For comparison and entertainment, here’s a well-documented piece of Scottish harp music with has been (tentatively) dated around the late 16th century.
Apologies for poor quality, I only have a webcam. This was also off the cuff and I have a buzz on my bass A…but just so you can compare the pieces just to see how plausible the linked piece is.
Note: My harp is nylon strung, rather than metal which is always going to be different.
That’s beautiful!
Agreed - thank you for sharing.
Thanks, guys! After more than 8 years on the Dope this is probably the only thread where I had any kind of real expertise.
Lovely! thank you!
PookahMacPhellimey, your Lament sounded pìobaireachd-y to me, so I went hunting, and sure enough, there is a pìobaireachd entitled “Lament for the Bishop of Argyll.” (See Book 10 of the Pìobaireachd Society.)
Can’t find an online link, so I don’t know if it’s the same basic tune, but given the age of the harp music, it may well be derived from the harp piece. (The links between harping and pìobaireachd are excessively murky…)
I believe that the earliest known pìobaireachd where we can actually date the composition is I got a kiss of the King’s Hand, which is normally linked to an actual episode where one of the MacCrimmons of Skye got a kiss of King Charles II’s hand, when Charlie was trying to regain the throne in 1651. (However, others say it dates from Bonnie Prince Charlie’s time, and the '45).
I’m 99 percent sure it’s the same tune. I got my version from the playing of Scottish harper Allison Kinnaird who recorded it on the album The Harper’s Land. I was looking for an internet clip of that and when I didn’t find it, I played it myself. On the recording, however, she plays it three ways: first more or less the way I did, then a slow jigtime (ish) version and then pure pìobaireachd, which is really tricky on the harp. Should you have some spare cash lying around this album, which features both metal and nylon strung harp, is brilliant.
Unfortunately my copy is one country and I am in another, so I don’t have the booklet to hand and I can’t remember if it was a harp tune adapted from piping or vice versa or whether we even know. I do suspect it would be either one or the other.
I’m not really qualified to post in this thread, compared to the rest of you. But you know, if I found a mathematical code in a carving in a 16th century castle, my first guess would be that it was something masonic, not musical.
Interesting find, all around. The musical piece accompanying the BBC article certainly sounds plausible to my amateur’s ear. Can any of you translate the lyrics?