Authors: Kirsty Gunn
To conclude: The basic structure of the music consists of an air with variations upon its theme. The ground – or Urlar – is the basic theme and is normally played slowly, containing within it all the major ideas of the music.
The ground is then followed by variations: the Taorluath, the Crunluath and the Crunluath A Mach – each with its own doublings and variations, and each
movement
also more complex and more difficult to play than the one that went before. By the final variation the composer’s ingenuity and the piper’s capability have been tested to the very limit.
The tune then ends, to quote the definition at the beginning of ‘The Big Music’, in a ‘return to the Urlar’s opening simplicity. Then the piper will play those same notes with which the composition began, walking away over the hill as the sound of the music fades from the air into silence and stillness takes up its watch again upon the empty page.’
1
These first opening bars of the music’s theme indicate the opening ‘remarks’ of the music laid out at the beginning of the Urlar of ‘The Big Music’ and also in the Taorluath section where John MacKay lies in his bed through the last hours of his life. The socalled ‘breathing’ sequence is clearly indicated in the repetition of these four bars.
2
NB: For those who would like to hear the full version of ‘Lament for Himself’, it is possible to download it from a website that is being created for ‘The Big Music’.
3
The same section of music can be scanned exactly to the words for the Lullaby for Katherine Anna that appear in the Urlar movement of ‘The Big Music’.
| ailte | end, finish, i.e. ‘Ailte vhor Alech’ is ‘End of the Road’, one of the names given to The Grey House of Rogart |
| a mach | out, showing of itself, as in Crunluath A Mach; means to show the workings of a crown movement |
| beallach | pass, denoting height; i.e. ‘Beallach Nam Drumochta’ is the Summit or Pass of Drumochta |
| ben | behind or back; common usage |
| bothan | or bothy; a little hut or rough-built dwelling place |
| breve | long sustained note (double the weighting of the more commonly used semibreve); musical term |
| cailleach | old woman; witch |
| canntaireachd | the singing and notation of piobaireachd using vocables |
| chanter | the pipe of a bagpipe; traditionally made of ebony with a silver trim |
| ceilidh | a Highland party of music and dance |
| ceol beag | little music; strathspeys, reels etc. |
| ceol mor | big music; piobaireachd |
| cumha | lament; form of piobaireachd composed for funerals, death in battle etc. |
| crunluath | crown; the third movement of a piobaireach |
| crunluath a mach | a crown that shows itself in all its glory; the final variation of a piobaireachd |
| dithis | two or a pair; doubling of a note; musical term; doubling theme and single note repeated or played in pairs (also known as siubhal singling) |
| drone | the steady bass-note of the Highland bagpipe; i.e. bass drone, tenor drone etc. |
| dubh | dark or black; i.e. ‘Dubh Burn’ is Black Water or Dark River |
| failte | welcome or salute; form of piobaireachd composed for gatherings |
| gesundkunstwerk | the overall artwork; a piece of art that is all-encompassing, creates an overall experience of music, sound, image etc. that is a world unto itself |
| glas | particular fingering and tuning to create a ‘joining’ effect in the music |
| havering | one way or another; to be uncertain |
| leumluath | a variation incorporated within the Taorluath movement of a piobaireachd; also sometimes known as the ‘Stag’s Leap’ to indicate the branching out of the tune into a new direction |
| leitmotif | recurring musical idea; used principally in relation to Wagner’s music |
| og | younger; or latter; used as differentiation in family naming, i.e. Patrick ‘Og’ MacCrimmon was the youngest son of Patrick MacCrimmon (by contrast, ‘Mor’ often used to denote the elder or oldest in a family) |
| piobaireachd | the classical musical composition played on the great Highland bagpipe |
| port | musical term relating, initially, to harp piobaireachd |
| port tionail | music composed for gatherings |
| rubato | with feeling, vibration; musical term |
| semibreve | long sustained note of four beats; musical term |
| siubhal | a passing or traversing; i.e. of one set of musical notes passing from one to the other |
| sligheach | secret, sly; hidden |
| smirr | to rub over or blend; i.e. to smirr a tune is to fail to articulate individual notes; musical term as well as general use |
| slochd | summit; peak |
| strath | a long valley beween two hills; often with a river running through the centre and broadening out towards the sea |
| taorluath | the second movement or variation of a piobaireachd |
| thrawn | stubborn |
| urlar | ground; the first movement of a piobaireachd |
Music: Piobaireachd/primary
Bagpipe music manuscripts in the National Library of Scotland; notated listing available from the Piobaireachd Society website at: piobaireachd.co.uk
Buisman, Frans, Andrew Wright and Roderick D. Cannon.
The MacArthur–MacGregor manuscript of piobaireachd
(1820):
The Music of Scotland,
Volume 1. University of Glasgow Music Department Publications
Campbell Canntaireachd
manuscripts, 1797: Piobaireachd Society website
Campbell, Archibald.
The Kilberry Book of Ceol Mor.
The College of Piping: Glasgow, 1969
MacKay, Angus.
