Hi,
Does anyone know if there are any recordings of the Piano transcriptions Edward Bunting did of harp music in “The Ancient Music of Ireland”? And if so, where those recordings can be found? I’m really curious to actually hear these. I have the books, but I’m an extremely mediocre piano player at best, and that stuff is way beyond me. The only other solution I can think of is to hire a piano player to play them.
Hi Hummingbird—
I looked quite hard and I could not find any piano recordings of the pieces you’re talking about. That does’t mean they don’t exist. But I guess since they were originally taken from harp players, that is how they are being performed now for the most part. I came across a few different instrument combinations, but just not a thing on the piano. I only came across one CD (by the Chieftains from 1993—can’t remember title, something with the word “Harp” in it—you can listen to clips at Amazon.com) that was dedicated to pieces from this book. Most other examples I came across had pieces from a number of sources, Bunting being one of them.
I am not familiar with the music. I don’t know if a pianist could play them exactly as written and get the right feeling to them or not. Although presumably that is what people did at one time—say in the 19th c. It seemed, as I looked around the Internet, that there was quite a bit of discussion about these pieces and how they should be played—although the discussions pertained to the harp.
My own feeling would be that it would be best to find harp recordings made by people who are very interested in trying to play as much as possible like the original harp players did. Just my opinion. 
I wouldn’t bother to report such negative results, but I didn’t want you to think no one was interested!
Hi Cynth,
Thanks for replying, and looking, even if nothing was found. I do appreciate it Ironically, part of why I’m looking for piano recordings is because I think most harpers play a style that’s way too “pianistic”. So I’d rather hear the actual piano transcriptions from the time, rather than an anachronistic modern interpretation/imitation. And there’s actually some fairly interesting and unique things in Bunting, if you look closely. Oh well, I’ll see if I can find a symapthetic piano player and make my own “garage tape”.
thanks again!
You know, if you have any relationship with a university library or music library, a reference librarian might be able to help you see if any recordings have ever been made. In fact, you could probably just walk in off the street and they would do a search for you I bet. Then if there were, possibly you could get them at that library or through inter-library loan. The kind of searching I did was not any sort of professional thing. Those reference librarians know amazing things.
I have not listened to any harp playing at all I must say. But your reason for wanting to hear the actual piano music is very interesting. It’s even possible that a reference librarian could find some scholarly work on Bunting’s transcriptions that might be of interest to you. Good luck and I enjoyed my hunt, so you are very welcome.
The Chieftain’s CD was entitled “The Celtic Harp”
Excellent CD, I definitely reccomend it if you like harp music, plus there are some great solos from the Chieftains.
There are many harp albums that may quote Bunting as a source, but if you go to the library looking for piano references and Bunting you are more likely to pull up a lot of references to traditionalists cursing Bunting for not keeping the original harping styles in his published works, but instead rewriting and rearragning them for the new instrument of the times, the piano forte. Bunting aimed his collections at the people who would actually pay money for his collections, the English drawingroom set, and these were not harp players.
I don’t know of any recordings of piano players performing Bunting as written, or at all. You may do better just to sit down and work out the tunes yourself.
djm