CD - "Pure Piping"

Track notes for Pure Piping CCF33CD.

1. Top of The Cork Road / Yellow John / Planxty Charles O’Connor.

Published in P.W. Joyce’s Ancient Irish Music (Dublin 1873), this first jig is now more commonly known as Father O’Flynn after the Alfred Percival Graves song of the same title. Leo associates this version with the playing of Leo Rowsome. The second item would appear to be a tune of some antiquity, having been published in various collections with titles such as The Pot Stick,. The Shamboy and more commonly Sean Bui. Aloys Fleischmann maintained that the yellow of the title is a reference to the followers of King William III. Capt. Francis O’Neill published it in two settings in O’Neill’s music of Ireland (Chicago 1903) and it is the first that Leo gives us here.

Curiously O’Neill includes the tune in his section ‘Marches and Miscellaneous’, suggesting that it wasn’t played in jig-time but perhaps at a more temperate pace in deference to it’s ancient lineage.

The selection ends with a piece by the blind itinerant harper Turlough O’Carolan (1670-1738) composed in honour of the eldest son of Denis and Mary O’Connor of Belenagare, Co. Roscommon. The O’Connors were principal patrons of Carolan and as a young man Charles made written accounts of his tuition on the harp by Carolan.

2. Ace and Deuce of Piping / Job of Journeywork.

Long considered a test piece for any piper of worth, the Ace and Deuce falls surprisingly well on the chanter. It’s attributes as the mark of a piper’s ability may well reside in the opportunity it affords to colour the melody with cuts , pops, tips, rolls, slides, backstitching and staccato triplets, all standard piping devices. Strangely for a piece of such reputation, it makes no use of the most distinctive sound on the chanter, the cran, as at no point does the melody descend to the bottom D.

The second set-dance refers in it’s title to the long period following apprenticeship when craftsmen must fashion their skill over years of laborious toil before becoming recognised masters of their art. In this the title serves as a fitting signpost for the task facing aspiring musicians. Leo gives us a spirited performance reminiscent in it’s flowing legato sections of the piping of the legendary travelling musician Johnny Doran.

3. Garret Barry’s / The Lark in the Morning.

The first jig comes from the blind piper Garrett Barry from Inagh, Co.Clare, through the piping of Willie Clancy, whose father Gilbert, although not a piper himself , struck up a lasting friendship with Barry. Through this intimate knowledge of Barry’s music he passed on many of the old settings of popular tunes to Willie. The second jig likewise comes from Willie’s repertoire , this time the source being his mother Ellen, but it seems to have had a much wider circulation countrywide as can be attested to by it’s numerous inclusion in O’Neill’s Music of Ireland. It is a perennial favourite of pipers.

4. Wexford Hornpipe / The High Level.

This first tune comes from Leo Rowsome who published it in his Tutor for the Uilleann Pipes (Dublin 1936).Rowsome was probably the most important figure in uilleann piping in the 20th century. He excelled not only as a player, recording artist and teacher of the pipes, but also as an expert pipe-maker. His Grandfather the piper Samuel Rowsome, came from Co. Wexford. The second hornpipe in it’s original form is a two-part composition of the mid 19th century fiddler James Hill. It was originally titled The High Level Bridge after it’s namesake which was built to connect Newcastle and Gateshead, and was so called because it was built at a higher level than the Old Tyne Bridge. The tune was popularised by fiddler Sean Maguire but has become a staple of the modern piping canon.5. Flax in Bloom / Pinch of Snuff / Corney is Coming.
O’Neill credits his musical scribe James O’Neill as the source for this tune.

However it is unclear whether it came directly from James’s fiddle-playing or from one of the many manuscripts held in his father’s collection. The version of the Pinch of Snuff which follows comes from the playing of Seamus Ennis who in1953 recorded a unique performance of the tune from the Donegal fiddler Frank Cassidy while working as a collector for the BBC. In Donegal the reel has more parts but here Leo follows the convention set by Ennis in one of his two versions of the tune and plays it as a two-part reel. Brendan Breathnach ascribes no less than seventeen names to the third item in Leo’s selection. Among the more unusual are Knit the Pocky, The Merry Bits of Timber and Cheese It.