A Collection of Ancient Piobaireachd or Highland Pipe Music,
1838: Piobaireachd Society website
Neil MacLeod’s A Collection of Piobaireachd or Pipe Tunes, as verbally taught by the McCrummen
Pipers in the Isle of Skye
(also known as the
Gesto Canntaireachd
manuscripts) Edinburgh, 1828: Piobaireachd Society website
Piobaireachd Society Books, Volumes 1–present: Piobaireachd Society website
Ross, Roderick.
Binneas A Boreraig: The Complete Collection.
The College of Piping: Glasgow, 1959
Thomason, Major General.
Ceol Mor,
1900: Piobaireachd Society website
Music: Piobaireachd/secondary
Anon. ‘Piobaireachd and the “Winter Classes”’. Pamphlet Press, 1969
Brown, Barnaby. ‘The design of it: patterns in pibroch’, in
The Voice
, Winter, Spring & Summer, 2004–05
Campsie, Alistair.
The MacCrimmon Legend or The Madness of Angus MacKay.
Canongate, 1980
Cannon, Roderick D. ‘The Campbell Canntaireachd manuscript: the case for a lost volume’, in Joshua Dickson (ed.),
The Highland Bagpipe: Music, History, Tradition.
Ashgate, 2009
Cannon, Roderick D. ‘What can we learn about piobaireachd?’
Ethnomusicology Forum,
Volume 4, Issue 1, 1995
Cannon, Roderick D.
Gaelic Names of Pibrochs: A Classification.
Scottish Studies, 2006.
Cannon, Roderick D.
The Highland Bagpipe and Its Music.
Birlinn, 1995
Cheape, Hugh. ‘Traditional Origins of the Piping Dynasties’; ‘Bagpipes and their Military Function’, in Joshua Dickson (ed.),
The Highland Bagpipe: Music, History, Tradition.
Ashgate, 2009
Cheape, Hugh.
The Book of the Bagpipe.
Birlinn, 1999
Collinson, Francis.
The Bagpipe: The History of a Musical Instrument.
Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975
Dickson, Joshua (ed.)
The Highland Bagpipe: Music, History, Tradition.
Ashgate, 2009
Donaldson, William.
The Highland Pipe and Scottish Society 1750–1950
. Tuckwell Press, 2000
Fraser, Alexander Duncan.
Some reminiscences and the bagpipe.
W. J. Hay, 1907
Gibson, John Graham.
Old and New World Highland Bagpiping.
McGill-Queen’s Press, 2002.
Gunn, R. J. C.
Piobaireachd: Legends and History.
Piobaireachd Studies, 2008
Haddow, Alexander John.
The History and Structure of Ceol Mor – A Guide to Piobaireachd:
The Classical Music of the Great Highland Bagpipe.
The Piobaireachd Society: Glasgow, 1982
Joseph MacDonald’s Compleat Theory of the Scots Highland Pipe
(1760): Piobaireachd Society website
MacDonald, Allan. ‘The Relationship between Pibroch and Gaelic Song: Its Implications on the Performance Style of the Pibroch Urlar’, M.Litt. thesis, University of Edinburgh, 1995
MacInnes, Iain I. ‘Piobaireachd Society titles in need of amendment’, in ‘The Highland Bagpipe: The Impact of the Highland Societies of London and Scotland, 1781–1844’, M.Litt. thesis, University of Edinburgh, 1988. Available online at the Ross’s Music Page website
MacKay, Iain.
A History of Piobaireachd.
Piobaireachd Studies, 1976
MacNeill, Seumus.
Piobaireachd: Classical Music of the Highland Bagpipe.
BBC Publications, 1969
MacNeill, Seumus. Preface in Angus MacKay’s
A Collection of Ancient Piobaireachd,
1838: Piobaireachd Society website
McCalister, Peter. ‘The Search for the Lost Volume of the Campbell Canntaireachd Manuscript’, Glasgow, 2008: Piobaireachd Society website
Sinclair, Archibald.
Canntaireachd: Articulate Music.
Edinburgh, 1880
Music: Highland
Anon.
Lullabies, Songs, Airs.
Scotts Press, 1989
Clare, Merran. ‘The metaphor of the changeling and missing child in Scottish Folklore and Songs’, in
Caithness Research Institute of Modern Letters Journal,
Volume vi, 2003
Collinson, Francis.
The Traditional and National Music of Scotland.
Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966.
Dow, Daniel.
Collection of Ancient Scots Music,
Edinburgh, 1776: Piobaireach Society website
Fraser, Simon.
Airs and Melodies Peculiar to the Highlands of Scotland,
1816: National Library of Scotland
Gillies, Anne Lorne.
Songs of Gaelic Scotland.
Birlinn, 1973
Johnson, David.
Scottish Fiddle Music in the 18th Century: A Music Collection and Historical Study.
John Donald Publishers, 1984
Lowe, Susan.
Metaphor in Folk Song.
Clarendon Press, 1987
MacDonald, Allan. ‘Scholarship and Research’, in ‘The Relationship between
Pibroch
and Gaelic Song: Its Implications on the Performance Style of the Pibroch Urlar’, M.Litt. thesis, University of Edinburgh, 1995
MacFarlane, Walter and Daniel Dow.
