Just got the “110 best Carolan tunes” book. Was leafing it through and listening the CD recently, and decided to make some sort of a poll here
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Must-know Carolan tunes, AFAIK, are:
Carolan’s Welcome
Si Beag Si Mhor
Fanny Power
Planxty George Brabazon
Eleanor Plunkett
Planxty Irwin
Any others? I mean those which are (were, will be) played at every session and recorded on dozens of CDs, vinyls, tapes, etc.
2) Do you have any favorite, but less popular Carolan tunes? Could you share the names?
3) What other baroque and baroque-like music do you know and (would like to) play on your tinwhistle/flute? I know only Tabhair Dom Do Lámh (which is really well known), Crested Hens (is it baroque?) and this tune.
If you search Youtube on ‘He who would valiant be’
you will find a guitarist, AndyPandyWRight, playing
it. Check out all his videos, there are several baroque
tunes there.
Ya want Baroque?
I like to play a few Bach pieces on the whistle. The opening aria of the Goldberg Variations works beautifully on a D and isnt too hard to play. The Badinerie from the Orchestral Suite #2 is playable and terrific, but it requires some tricky half holing. It’s been given a Celtic workover by DeDannan as Bach’s Rambles-- if you alter the rhythm, it makes a smashing hornpipe
Not quite baroque, but a fantastic rendering of an unlikely tune on whistle is Beethoven’s Sonatina in G, played by Mary Bergin et al. on Jigs to the Moon by Dordan. In fact, going from your initial request, you could do worse than invest in the two Dordan CDs, Celtic Aire and the aforementioned Jigs to the Moon.
My favourites are Planxty Burke Carolan’s Quarrell with his Landlady
I suppose it’s being nitpicky, but he called himself Carolan, not O Carolan. (Actually, being that he was using Irish, he called himself Cearbhallan.) His friends and contemporaries called him Cearbhallan when writing in Irish and Carolan when writing in English.
I highly recommend the fantastic two-volume work Carolan: The Life, Times, and Music of an Irish Harper
By Donal O Sullivan.
The volumes contain all pieces known to be composed by Carolan and some which are attributed to him but whose authorship cannot be verified, as well as lots of biographical information.
It has his poems.
It has a chapter about Carolan’s skull. Did you know about that?
By the way, a guitarist I’ve played with quite a bit, who has a diverse musical background (having played bass in rock bands and jazz bands in the 60’s as well as tuba in orchestras in Europe and the USA) says about accompaniment: “You can’t fake Beatles, and you can’t fake Carolan!”
He is a huge Carolan fan, saying that Carolan is unique in music, not really like other Irish music and not really like Baroque music.
I like “Ode to Whiskey”. Played not too fast, it has a nice lilt.
Also, a little later than Baroque, but “Michael Turner’s Waltz” is a tune that is quite popular in English sessions and is based on the trio from “German Dance No. 2” by Mozart.
I like to play the opening theme from Mozart’s Piano Sonata no 11 on my flute. I play it in G rather than the original A and sounds lovely on the wooden flute. I suspect it would also work well on a low D whistle.
