I have a nice tune book, “Irelands’s Best TIN WHISTLE TUNES”, that has some great flute stuff I like to play. The book identifies each tune as Reel, Jig, Hornpipe, etc., until it comes to a Carolan tune. It then says, “Carolan” in the same spot the others say “jig”, etc.
What am I missing here? I’m not sure I know what it means or what category to put “Carolan” into.
H E L P ! ! !
BillG
I’m sure that many can speak in a more informed way than I, but it has been my impression that O’Carolan is considered a ‘composer’, and that his pieces are more ‘compositions’ than traditional tunes that fit neatly into a standard classification. Other comments?
I think I understand what Bill is saying: ‘Carolan’ is often thrown in where the style notation should be, as if Carolans are all played roughly* the same. Misleading. I’m under the impression that, while some O’Carolan tunes fall into the usual styles, others are more variable. Let the aural tradition be our guide!
* By ‘roughly’, I mean like the broad divisions of dances, jig, reel, hornpipe…except for slower reels that get swung a bit and sound like hornpipes, polkas that sound like reels, and reels that work better as marches… I get so confused…
Carolan pieces are a bit of an ‘oddity’ in the Irish tradition in that they draw more on chamber and drawing room type music as opposed to the jigs and reels etc., dance tunes for the underclasses. That said, many are beautiful and elegant, I think. Chief difference between Carolan pieces and other slow airs is that the Carolan music is usually played to a regular rhythm i.e. you can tap your foot to keep time in them. Whereas most other trad. airs are interpretaions of song stories.
A good number of them are waltzes, not all, however.
Great site and super reading. I learned alot about Carolan and his music style. The page also gives what looks like all of his tunes. I was going to look for a place that had them together as I love his music. Thanx for posting it.l
BillG
I think O’Carolan’s compositions aren’t intended to be dance tunes the same way that other trad. tunes are, even though they may be in 4/4 or 6/8 or whatever. You might think of them as being more intended for performance than for dancing to, even though you can certainly play many of them like they were a reel or a jig.
They often work well if played like court-dances. The graceful French suite forms seem to translate well, without sounding like folk-dances. O’Carolan’s Concerto seems to work well with the lightness of chamber style, and both early-classical and ITM ornaments fit. I’m tossing around the idea of putting up some clips of, say, Hewlett, done ITM (as best as my meager abilties allow) and chamber style (which I’m a bit more familiar with the performance practice, ie: ornaments).
Which other O’Carolans cross that gap well? Inchiquin?
All tunes are composed so I don’t know if that separates Carolan from the rest of the crowd. Carolan did compose a body of tunes or pieces (you’ll hear them described that way most often) that straddles traditional Irish dance music and the music of Europe (Italy). They have been embraced by traditional players as a nice change of pace - a way to elevate the evening/proceedings, so to speak, but then it’s back to the main diet of jigs, reels and hornpipes.
And polkas…can’t forget the polkas!
–James
Harper Tarlach O’Carolan authored some 300 pieces of music often with words, of many different types, during what were to be the formative years of what we now recognize as Irish trad.
His lifetime (1670-1738) witnessed a major transition in Irish culture, where the old formal types of music and poetry practiced by the harpers was giving away to newer styles of continental music. The ancient social structure of the Irish society that supported these older arts had been destroyed and dancing had become a new pastime of the common people.
Despite being a poor, blind, Gaelic speaking Catholic during a time when merely educating a Catholic was illegal, Tarlach succeeded and was beloved by both native Irish and Protestant ascendancy alike.
One the musical transition of times in O’Carolan’s pieces. While Tarlach loved the new Baroque style music of the ascendancy, particularly that of the Italian composers like Correlli, he still had a strong grounding in the older Irish styles; the result was an interesting fusion of both. In some ways we could regard him as the first modern singer/songwriter!!
Carolan wrote Jigs, Branles, Minutes and other tunes in the style of the Europeans as well as Laments, Marches and “praise pieces” (Planxties) for his patrons in the older Gaelic style, wealth and poor alike.
These pieces are not anomalies nor such they be regarded as separate from what we now consider as being “traditional music”. In fact they reflect some of beautiful varieties the older traditions of Ireland and most of his tunes were passed down orally by harper, pipers, and other such “traditional” musicians and only later were printed.
His surviving music shines brightest when not played like dead museum pieces. Too often early Irish music is presented in a stuffy, buttoned down style that its authors would have likely found alien. O’Carolan was known to be very lively, jovial person of a strong mind and will and this is plain to hear in his great music. Bear in mind that this was music regarded as radical and sensually in it’s day!
