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Port na bPúcaí

Irish piper Ronan Browne played at the three HHSI concerts, in Kilkenny, Galway and Dublin last week. One of the tunes he played on his more modern set of pipes was Port na bPúcaí, a most amazing slow air. I already knew that Ronan did a lot of work with archive recordings, and he mentioned that this tune was transmitted via a single archive recording, a fiddle performance by Seán Cheaist Ó Catháin which was released on a CD, Beauty an Oileáin: Music and Songs of the Blasket Islands (Claddagh CC56CD, 1992).

Seán Cheaist’s performance is very interesting and beautiful and I have spent today learning to play it on the fiddle. It has an interesting structure, with repeating phrases having “open” or “closed” endings – you could indicate it as A1 A2 B1 B2 B1 A2 – meaning that the second half is twice as long as the first. The 7th note of the scale is deliciously ambiguous – it tends towards either the flat or sharp 7th at different points of the tune, but never quite gets to either.

Ceòl mór at the cathedral ruins

The Priors House was packed out for today’s cathedral concert. I was apprehensive about presenting a concert of music from my new CD; these grand epic compositions take about 10 minutes to unfold which means that in a half hour concert there’s time for just two. I always wonder if people will just switch off when faced with such a huge wall of music, but once again I was pleasantly surprised by how engaged with this music people were.

My theme for today was “Ranald and the ghost” and I told the story of the Colainn gun Cheann, and the epic battle on the road at midnight between Ranald and the spectre, and I finished the story with the little song that the ghost sings as it fled. Perhaps this kind of all-engrossing narrative with its strong personalities and unexpected plot twists is what keeps the subsequent 10-minute pibroch relevant and engaging. (having told them that the variations are describing the story in music, perhaps there is more pressure on me to draw those different emotive and dynamic aspects out of each variation).

Either way, both of today’s tunes were very well received and people left well satisfied. It’s only a shame that, due to funding cuts, there were only two cathedral concerts this year. I’m hoping that we’ll be able to continue working with Historic Scotland next year on another series of cathedral harp music.

The Headless Ghost

I got a call from the local paper today. They had picked up on my forthcoming concert in the cathedral ruins on Thursday 1st August, where the title of the event is “Colainn gun Cheann – Ranald and the Ghost”, and the programme will include spooky and supernatural tales of the headless body and other otherworldly beings.

The journalist wanted to know, would there be any unusual photo-opportunities? I explained that it would be myself, wearing a suit, playing the harp in the cathedral ruins, just like normal, and they seemed disappointed. But this got me thinking, what were they expecting? What kind of manifestation might be appropriate without being utterly tacky? Suggestions please.

At the Cathedral yesterday

Here’s a photo taken by an attendee at yesterday’s cathedral concert. People were, as usual, most intrigued by the bowed lyre. We had a full house, and the sun was shining. People came to the event from as far away as the west coast, and there was even a visitor from Bergen who appreciated the Norwegian connections in the programme!

Margaret 1281

On 4th July, I’ll be performing in the cathedral ruins in St Andrews, for the start of my summer series of medieval harp recitals.

Held in the atmospheric surroundings of the ruined cathedral, in the small and intimate vaulted medieval chamber of the Priors House, the concert features the beautiful decorated replica medieval clarsach of Mary, Queen of Scots. I’ll also play a set of tunes on the bowed-harp (bowed lyre, jouhikko, gue)

The programme for July’s event tells the story of Margaret of Scotland, 1281: The story of Scotland and Norway, the Royal Wedding and the lead up to the Wars of Independence.

Using a selection of medieval music and traditional tunes from Scotland and from Scandinavia, the late 13th century history and politics will be dramatically brought to life, as the old ballad says: “The King sat in Dunfermline Toun, drinking of the blood red wine…”

There will be only two cathedral recitals for 2013, due to funding cuts at Historic Scotland. The first concert will be Thursday 4th July; the second will be Thursday 1st August. The events start at 12.45pm.

Date and time:
Thursday 4th July, starting at 12.45pm, finishing around 1.15pm.

Venue:
St Andrews Cathedral
St Andrews, Fife, Scotland
Admission Free
Please collect a ticket from the Visitor Centre: 01334 472563

More info about the summer series at St Andrews Cathedral:
http://www.simonchadwick.net/cathedral/

Future events with Simon Chadwick in St Andrews:

Monday 15th July, 2pm, at the Museum of the University of St Andrews:
An Tarbh – Ranald and the Bull. ‘Pibroch’ music for the harp, composed by one of the last of the old Scottish harpers about three hundred years ago.

Thursday 1st August, 12.45pm, at St Andrews Cathedral ruins:
Colainn gun Cheann – Ranald and the Ghost. Atmospheric harp music telling the stories of supernatural exploits from the 18th century Highlands.

Alison Kinnaird

Today I was pleased to be able to introduce Alison Kinnaird, who gave a lovely performance of old Scottish harp music at the Friends of Wighton’s Community Music Day in the Bonar Hall, Dundee. Alison talked and played for an hour to a very appreciative audience, using three different harps.

In this picture Alison is playing her copy of the Lamont harp made by Robert Evans, and you can also see her 1930s Briggs harp. She also had her Renaissance bray harp with her. As well as playing some representative tunes to illustrate the voice and traditions of each instrument, she sang a really super song – one of the big Scots ballads about the murderous sister.

Here’s a photo of my come and try earlier in the day:

Thanks to my glamourous tuning assistant on the right there!

strange brass rod

In the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, there is a little wooden box containing three brass or bronze tapered pins. The left and right hand ones are tuning-pins for early Irish harps, but the middle one is a mystery to me. It is labelled and described as a harp tuning pin but this is clearly rubbish – its tapered shaft is hexagonal and its wide end is in the form of a female bust with stubby crossed arms and bare breasts.

I really can’t think what this thing is!

I have looked at it on and off for about 10 years; I kept asking Hèléne La Rue if we could get it out and look at it but we never got round to it. But here’s my recent photo.

Mabel Dolmetsch recordings

I have digitised the first of the three sides I have of these old Dolmetsch transcription discs. I chose the “test” side to do first as I assumed it would be the least interesting.

Actually it turned out to be really fascinating. There are 5 tracks. The first starts with the voice of Arnold Dolmetsch himself, announcing his performance of Lord Salisbury’s Pavan on the Clavichord. At the end he laughs and says “hopeless!”

Then we have three tracks of Mabel playing the early Irish harp. Two of them are fragments of An Seann Triucha (the Old Trugh) – from Bunting’s Ancient Music of Ireland, 1809, p.6.

I do not recognise the third track. I wonder if it is some Welsh music from Robert ap Huw.

You can listen to these tracks here:
http://www.earlygaelicharp.info/Dolmetsch/

Drumcarrow

This morning I was up Drumcarrow Craig. There are great views of the whole of East Fife and beyond. I looked for the prehistoric hut circles marked on the OS map but I didn’t find them. However the ruins of the broch next to the trig point are very clear to see – must have been an impressive tower standing right on the highest point.