Classical Flute in Trad Style

Irish Flute
1

just mildly curious as to what is available in recordings of , say , Bach compositions , played with trad rolls , cuts , etc. of flute pieces .
or has anyone here who would have played Classical , on flute , returned to that genre , and treated it with a trad approach .

i’m already aware of Queenie Ó’Shíba Goes to Galway , and the tunes played by Dordán , Swingl Single , and yer man , oh , whatsisname , ah , he doodles , like port a bhéal stuff , so ye can skip that lot , thank you

what brought this on , was reading recent contributions regarding change over to trad from classical , and those people keeping the two totally apart , as if it were a curse or whatnot .
trust me , it’s nothing to be ashamed of
also , i seem to remember hearing that Our Nige , ( Nigel Kennedy ) , who would have been known to enjoy a blasht of tunes , going on to record some classical , with the intention of bringing back , as it were , the original treatment of said rolls , crans etc. to that music .
but enough about fiddlers , whats out there on flute ?

really had nothing better to do , but write this , and am trying to avoid finishing painting the gable end , i mean who would notice it ? it’s not as if it’s on the high street ..
and as Sonja would say , shut up and play..

2

I’ve heard classical (or what has sounded like classical) pieces played by Irish fluters who played IrTrad ornamentation in them. I recall one on Matt Molloys Tears on Stone album. Lots of accidentals and a really classical feel, but played “the Irish way”. Sounded really nice.

I’ve never heard any of the well known classical pieces played this way. I suspect lots of people on the classical side of the spectrum would consider it tabu to play the pieces with these types of ornamentations. All the times when I’ve ventured into classical music in the past, I’ve found it to be steeped in snobbery about what was the right way to play it (even more so than in Irish traditional music :stuck_out_tongue: )

3

I’m nowhere near accomplished at Irish playing, but all the time I’ve put into it sure has infected what little classical playing I do anymore! I’ve noticed that the poor listeners at wedddings I play now get rather Irish-flavored versions of certain things … turns have taken on a distinctly roll-y feel, long notes are prone to cuts or slow rolls, etc. And hey. I mean, why have those big fat G’s at the beginning of the 1st mvt of Mozart’s Concerto for Flute & Harp if you’re not going to put some nice rolls on them (taste be d****ed :laughing:)?

As for other recordings, I don’t really know of any, alas. But IMO, “Arrival of the Queen etc…” was brilliant. (A group of us tried to play it that way from the orginal score once for a wedding many years ago, but alas, none of us really grokked what was supposed to be going on beyond the notes – and we were most definitely not De Danaan)

Me, I’d love to hear more stuff like that.

4

By odd coincidence I had Jerry O’Sullivan’s album ‘The Gift’ in the car CD player weekend. The last track is Bach’s something or other. It worked really well!

5

Oh, hey … that’s right! Thanks for the memory jog, Wormy! John Williams does some festive fantasia called “Percurious Pachelbel” or something like that on his “Steam” CD, and John Wynne takes a whack at it in something called “Pachelbel’s Frolics” on his “With Every Breath” recording.

But neither hold a candle to “The Queen of Sheba” in my book. I’ll have to check out the Jerry O’Sullivan.

6

That tune is basically a reworking of Pachelbel’s Canon into a reel. It’s also been recorded by Eileen Ivers and Martin Hayes, and probably others. John Williams’s titling of the tune seems to imply that Martin’s father, P.J. Hayes, had something to do with it, but I don’t know about that. (And BTW, hasn’t John Williams himself been known to dabble in classical music on the guitar, when he’s not busy playing Irish accordion and concertina or writing the score to the next Star Wars film?)

As for classical-to-trad crossover, consider that O’Carolan’s tunes are mainly Baroque pieces (which would make them pre-Classical, wouldn’t it?) that are typically played by trad musicians. Now that I think of it, Brendan Mulvihill (fiddle) and Donna Long (piano/harpsichord) used to do a great job of much of the O’Carolan repertoire when they played together years ago. Their recording The Morning Dew, which was once on Green Linnet, may now be available again on Compass now that they’ve bought the CD rights to the GL catalog. (And from press reports I’ve read about that deal, you might even be able to get Brendan and Donna playing some O’Carolan as your ring tone. Talk about crossover…)

7

thanks for that .
perhaps iv’e headed this question wrongly , but i’m not really looking for tradified classical pieces , but something more in the line of classical flute/fiddle which would be played as they were probably meant to played .

