of singing was characterized by solo, monophonic melodies. Pitches were pre-determined, but the rhythm of the words varied as speech naturally did. The subject of these songs overwhelmingly focused on heroic sagas in the Indo-European tradition. Such songs were created in the Early to Central Middle Ages. References made to such songs describe a remarkably similar set of performance practices. Confusion of authentic performance practices often originates from written records of societies where narrative singing has been extirpated by the unbending force of rhythmic dance music. Narrative singing does still exist in crippled forms through the performance of operatic recitativo secco and liturgical chant in Europe. One extant example of narrative singing can be seen in the heroic songs concerning the Gaelic mythological hero Fionn mac Cumhaill. These songs no longer exist within the living Gaelic tradition, but there are extant recordings made in the last fifty years that have preserved, though altered slightly, this unique narrative singing performance practice. These songs date from the ninth century C.E. but were coalesced thematically by the twelfth. While there were prose tales, many of these tales were put into verse and were sung. The lays of Fionn mac Cumhaill show a remarkable similarity to heroic 1 sagas from other European cultures in the narrative manner of their performance. The sung poems of Fionn mac Cumhaill, called lays, were fairly long in length, often consisting of over fifty verses of four lines per verse syllabic poetry.