The Big Music (24 page)

1
Refer back to p. 8 and previous pp. 25 and 56 etc. of the Urlar for evidence of a first-person narrator involved in ‘The Big Music’ as though we have emerging an ongoing ‘note’ or particular tone in the tune. The reference to Iain Cowie and ‘my mother’ suggests this ‘sound’ or voice in the music belongs to Helen MacKay.

2
Appendices 1–3 give full details of the region, including information about the Drumochta Pass as part of the definition of the Highland region; Endpapers and the List of Additional Materials show maps of the North East region.

3
In later movements of ‘The Big Music’ we learn how John Callum MacKay returned to playing his father’s instrument, eventually beginning to compose music himself, after his father’s death. One of his early compositions, ‘The Return’, was always supposed to be based on his return to Sutherland after the years away – although notes and details that appear later in ‘The Big Music’ suggest that the title of that piobaireachd is ambiguous, that ‘The Return’ may also indicate his return to Margaret MacKay, whom he’d met at The Grey House some years prior to Callum Sutherland’s death. Indeed his notes show that the alternative title he gave that piobaireachd is ‘Margaret’s Song’. The List of Additional Materials shows that piobaireachd as a handwritten manuscript with that second – previously unknown – title. A full list of the compositions of JMS, as he always signed himself, is available in archive, and details of music composed, generally, at The Grey House appear in Appendix 9/ii.

4
The Leumluath is a variation that is often included within the second movement or the Taorluath of a piobaireachd and carries the meaning ‘leap’ (of music) – traditionally the ‘Stag’s Leap’ – to denote the way the notes take a risk on the theme. One of the notebooks of JMS shows him writing about the ‘Stag’s Leap’ as a metaphor for creativity. In general, the Taorluath movement plays hazardously around and about the notes of the theme, barely touching it sometimes as it weaves its own pattern around its shape. So we are left with the strong impression of the theme even so, in the middle of the patterning of the music of this variation, even though we have not heard it play, as such. A risky and exciting movement that brings the piobaireachd on and develops its maturity and complexity. Appendix 11 describes the general structure of a piobaireachd, its various movements, etc.

5
Appendix 10a: ‘The Piobaireachd “Lament for Himself”’ gives details of John MacKay’s composition, including the original MS of the Urlar. Later, in the List of Additional Materials, we see how this was ‘completed’ by an anonymous composer to give readers of ‘The Big Music’ a sense of the full piobaireachd. In that ‘finished’ version we see how the Taorluath comprises embellishments that play around the various notes and their meanings that were established in the Urlar, e.g. John MacKay’s theme, the Lullaby, and, as we will see, the significance of the ‘F’ note as the note of Love, that also figures throughout ‘The Big Music’ as a note of return.

6
Refers to the ‘dithis’ variation on the Urlar on p. 46 of ‘The Big Music’.

7
All first-born sons in the Sutherland family were christened John, however John MacKay’s father was born Roderick and his name changed to John following the death of his elder brother – though he always went by the name Callum, also a strong Sutherland family name. Details of family history and genealogy appear in Appendix 6/ii; iv.

8
Appendices 1–3 contain all information on the North East region pertaining to ‘The Big Music’ and relevant maps etc. can be found at the back of the book and in Appendices 1 and 2.

9
In particular, Appendix 3/iv depicts a version of landholding in the region that differs from the usual post-Clearances narrative; see too family records etc. contained in Appendices 4–9.

10
Appendix 6/ii, iii and iv have details of the history of The Grey House and the Sutherland family who lived there.

11
Other examples of similar types of independent ownership can be found in various histories of the Highlands; also Appendix 5/i and iv direct the reader as to how life was lived at The Grey House over this period.

12
The sensibility of this early ‘school’ reached its apotheosis in the 1950s when John MacKay’s father, still known to this day as the great ‘Modernist’ piper of the twentieth century, established the famous ‘Winter Classes’ that were held as part of the Piping School formally set up by his father, John Callum MacKay, at The Grey House.

13
Appendix 2/ii carries details of local place names; and Appendices 1 and 2, also Endpapers, show relevant maps.

14
Appendix 6/i–iv give details of family names and genealogy; also Appendices 4/ii and iii give details of the construction of the House. The List of Additional Materials contains information relating to the domestic archive of The Grey House including recipes etc. Appendix 5/ii refers to the role of women, rooms of the House and their use, along with domestic notes, etc.

15
The Crunluath movement of ‘The Big Music’ gives details of the MacCrimmon family and their role as musicians and composers of great piobaireachd from the 1500s onwards. There are details of the various generations of MacCrimmon pipers and their famous piping school of Skye, listing Iain MacCrimmon as the last member of that family, who died in 1822. It is believed that John Sutherland may, as a young man, have taken some instruction from him, around the turn of the nineteenth century; references in letters and journals of that time attest to ‘much learning and knowledge’ that was ‘passed on by the great M’; ‘M played the Lament for me on the chanter, and sang it to me as he went’; ‘Skye is a place wet and grey but full of music’; also the Bibliography lists certain books that include information on the MacCrimmons and their legend.

16
See Bibliography/Music: Piobaireachd/primary – MacKay,
A Collection of Ancient Piobaireachd.

17
The terrible history of the Clearances, a time that has been described as a version of ethnic cleansing when families throughout certain Highland areas were forcibly removed from their homes and repatriated, has been extensively recorded and researched. Details for further reading are available in the Bibliography; also see Appendix 2/i and ii in this book.

18
The Third Movement of ‘The Big Music’ has sections that describe how The Grey House of the Sutherland family developed, over time, into a great centre for piping. Appendix 5, relating to domestic life, also gives more details of its day-to-day activities as a place that was both a home and a school; and the List of Additional Materials shows various relevant documents.