for instance , in trad , the ornamentation is left up the the player and as often as not , it is obvious to the player what and where to apply those ornaments.
they are not usually written into the tune .

unlike most classical pieces ,where every turn , appoggiatura , trill ,is wriiten in ,and the music has become , so to speak , stylised .
if we could go back , Cathy, to an evening with Johann and the lads , and of course , Anna Magdalena ,i’m sure you would fit in quite easily .

i realise this is a discussion forum for irish trad flute players , but quite a number of you here seem to be have been , or are , in anothere closet , “classical players” .

and by the way Master Henke , if you think snobbery is only found in the classical world , then you haven’t been to the trad scene in this country . where it is a fine honed art form .
but , enough about me ,

oh , and by the way , iv’e finished one gable end , but rain stopped play . now if i can just find some way of getting masonry paint out of the embouchure hole ..

8

Carolan was definitely an interesting harper / composer. Carolan’s Concerto (which goes by other names I can’t remember) has very distinctive classical elements, but at the same time is very Irish.

other than that I don’t know so much about classical music played traditionally. there’s some interesting crossover compositions though. Sean O Riada’s film score to Mise Eire and Phil Cunningham’s Highlands and Islands Suite come to mind. (I really really want a recording of the last one but there isn’t one out as far as I know :frowning: )

cheers,
Sara

9

:laughing:!

Have you tried a mordent? That’s what all the classical painters use.

Hmmm. How about some of the more faithful (read “slavish”) early-ish music ensembles? I know lots of singing ensembles go back and reinterpret period-appropriately … I’ve not listened to much lately (I’m too busy trying to stuff my head with rigs and jeels) so am clueless as to ensemble names, but I wonder what lies in that area?

10

How about Concerto Caledonia with Chris Norman leading a Scottish chamber ensemble? You can listen to a nice sample of the tune “Thistle” on their website:

http://www.concal.org/cds.htm

It’s like the flip-side to the Caledonian Flute.

11

:astonished: Ewww!!! :astonished:

Cat said mordent on the Irish Flute Forum!!!

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:blush: I’m so ashamed. :blush:

At least I didn’t say mordant. That would probably have launched us into the political forum.

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[lisp]
oh, honey…I believe that we should celebrate the diversity.
[/lisp]

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There’s Charlie Lennon’s Dance of the Honeybees, but again, that’s a modern composition. I think what Jim’s talking about is recordings of people playing the hidebound classics music as traditional musicians might approach it, or have approached it even way back when.

Still, the only perfect example I can really come up with is what he already mentioned, Handel’s “Arrival of the Queen of Sheba (in Galway) as recorded by DeDanaan.”

Which is still FREAKING BRILLIANT.

Anyone know the story of that recording or arrangement?

15

Hugth …

16

perhaps you two should go get a room .

i’ll come along and watch , maybe play a bar or two of The Bolero ..

17

Hey, this is a family forum! Lisping and bolero
corrupt the youth.

Wait a minute…can I play bolero?
Stay tuned. Back presently.

18

Many years back (1980’s?) I was asked to give a little talk to the local early music society about the wooden flute. They mostly comprised recorder and keyboard players. I make the occasional 1-key baroque flute, but I don’t play it convincingly, so I was able to demonstrate one, but when it came to the end I used a medium holed Irish style flute to play a closing piece with my friend on the harpsichord. We had practiced up a suite by a French composer - can’t remember who - but I do remember it ended in a lovely gigue. After the item, all the players in the audience rushed up to see what wonderful new edition we were playing from - “such life, such verve” - only to be dissapointed to find it was the same regular edition they played from. I suddenly realised that we had played the gigue like a jig. Makes you wonder …

Wasn’t Pete Seegar a leader in snitching back cute classical pieces for folk instruments? I seem to remember hearing him play J.S. Bach’s “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” on the 5-string banjo as the “Jumping Jesus Jig”.

Terry

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Jumping Jesus Jig ? i’ll have that one . ( 1980 , ouch ! i just turned around to look at something , and hey , where’d the time go ?)
i’ll be playing at a Mass next Easter , and i look forward to sliding that one in at the “pleased to meet you” moment .

Jim , how’s the Bolero going ? could you maybe play it as a fling , for the dancers ?
i can see it being a good one for an English country dance , like The Miller’s ?

20

“Gigue” = “Jig” ???

Mere coincidence or entomological connection?

Debate.


:wink: