Carolan

Some sample tracks…

About Turlough O’Carolan

What biographical details we have of Carolan paint a romantic figure: the itinerant harper who, aided by guide and horse, would wander his native Ireland bestowing his conviviality and his music on wealthy benefactors, repaying their hospitality and financial favours by the dedication of his compositions. His status in the homes of the rich and powerful would undoubtedly have been as equal rather than servant. For the most part, a dedicated tune would simply bear the name of the benefactor as title, such pieces making up the bulk of his repertoire preserved today. Mrs Sterling, Katherine O’More and Lord Inchiquin are such examples.

To confuse matters, many ‘benefactor’ tunes have alternative titles. Carolan’s Devotion is also known as Miss Fetherston. It would seem, incidentally, that this was not devotion in the religious sense – far from it! Carolan reportedly skipped mass in order to compose a song for the young woman of, in his words, ‘great beauty and wit’. The lyrics were the only ones he ever wrote in English, his second language. Although the text has survived, it’s almost impossible to scan them to the melody, so it’s played here as an instrumental.

Sí Bheag Sí Mhór, translating as ‘The Big Fairy Hill and The Little Fairy Hill’, is reportedly Carolan’s very first composition, and remains one of his most popular. It commemorates an epic battle between two groups of fairies inhabiting ancient burial mounds in County Leitrim. Both mounds and fairies are still there, but only children can see the fairies.

The influence on Carolan of his native traditional music is evident, but it’s that of his Italian contemporaries, more schooled composers such as Geminiani and, in particular, Corelli, that lends a unique signature. Think of Carolan as a baroque ‘crossover’ artist. Arguably it’s this Italian influence that has distinguished his output from the huge mass of uncredited melodies within the Irish folk tradition, and has given longevity to his reputation. Carolan’s Concerto (not a concerto in the usual understanding of the word) bears the most pronounced Italianate influence. According to one source, it was written to impress the composer and violin virtuoso Geminiani on one of his many visits to Ireland.

The fog of history hangs over the origin of some tunes, and it would seem any notions of copyright, if they existed at all in 17th and 18th century Ireland, were more relaxed than today. Initially a musician rather than a musician/composer, Carolan saw no shame in borrowing from the folk tradition, nor indeed from the pen of contemporaries. Dolly MacDonough is a case in point, bearing strong similarities to an earlier tune thought to have been written by his predecessor Thomas Connellan. Carolan’s Dream was certainly appropriated by our man. It’s included here (in two different settings) on the basis that he was so enamoured of it that he openly admitted he wished he’d composed it himself, and played it constantly as one of his favourites. The original, entitled Molly McAlpin, was reportedly the work of Connellan; just a couple of notes distinguish the two. It could be that given Carolan’s lack of sight he was obliged to play by ear and the little
changes happened over time, but he also saw fit to change the title, implying his own authorship.

Yet Carolan gave as well as borrowed. His music remained almost exclusively in the aural tradition until it was cataloged and notated in the late 18th century, many years after his death. Anything so preserved will almost inevitably undergo the ‘folk process’, one of slow evolution. His second air to George Brabazon, for example, appears in 18th and 19th century collections of Scottish music under the title Isle of Sky, and stylistically has strong echoes of a Scottish pipe march; Princess Royal also appears uncredited in Scottish collections, and, intriguingly transposed to a major key, as an English Morris Dance tune. So while we may be certain that the vast majority of Carolan tunes are indeed from his pen, it is in many ways easier to think of his ‘repertoire’ than his ‘body of work’.

Although prolific as a songwriter, Carolan’s lyrics were never as celebrated as his melodies. Over the years, words from the pens of others have been set to his tunes. The Snowy-Breasted Pearl, sung here by Hilary James, is a translation by the 19th century polymath George Petrie from an Irish lyric.

In the early 19th century Carolan’s reputation was further enhanced when arrangements by Beethoven featured in Select Collection of Original Irish Airs, published by George Thompson of Edinburgh.

In his book Carolan: The Life, Times and Music of an Irish Harper (highly recommended reading), Donal O’Sullivan describes his music as having ‘brilliance, grace, humour and a certain sedative charm’. An impeccable description! Three hundred years of history have cemented Carolan’s reputation as a peerless tunesmith and a man of irrepressible charm
and good cheer.

I remember well the first time I heard the music of the Irish harper and composer Turlough O’Carolan (1670 – 1738). It would have been 1973 and the Irish group Planxty were playing at Reading University Folk Club. As a student haunt, it was one I vastly preferred to the lecture hall or seminar; Russian social thought of the 18th century was never as exciting as this! But let’s not digress. Planxty had been booked by Hilary James, who – no coincidence here – features on this recording. The band played a couple of Carolan pieces and I was immediately captivated by the strength and grandness of the melodies. I subsequently became intimately acquainted with their first album and lost count of the times I heard their versions of Sí Bheag Sí Mhór and Planxty Irwin.

Carolan’s loss of sight through smallpox at the age of eighteen caused an intriguing twist to his legacy. Unable to notate his own music, those who did failed to record the harmonies he must have used, given that he played a polyphonic instrument, the harp. It was an unfortunate omission for anyone wishing to recreate his music with absolute historical accuracy. For me, this was never a strong desire, not least because I don’t play the harp! On the contrary, the ‘bare bones’, ‘melody only’ approach of his archivists had always proved alluring in itself. I wasn’t bound by the perceived constraints that hang over the music of more meticulously documented composers.

Because the task of archiving Carolan wasn’t undertaken to any large degree until some years after his death, some have argued that it would be impossible to notate so much music from memory, but this is not true. Those who play traditional music, and in particular those of us who have not been through music college, are usually blessed with well developed musical ears (helped in my own case by a father who taught me to sing in tonic sol-fa as a child). The trad musician can easily memorise tens or even hundreds of tunes.

Carolan stayed with me over the years. I gradually wrote numerous arrangements of his pieces for solo guitar, as well as duets, trios and quartets, mostly for the residential mandolin workshops I regularly host. While these all formed a basis for the music on this album, I decided to go beyond simple harmonisation by varying tempos, incorporating changes of key and mode, and using the harmonic sequences as a basis for extemporisation. With multi-track recording I was able to build arrangements using the instruments I play: guitar, violin, viola, and all sizes of the mandolin family, with splendiferous assistance from Florence Petit’s ’cello and Hilary James’ basses and cameo vocals.

Simon Mayor: mandolin, mandola, mandocello, violin, viola, guitars
Hilary James: vocals, double bass, mandobass, bass guitar
Florence Petit: violoncello
Produced by Hilary James at Acoustics Studios
Design by John Hedgecock
Photography by Hilary James
Production Master by Oli Whitworth
All titles © Simon Mayor