19
The Crunluath movement of ‘The Big Music’ contains more information about the MacCrimmon family of hereditary pipers; also Appendices 4, 12 and 13 give an introduction to and history of piobaireachd that relate to its earliest compositions and are relevant here.

20
Earlier pages of ‘The Big Music’ have described how John MacKay’s father was given the name John after his elder brother’s death, but always was known as Callum, the name of his grandson, whom he never met. The Crunluath movement also tells more about the musical history of John MacKay Sutherland, the subject of ‘Lament for Himself’, by way of giving information about his father’s teaching methods and famous ‘Winter Classes’ that he himself emulated by way of his summer parties and invitations to pipers to come to The Grey House and play and give instruction there.

21
Appendices 1–3 give the history of the North East Highland district and describes its rural economy and industries.

22
This refers to the generation of John Callum MacKay (1835–1911), who first encouraged the writing down of tunes as a way of teaching them, in addition to the traditional canntaireachd sung method; also Appendix 9/iii and the Crunluath and A Mach sections are relevant here, as are Appendix 5/iii and certain documents in the List of Additional Materials.

23
Appendix 13/i gives the history of piping music and in 12/x, with particular reference to the work of Archibald Campbell and the Piobaireachd Society.

24
Callum would have been nicknamed ‘Og’ perhaps as a way of differentiating him from his father, John Callum, who had also been a teacher and known for his music school. In this way it is also a friendly reference to one of the MacCrimmon sons who was similarly differentiated from his father by the addition of the suffix ‘Og’, meaning ‘younger’ in Gaelic. See Glossary and Bibliography for further details.

25
Appendix 9 describes The Grey House as a Piping School, its history; details.

26
There is information on the history of the teaching of the bagpipe and piobaireachd, of Skye and the MacCrimmons and later music schools, traditional and contemporary, throughout the narrative of ‘The Big Music’ – particularly in its Crunluath movement, and in certain of its Appendices, particularly Appendix 11 onwards.

27
All references to the Sutherland family home, in the Appendices and List of Additional Materials, and throughout ‘The Big Music’, refer to ‘The Grey House’, that name being a version of the building in its earliest form as a traditional eighteenth-century grey longhouse. NB: There is a piobaireachd ‘The End of the Road’ by JMS that may be in Callum’s mind at this point.

28
The Crunluath A Mach movement is the final completion of a piobaireachd and in ‘The Big Music’ (e.g. three/first paper, pp. 183, 184, 185 etc.) we see examples of John MacKay’s notes and thoughts about the composition of his piobaireachd, its beginnings laid down and intimations of how it may end. Appendix 10/ii may also be of interest here, giving further details of how ‘Lament for Himself’ is constructed.

29
For those who read music it may be possible to sing through the lovely phrase of the second line – indeed, the whole piobaireachd can be sung or played using the manuscript that appears in the List of Additional Materials. One must bear in mind, however, when playing or singing from this manuscript, the slightly different tuning of a chanter that gives the bagpipe scale a subtle shifted octave to the one we are used to – one, experts say, that is more attuned to an ancient Greek pipe, the type that was played to classical audiences by way of preparing them for one of the great tragedies of Aeschylus or Sophocles.

30
Refers to this section of ‘The Big Music’ that is starting to take shape here. Also Appendices 10/i and 11 describe the movements of a piobaireachd and how the traditional structure relates to ‘Lament for Himself’.

31
The slight alteration to the notes in line two to create the phrase for line three contains the ‘leap’ that will bring about the change of orientation in the second movement of his piobaireachd – the different sound that allows for the story of his parents and his past in the tune of ‘The Big Music’ and, significantly, will describe, in the Taorluath movement, Callum’s arrival to the House.

32
The Leumluath, or ‘Stag’s Leap’, that moment of risk or change in the music, is contained within the Taorluath movement here.

33
‘G’ is the note of Gathering on the chanter scale. The Last Appendix carries the full chart of the chanter’s scale.

34
See Urlar of ‘The Big Music’, p. 67; also Appendix 9/ii and the List of Additional Materials.

35
Appendix 12/iii gives details of the different styles of piobaireachd music; additional information about compositions of the Sutherland family can be found in the List of Additional Materials.

36
The List of Additional Materials includes details of letters kept, like those of the young John Callum and his mother after he was sent away to school. These are part of the domestic archive collated by Elizabeth Clare Nichol Sutherland and Margaret MacKay and are available as part of an ongoing project to raise awareness of the significance of domestic life as a subject for literature; see Appendix 5 and ‘The Big Music’, later movements.

37
We know that John Sutherland did return to The Grey House once during this period of his life, when he was still in his twenties, and shortly after he’d moved to London – to see his mother, who was unwell. Important details of this visit are present in the Crunluath movement of ‘The Big Music’, in particular pp. 219, 220, and later pp. 274, 364.

38
The story of John and Margaret starts the first summer Margaret spends at The Grey House and comes into the tune of the Crunluath movement, later in ‘The Big Music’; see also earlier sections of the Urlar and the ambiguity surrounding the title of the JMS piobaireachd ‘The Return’.

39
This song, of course, is his own ‘Lament’ – a song made of nothing, only of ‘Himself’ – that slowly allows other elements in. The Crunluath A Mach movement of ‘The Big Music’ describes some of John’s thoughts and ideas for the content of the piobaireachd and his sense of it being part of an ongoing story of the Sutherland family; also see the earlier Urlar of this book and later movements.

40
As will become clear, this paper takes in fully the first-person voice we have heard from before in ‘The Big Music’, that will become an increasing presence in the pages of the story as it develops. It wasn’t difficult for me to see, when I was editing these papers, that this was intended – that the ‘I’ should come to have an increasing role, and it helped me greatly in the arrangement of the text.