Fiddle Piobaireachd.
John Donald, 1984
O’Baoill, Colm. ‘Highland Harpers and their Patrons’, in James Porter (ed.),
Defining
Strains: The Musical Life of Scots in the Seventeenth Century.
Peter Lang Publishing, 2006
Sanger, Keith and Alison Kinnaird.
Tree of Strings: Crann Nan Teud: A History of the Harp in Scotland.
Kinmor Music, 1992
Stephens, Joy.
History of Highland Songs and Airs.
Gray Press, 1979
Music: General
Cambridge Companion to Medieval Music,
Cambridge University Press, 2011
Dictionary of Music and Musicians.
Grove, 1954
Donnington, Robert.
The Instruments of Music.
Methuen, 1949
Gilkes, John.
Wagner and his Leitmotifs.
Oxford Union Press, 1995
Graham, Katherine.
The Literal Musical: Synesthesia; Mimesis; Mask; Notation.
Featherstone,
2001
Seoras, A. D.
Use of Recurring Musical Sequences in Nineteenth-Century Composition.
Achavar
Press, 1997
Wagner.
Phaidon Classical Music Series. Phaidon, 1996
History: Highland and Scottish
Anderson, G. and P.
Guide to the Highlands and Islands
(1850). Google Books, 2009
Anderson, J.
Essay on the Present State of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.
Constable, 1816
Barron, J.
The Northern Highlands – Agricultural Intelligence.
Ross-shire Quarterly Report (
Farmer’s Magazine,
1820): National Library of Scotland
Bruse, Jenny.
Shepherds in the Straths.
Caithness Local Publications, 2012
Carter, Ian.
Farm Life in Northeast Scotland … Poor Man’s Country.
John Donald, 1979
Cunningham, Ian.
The Nation Surveyed.
Birlinn, 2009
Devine, T. M.
Clearance and Improvement: Land, Power and People in Scotland, 1700–1900.
John Donald, 2006
Dressler, Camille.
Eigg: The Story of an Island.
Birlinn, 2000
Dwyer, John.
Virtuous Discourse, Sensibility and Community in Late 18th-Century Scotland.
John Donald, 1987
Eyre-Todd, George.
The Highland Clans of Scotland: Their History and Traditions.
Garnier & Company, 1969
Hewitt, Rachel.
Map of a Nation.
Granta, 2010
MacDonald, Iain S.
Glencoe and Beyond.
John Donald, 2005
Maudlin, Daniel.
The Highland House Transformed: Architecture and Identity 1700–1850.
Dundee University Press, 2009
Mitchell, J.
Reminiscences of my life in the Highlands,
Inverness: MacKenzie, 1894
Mowat, Ian.
Easter Ross, 1750–1850: The Double Frontier.
John Donald, 2003
Nicholson, Alexander and Alasdair MacLean.
History of Skye: a record of the families, the social conditions and the literature of the island.
MacLean Press, 1994
Richards, Eric and Monica Clough.
Cromartie: Highland Life 1650–1914.
Aberdeen University Press, 1989
Richards, Eric.
Debating the Highland Clearances.
Edinburgh University Press, 2007
Sinclair, Sir John.
General Report of the agricultural state, and political circumstances of Scotland
(5 vols), Edinburgh, 1814: National Library of Scotland
Sinclair, Sir John.
General View of the Agriculture of the Northern Counties,
Edinburgh, 1814: National Library of Scotland
Whatley, Christopher A.
Scottish Society 1707–1830.
Manchester University Press, 2000
Whatley, Christopher A.
The Scots and the Union.
Edinburgh University Press, 2007
Wightman, Andy.
The Poor Had No Lawyers.
Birlinn, 2010
Literary: Scottish History
Christmas, Henry. ‘Review of new books: Ancient Scottish Melodies, from a manuscript in the time of King James VI by William Dauney’, in
The Literary Gazette: A weekly journal of literature, science and the fine arts,
No. 1150, Volume 23. Colburn, 1839
Gunn, Robert.
Neil M. Gunn and Dunbeath.
Pentland Printers, 1986
Hart, Francis R. and J. B. Pick.
Neil M. Gunn: A Highland Life.
Polygon, 1985
Lockhart, J. G.
Biography of Walter Scott.
Edinburgh, 1897
MacDonald, Alexander.
The poetical works of Alexander MacDonald, the celebrated Jacobite poet: now first collected, with a short account of the author,
Glasgow: G. & J. Cameron, 1851
Scott, Sir Walter. ‘Mackrimmon’s Lament’, in
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with memoir of the author. University of Michigan Library, 2005
Literary: Piobaireachd
Gilonis, Harry.
Piobaireachd.
Morning Star Publications, 1996
McHardy, Stuart.
The Silver Chanter and other Piper Tales.
Birlinn, 2009
‘The Lost Pibroch’, in Brian Osborne (ed.),
That Vital Spark: A Neil Munro Anthology.
Birlinn, 2002