[The admittedly provocative, but also tongue-in-cheek title, ‘we’re playing it wrong’, is meant to awaken our readership to these facts. After all the times other people have told me, ‘you are playing it wrong’, I thought it would be fun to turn the tables a bit. ]
Transcription:
…The Gatherings (as before Mentioned) consist chiefly of Allegros diversified with very many curious Cuttings. or Different Time also. These are the most animating of Pipe Compositions, as they were originally intended to assemble the Highlanders under their respective Chiefs upon any emergency or indeed they <…> the Purpose being very well adapted for it. Every Chief had a Gathering for his Name which are So Full of Life & Fury that no Musick can be more animating…
- Allegro
- “Life & Fury”
- Animating
These are not words we associate with pibroch performance, esp. in competition settings. Clearly the contexts have changed, and with it the lack of diversity in performance.
Wouldn’t it be exciting to musically interpret these tunes within their “original” contexts, imagining (which is all we can do) what an audience would expect to hear on a battle field, in a rowboat, at an entertainment?
The possibilities are exciting!
Three tunes come to mind: ‘Clan Cameron’s Gathering’ (‘Come and I’ll Give you Flesh’) PS p 503, ‘Clan Cameron’s March’ PS p 494 and ‘Blar Vuster’ PS p 455.
Unfortunately I have never found much music in any of these tunes due to their limited scale - ‘B’s, ‘C’s, ‘D’s and ‘E’s. An ‘F’ would add a feeling of excitement!
The secret to tunes like those, I think, is in the rhythm and tempo, Allan. They are almost like drum beatings.
Drum beatings - yes - or trumpet fanfare. Think of stile concitato:
Is the parallel with pibroch Gatherings a case of international interaction, or something culturally unconnected: a ‘universal’ quality? Could we dub it the ‘William Tell Overture’ effect?
The Gaelic term for the rapid repeated notes in many (not all) tunes with Cruinneachadh in the title is Leth Leagaidnean, spelled Na Le Leicinin / Leith Leicinin by Joseph MacDonald (f. 25r). Joseph writes: “This is a running excessively Martial & pretty” (f. 8v). I am suspicious that the term Taor-luath Fosgailte was coined by Angus MacKay, who also calls it Taor-luath cheithir buillean (4-strike Taoludh), to contrast with a standard 3-strike Taoludh - by which he means 3 low As!
Usage of the term Tripling for this finger movement may possibly be traced back to 1803 if the manuscript supplied to the printers of Joseph MacDonald’s treatise contained a blank space opposite the obscure term Dochcidh, and the printer filled the void by lifting the first part of the definition below. If this scenario is correct, then the gloss for Leith Leicinin originally read Tripling, a running.
A conversation I had with David Hester last January led to this page:
http://www.altpibroch.com/explore-by-genre/genre-life-fury/
Developing these ideas and ways of filtering the material by musical features is high on our agenda after pushing the completion level of Musical Materials from 98% to 100%. The first step, however, is to finish getting the primary source material online!
One last thought. Cruinneachadh occurs in thirteen pibroch titles: PS 9, 16, 52, 72, 76, 163, 164, 167, 174, 215, 226, 232 and 297. What happened to Joseph MacDonald’s term for gathering, Port Tional (lit. Assembly Tune)?
When I first started playing through the gathering tunes from older sources for the first time I could hear life and fury in the music even if I could not play at a high level yet. I would listen to a modern recording and be so very disappointed. I cannot play like that because the music possesses me and drives me on. I experience it as remembering the music more than learning it.
On my first tune studied Tullach Ard I was inspired by the Bronze age Irish horns. They were also used in battle like the Highland pipes and the sound is very similar to the Highland Drones, which I think is no coincidence. So in the edre in the first measure of the Urlar I held the first E longer and this gave me the feel of bronze horn sounding. I feel that to touch on this ancient memory is very powerful. I want to gather the living and the dead. http://www.prehistoricmusic.com/