Today in St Andrews I played the second in this summer’s season of medieval harp concerts. I chose to play the traditional piobaireachd, Cogadh no sith (war or peace), re-imagined as a medieval ceremonial march for the Lords of the Isles.
I filmed the concert, so you can listen to the 32 minute performance.
Loads of people arrived at the last minute, so we had to get a lot more chairs out, which is why I’m a little unsettled at the beginning. The doubling of the ground especially is a bit wobbly. But the variations settled down nicely.
I played the six medieval harp-style no problem, and then switched low to start the pibroch-style variations. Just yesterday I remembered an old idea to do the two contrasting low variations, and then I added in a new low variation based on a variation in a different pibroch, Cath nan Eun.
Something I often forget to do is to vary the pseudo-note in the Taorluth variation, but I remembered today.
I was very stressed towards the end. But I think it went well.
Super sound quality on the video! I really enjoyed listening to your variation set.