6. Carolan’s Concerto/ Planxty Davis.

Also titled Mrs. Poer or Power, this first piece appears to have been composed by Carolan in honour of the wife of David Power of Cooheen, Co. Galway, formerly a Miss Elizabeth Keating. However it’s composition in the popular imagination goes back to a meeting between Carolan and a celebrated musician, who is sometimes said to be Geminiani. The meeting took place in the house of an Irish nobleman where Carolan is supposed to have composed the concerto extempore in reaction to the Lord’s low opinion of his ability. A version of Planxty Davis appears in James Goodman’s Tunes of the Munster pipers (Dublin1998,ed. Hugh Shields) in the guise of a reel titled Killiecrankie. The likely composer seems to have been one of Carolan’s predecessors, the harper Thomas Connellan.

7. Tatter Jack Welsh /Cook in the Kitchen /Donnybrook Fair.

A selection here of three stalwart jigs equally popular on al the instruments of Irish Traditional music. This popularity may be due in part to the fact that all three were recorded extensively during the early years of commercial sound recording. These recordings certainly impacted on musicians at home and abroad , helping to establish their content as essential must-have items in any musicians repertoire.

8. Morgan Magan.

Donal O’Sullivan in Carolan, The Life, Times, and Music of an Irish Harper (London1958) tells us that this piece was composed in honour of Morgan magan of Togherstown, Co. Westmeath, the younger son of Morgan Magan of Cloney. A favourite among contemporary interpreters of Carolan on guitar and harp, it has rarely been adapted for the pipes.

9. Sliabh na mBan.

This beautiful air comes from one of the great Munster songs commemorating an abortive rising by a body of United Irishmen on the slopes of Slia na mBan near Clonmel, Co.Tipperary, in 1798. The poorly armed rebels were routed by General Sir Charles Asgill and dispersed in disarray.

10. Tailor’s Twist / The Fairies’ Hornpipe.

Francis Roche, the Limerick fiddler, dancer and collector, that includes this first hornpipe in his Collection of Irish Airs, Marches and dance Tunes (Dublin,Cork, Limerick 1912). Although never replacing O’Neill’s Dance Music of Ireland in popularity, it nevertheless achieved wide circulation and certainly preserved tunes and tune settings that would have otherwise been lost.Roche began the task of assembling his work in 1891, drawing from both manuscript and oral sources. However, as much of this manuscript material appears to have been destroyed, we have no ides of his source for the tune. Seamus Ennis relates a story about the second piece: A man returning home from a spree through the fields one night finds himself continually coming upon the same spot. Realising he is under a seachran si or fairy straying , he has to turn his jacket inside out and put it back on in this fashion to break the spell. Thus armed, he soon finds his way home where, a long field’s distance from the house, he comes across the fairies dancing to the strains of a piper. He dutifully falls asleep only to awake in broad daylight with all evidence of the assembly gone, bar the notes of The Fairies’ Hornpipe ringing in his ears.

11. Fead an Iolair / The Fairy Revels.

Too often the simpler melodies and rhythms of marches are overlooked in favour of the pace and complexity of reels. Here Leo demonstrates why these older tunes were often favoured by the greats of piping. Delivering a full-blown account of each with regulators brashly ringing out, Leo’s playing is reminiscent of the late Leo Rowsome. The first tune’s title translates as The Eagle’s Whistle. P.W. Joyce in Ancient Irish Music (Dublin 1901) says he took it down from the whistling of James Quain and Micheal Dinneen, both of Coolfree. It was the marching tune of the O’Donovan family, ancient chiefs of the territory of Hy Fidhgheinte, a district to the west of the river Maigue in Co. Limerick. The Fairy Revels is a song air, originally set to march time by Leo Rowsome.

Track notes were written By Glen Cumiskey, of The Irish Traditional Music Archive , Merrion Square , Dublin.