Turlough O'Carolan, and baroque music in general

[pancelticpiper]

My favourites are
Planxty Burke
Carolan's Quarrell with his Landlady

I suppose it's being nitpicky, but he called himself Carolan, not O Carolan. (Actually, being that he was using Irish, he called himself Cearbhallan.) His friends and contemporaries called him Cearbhallan when writing in Irish and Carolan when writing in English.

I highly recommend the fantastic two-volume work
Carolan: The Life, Times, and Music of an Irish Harper
By Donal O Sullivan.

The volumes contain all pieces known to be composed by Carolan and some which are attributed to him but whose authorship cannot be verified, as well as lots of biographical information.
It has his poems.
It has a chapter about Carolan's skull. Did you know about that?

By the way, a guitarist I've played with quite a bit, who has a diverse musical background (having played bass in rock bands and jazz bands in the 60's as well as tuba in orchestras in Europe and the USA) says about accompaniment:
"You can't fake Beatles, and you can't fake Carolan!"
He is a huge Carolan fan, saying that Carolan is unique in music, not really like other Irish music and not really like Baroque music.

[walrii]

It has a chapter about Carolan's skull. Did you know about that?

No, we didn't. Can you enlighten us? <Settles down on couch and waits for a good story.>

[Cayden]

The one about his harp: 'Did you ever see it?' 'No..' 'Well neither did he'. <groan>

[Tootler]

I like "Ode to Whiskey". Played not too fast, it has a nice lilt.

Also, a little later than Baroque, but "Michael Turner's Waltz" is a tune that is quite popular in English sessions and is based on the trio from "German Dance No. 2" by Mozart.

I like to play the opening theme from Mozart's Piano Sonata no 11 on my flute. I play it in G rather than the original A and sounds lovely on the wooden flute. I suspect it would also work well on a low D whistle.

Geoff

[SteveShaw]

What's the K number of that? Is it K331?

[Tootler]

What's the K number of that? Is it K331?

Yes. K331, 1st movement.

Michael Turner's waltz is based on the trio from German Dance No. 2, K536, though it has "evolved" somewhat.

Geoff

[SteveShaw]

Lovely. I'll dig out my Brendel and give it a whirl. Learning a Mozart piece by ear - now that's something to brag to your long-suffering mates about!

[Tootler]

Lovely. I'll dig out my Brendel and give it a whirl. Learning a Mozart piece by ear - now that's something to brag to your long-suffering mates about!

That's one up on me. I learnt it from dots. I came across it in a book of pieces when my daughter was attempting to learn the flute. They had transposed it to C to play mostly in the second octave and I transposed it down. I do play it from memory, though, but only the theme. The variations quickly get rather hairy

[SteveShaw]

I'm certainly not one up on you because I haven't done it yet! Yes, I forgot it was a variation movement, but hey, you could always leave one or two of the hard ones out - no-one down the pub would ever notice!

[s1m0n]

It has a chapter about Carolan's skull. Did you know about that?

No, we didn't. Can you enlighten us? <Settles down on couch and waits for a good story.>

Didja hear about the rich American tourist who one day ran into a down-on-his-luck traveller whom he managed to talk into selling him the skull--the very skull!--of the great Irish Harpist Turlough O'Carolan?

He smuggled it back to the United States, and boasted of it to all his friends; and he set up a room in his house that was almost a shine. In fact, he comissioned a jeweller friend to make him a copy of the Moneymusk Reliquary:

to keep the skull in, wrapped in a shroud of green velvet embroidered all over like a step-dancer's skirt.

Several years later, he found himself once more in the west of Ireland, and by chance wandered into a village much like the one he'd been in before. He saw a familiar caravan, and knocked on it. To his delight, the very same traveller opened the door!

The american decided that this was too good a coincidence to pass up, so he invited himself inside, and and set about asking if the owner had any antiquities to sell.

"Aye," the man said. "That I do. Why, don't I have the skull--the very skull! of the great Irish harpist, Turlough O'Carolan!"

The American was outraged. "What do you mean you have the skull of O'Carolan, you rogue? Not three years ago you sold ME the skull of Turlough O'Carolan, and look, they're not even the same size!"

"Och", the old man said. "Now let's let's not be having a misunderstanding. The one I sold you then was the skull of O'Carolan as young lad, and this one's the skull of O'Carolan as a much older man! Now 'tis seventy punts, do ya want it or not?"

[Tootler]

I'm certainly not one up on you because I haven't done it yet! Yes, I forgot it was a variation movement, but hey, you could always leave one or two of the hard ones out - no-one down the pub would ever notice!

True! I suggest all of them. As you say, they would never know down the pub.

BTW, the theme is playable on a diatonic moothie. Must give it a try some time.

Geoff

[boatgirl]

To S1m0n,

He-he:D
Is that a true story?

[s1m0n]

Is that a true story?

Not a word of a lie!

But maybe one of two T I N Y embelishments.

[pancelticpiper]

From Carolan: the Life, Times, and Music of an Irish Harper by Donal O Sullivan:


"Much has been written of the subject of Carolan's skull, but the facts have never before been assembled in full. It is proposed here to review the evidence, with special reference to the skull, said to be Carolan's, at present in the National Museum of Ireland...

...in March 1771 he (Daniel Early) was himself present when Carolan's grave was opened for the purpose of internment of Father Patrick Early, PP of the Parish of Oughteragh, and of that occasion Thomas Dillon, Esq, brother of John (afterwards Earl of Roscommon), on Carolan's skull being thrown up took it in his hand and wiped it and set to Con O Donnell, a carpenter near the church of Kilronan, and borrowing a gimblet made a hole in the side of the forehead and tied a piece of green silk ribbon in it and laid it in the small square recess in the wall on the west side of the Chapel in which the MacDermott Roes are buried...

In the summer of 1785 Carolans' skull was still where Dillon had placed it, for Charles O Connor then wrote to Walker: 'In my pensive mood at Kilronan I stood over poor Carolan's grave, covered with a heap of stones; and I found his skull in a niche near the grave perforated a little in the forehead, that it might be known by that mark.'

...Mary Ellen MacDermott Roe frequently renewed the ribbon in the skull...

According the Thomas Duigenan the skull was 'used by superstitious persons to boil milk in, which they considered cured many disorders, but particularly the epilepsy.'

...We now pass to the question of the disappearance of the skull from its niche. Here the evidence is conficting...

(a lengthy review of a number of legends/stories follows.)

...We may take it as certain, therefore, that George Nugent Reynolds removed from Kilronan a skull said to be Carolan's and that it was taken to Castle Caldwell. The question of the authenticity of this skull now falls to be considered....

(then there is a detailed history of the various fates of this skull, and a detailed presentation of a second skull said to be Carolan's in the possession of a Dr Ellis, who removed it from its niche at Kilronan around the year 1800 and still had the skull in his possession as an old man in the mid-19th century.)

...We may thus conclude this review of the evidence by offering the opinion that the Castle Caldwell skull (now in the national museum) cannot be, and that the Ellis skull may be, the authentic skull of Carolan."

[boatgirl]

Some folks just carry a rabbit's foot.