Chad
Well put, although I think it goes both ways. I think Chris Norman’s rendition of the Fairy Queen is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard. It’s notated Andante, or walking rhythm. Chris plays it at a nice, comfortable flowing pace. I have a couple of other versions, one by Andrew King and the Harp Consort, I think the other’s by Patrick Ball, and both played like funeral dirges. The one only plays the first three of the five parts, and the other only plays the five through once. And they both take at least as long as Chris’s version, which is five parts played through twice with the first played again. OTOH, there’s Hugh O’Donnell and Carolan’s Concerto, which sometimes really seem to be played as gee-whiz, see how fast I can play pieces.
I think, other than the laments (some of which are not intended to be slow pieces at all), most of his music is intended to flow – not grandiose, not super fast, but played in a way that shows off the melody and the overall structure of the music.
BTW, there was another composer, possibly a couple of decades younger than Carolan, (Giaccomo Baldini?) who also somewhat bridged the gap between chamber music and folk music. He approached it from the other POV – he was Italian and a composer of Baroque music before moving to Scotland and discovering the rich folk tradition there (as well as Carolan’s music).
There were other harpists around then, yes? I remember
one of them (Cornelius?) and one piece by him, magnificent,
which is all we have left. There must have been a good
deal of brilliant harp music in Ireland around then.
Is anybody aware of more of it? O’Carolyn is
the only such composer I see covered.
Obviously gorgeous, quasi-classical pieces that
can be played on an Irish harp are very attractive
for the Irish flute.
I think Chris Norman’s rendition of the Fairy Queen is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard
There is no doubt that some of the older tunes were played at slower tempos, but there is a huge difference in affect and content between the playing of say Matt Malloy playing a slow air and James Galway playing the same thing.
Most of the stuff I’ve heard Chris Norman do has been very “tastefully spirited” and here again, Chris is first and foremost a traditional player doing classical rather than the other way around. The Baltimore Consort has done some nice albums of Irish and Scots early music; my only complaint is the absence of the Gaelic harp and Warpipes, the two most important instruments of Gaelic society at the time.
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I have a couple of other versions, one by Andrew King and the Harp Consort, I think the other’s by Patrick Ball, and both played like funeral dirges.
Andrew Lawrence King is a grand musician and a great interrupter of Renaissance and Baroque music on old style European harps, but his playing of the wire strung Gaelic harp seems somewhat strained. He tried to work from printed sources from Carolan’s time and just after; the trouble with this is those printed sources were arrangements for keyboard instruments (harpsichord or piano) and features things impossible or impractical on the old harps without massive reworking.
Patrick Ball’s playing, while a bit flowery is much close to a “traditional” in approach as we’d understand it and much more convincing as a result.
However, If you really want to have a glimpse of what Gaelic harping sounded like in the old days, find the recordings of Ann Heymann, especially " Queen of Harps" or “Heman Dubh”. Fairy Queen isn’t on either of these recordings, but other O’ Carolan tunes are. Her playing is simply amazing and these old tunes leap to life in her hands.
BTW, there was another composer, possibly a couple of decades younger than Carolan, (Giaccomo Baldini?) who also somewhat bridged the gap between chamber music and folk music
There were many such composers in Scotland and Ireland at the time and just after, some native born, others from Europe. Handel premiered “Messiah” in Dublin to wild praise, Geminiani worked in both England and Ireland for a time. For a time Scottish and Irish tunes were popular in Europe, reset by the likes of Haydn and Beethoven.
Bear in mind that the hard lines between popular and high art music were rather more blurry in those days than now. What was an Opera aria one week was reset as a dissent hymn to vino the next! Or vise versa. The tune to “The Star Spangled Banner” was originally used in a drinking song!
One could really get lost in this site. Good thing I left the whistle home…
Thanks for the suggestion! I’ve heard and enjoyed quite a bit of Andrew King’s playing – I’m amazed at his versatility. O’Carolan on a wire-strung harp and Handel on a pedal harp.
I’ve heard King’s Handel recordings and he plays not the pedal harp but the baroque triple harp, the “classical” harp that was used before the invention of the pedals. It was similar in size to the modern pedal harp has three rows of strings(!!) arranged in a stepped fashion making the instrument fully chromatic. His wire harp playing is rather palid compared to his tasty playing of other styles of old harps. His albums of Spainish music are highly recommended.
The Welsh picked up on this type of harp in the 17th century and it has been their national instrument since. Robin Huw Bowen is the probably the greatest living exponent of the Welsh triple harp and he is well worth a listen.
For wire harp playing do check out Ann Heymann. Also Siobhan Armstrong of Ireland and Alisson Kinnard of Scotland have some wire harp on their albums that is very nice.
