Ceoltoiri Chualann

[elbogo]

Anyone have this CD and is it worth having? "O Riada Sa Gaiet" by Sean O Riada and Ceoltoiri Chualann. Formed by Sean O Riada sometime in 1960, as a folk orchestra, with Moloney on pipes, Michael Tubridy (flute), Martin Fay (fiddle) and Sean Potts (tin whistle), and became the basis for The Chieftains.

[djm]

Elbogo, there are several CDs and cassettes of C.Chualann. It really depends on your tastes. This is the early Chieftains in a very Baroque flavour, with clavinet or harpsichord added. Even back then, they would cut into some reels and jigs from time to time, but a lot of the stuff tends more towards O'Carolan. A couple of CDs have guest singers as well.

You can get a taste for their stuff from RTE:
http://www.rte.ie/radio/ceolnet/ - do a search under Artists => Groups

If you like it, you can also get CDs from RTE:
http://www.rte.ie/about/cel/merchandise ... ndise.html

djm

[Harry]

Anyone have this CD and is it worth having?

No and No. Just an opinion of course.

Regards,

Harry.

[kevin m.]

I beg to differ Harry.I have an album simply titled 'O'Raida',which I believe is the same as the 'Live at the Gaiety' album.
Featuring more or less an early version of the Cheiftains,supplemented by O'Raida on Harpsichord (he thought at the time-1969-that this was the closest available sound to the old wire strung harp,Sonny Brogan on Accordian and the sublime voice of Sean O'Se. Incidentially,I'd love to get my hands on some more O'Se recordings-I read that O'Raida advised him not to take too many singing lessons,in case he spoiled his voice!
True,it is mainly O'Carolan material-though this suits me fine,as I have a parallel interest in Baroque music.

[Harry]

No probs Kevin M, variety is the spice of life after all.

I find the said music annoyingly twee, but I can see where a Baroque enthusiast would find it interesting.

As someone who was drawn to Irish music through it's honesty, integrity and unique enduring hands-on, raw modes of expression I find only snippets of interesting content in O' Raida. Overall it always seemed to me like a fairly clumsy effort to pitch shadowy ideas of what is interesting in traditional music to unsympathetic ears. This of course proved succesful because the pitch worked, he gave urban and Irish middle classes a new confidence (I would say a superficial and shallow confidence) in 'our national music'. That he had to change it so drastically and was deemed so important for his efforts shows just how little is/was understood about ITM in Ireland. There is no question that he was dealing with some great exponants, I would urge anybody to hunt down recordings of these people performing on their own terms.

I actually learned two tunes one time from the said record, so there's that as well.

It is claimed that O'R 'saved' Irish music from obscurity and embarrasing rustic ghettoisation. What is certainly true is that we have followed his example and have tried to sell ITM in every concievable package since.

Regards,

Harry.

[kevin m.]

There's truth in what you say Harry,I think it could be said that 'The Chieftains' can be seen as being guilty of the same 'crime'- though I would tend to blame this on Paddy Maloney's arrangements of traditional tunes - I have tended to prefer band members solo recordings.
As someone with an interest in Baroque music,I was keen to hear the groups' take on O'Carolan's music-as to my mind he was a transitional figure with one foot firmly based in the European 'Art music' tradition and the other firmly based in the Irish tradition.
I certainly think that O'Raida played his part in raising public awareness of O'Carolan as a native Irish composer of merit-his treatment of 'folk music' is maybe a bit more suspect.
Best.

[Fergmaun]

http://www.gael-linn.ie//english/music/ ... d=CEFCD027

Yes I have the Tape not the CD and it is very good and worth having.

[djm]

Hey, Gael-Linn finally has a working web site again. Thanks for the link, Fergus!

djm

[Harry]

I was keen to hear the groups' take on O'Carolan's music-as to my mind he was a transitional figure with one foot firmly based in the European 'Art music' tradition and the other firmly based in the Irish tradition.

I think it's fair to say that while he may have had a foot firmly planted in euro 'art music' he did not have such a firm foot hold in the Irish tradition: he didn't play an instrument to any particularly interesting level in an Irish enduring style context.

He may well be a transitional figure. I think it's interesting to question the merits and nature of the transition though.

Regards,

Harry.

[kevin m.]

This is an Interesting debate Harry!
Would you not link O'Carolan to the earlier Irish Harper-composers,and by extension back to the old bardic harpers of the old Gaelic culture?
I have read that lyrics to certain O'Carolan airs could not have been sung,as the music goes beyond the usual range of a human voice (presuming that they were following the Harp line),and that it was more likely that the lyric was chanted or intoned to harp acccompaniment.
Also,it's been mentioned on a recent thread on one of the boards,that his compositions often ended with a 'jig' (or would that be a 'Gigue'?) or borrowed 'folk form' movement.
True,like most of us late starters,he wasn't supposed to have been the best of players!

[elbogo]

Hm, yes, interesting. By the way, how is this Ceoltoiri Chualann pronounced anyway? Is Chulann the same as Chulainn, as in Cu Chulainn? Or different word completely?

[Harry]

Ah, your comment on 'him' being a transitional figure was in relation to O'Carolan. I though that comment was about O'Riada. My mistake.

I have heard too that O'Carolan, while a gifted composer, was not a top notch player as many assume. There is undoubtably strains of older tradition in his playing. Again though, many of his compositions are outside my realm of interest in their contrivance.

Interestingly O'Carolan was composing for the upper class as well. His composition still has a certain clout over here in the 'upper orders'. His name is remembered as an Irish composer who made a name for himself, was blind and didn't do music that sounded too much like that bog- trotting stuff.

The point on chanting lyrics is interesting. It reminds me of the singing or chanting of the heroic Gaelic lays. Some of these were remebered in fragmented form through oral tradition up until as late as last century. Now there was a really old tradition.

Regards,

Harry.

[kevin m.]

Well I suppose that O'Raida was a 'transitional' player in some respects-I understand that he played Jazz piano in Parisian nightspots and Bars in the 1950's,before he had his 'awakening' to Irish music!
I wonder if any recordings exist from this period?
Getting back to O'Carolan's music,I purchased Derek Bell's(R.I.P.) 'Carolan's Receipt'album,which I found to be of great interest.Bell plays a recreation of the old wire strung Harp,and the sound it produces is vastly different from the Harp as we know it today.It really conjures up the atmosphere of an older age and an older culture.

[Harry]

Indeed, it gives an entirely different edge to some of the older material. I only know of one man who is playing the Harp oldstyle (wire strung harp/ plucking with his fingernails) but I fear we are straying off topic.

Regards,

Harry.

[kevin m.]

but I fear we are straying off topic.

Regards,

Harry.

Yup,It's a bad habit of mine -sorry!