Les Witches & Siobhán Armstrong - Lord Gallaway's Delight: An Excellent Collection of Dances & Gaelic Laments (2013) [24/96]

The Witches continue their exploration of the music of the British Isles in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This series, successfully launched with the disc Nobody’s Jig, sheds new light on songs and dances at the intersection of the art music and folk music repertories.

Our team of witches is joined here by Siobhán Armstrong, a talented harpist specialising in the Irish repertory. Together they recount an alternative history of Great Britain and Ireland, following the tunes as one goes up the course of a river, discovering with delight the treasures each of them has in store: spellbinding melodies and vivid titles which, in their evocation of people and places, bring the pages of history back to life.

'Galway’s Delight, for me, was dancing in pubs on the West Coast of Ireland in 1984 with my father, a man who was younger then than I am now, whose beard was barely beginning to be streaked white, and who’d wanted me Irish since I was born, though this was the first time he himself had set foot in the land of his ancestors… Day after day and night after night, in Galway and Connemara, our ears and our taste buds, our pale blue eyes and the rhythmic movements of our feet and hearts confirmed the vivacity of this country’s language, music and (mixture of the two) poetry. ‘A terrible beauty is born’ – my father quoted Yeats to me when we visited the poet’s Tor Ballylee together. In those days I think he secretly hoped I’d give up the harpsichord – a fussy, exquisite, elitist instrument with snotty connotations – for the harp, instrument of leprechauns and fairies, symbol of the country’s independence proudly displayed on the flag of the Irish Republic, a unisex, erotic, democratic instrument as portable and universal as the guitar, perhaps even the latter’s precursor.

Now nearly thirty years later I find myself in Ireland again, crazier than ever about Yeats and Beckett and Joyce, again drinking pints of Guinness standing up and listening to that heart-rending music, language and poetry. My father has died in the meantime, the pale blue light in his eyes has gone out, his beard turned wholly white before it evaporated quite, his flesh is ash but oh, oh, lovely constancy of Celtic traditions, mud and gold, green meadow and brown beer, peat and squeat, jigs and jokes…

This evening, thanks to the magic of a compact disc, my many yesterdays can finally converge to make music together, harp and harpsichord can tune up, vibrate and sing in harmony, and I know I can trust ‘Les Witches’ to tell me the true, poignant, melancholy stories of Miss Hamilton and Mary and Molly, make me weep and sing and dance again, albeit in the solitude of my hotel room, occasionally checking in the mirror to make sure my white hair is still dyed a lovely auburn since my father wanted me Irish, and I know this music will forever prove – yes it is true, it will always be true, even here in Dublin on the country’s east coast, at a considerable remove from Galway and the days in which pieces like ‘Lord Gallaway’s Lamentation’ and ‘Siege of Limerick’ and ‘Jenny’s Whim’ were composed – all the world over and even after my own death, yes, oh, yes, I loved thee once.' (Nancy Huston)

Tracklist:
01. She Rose and Leit Me In
02. The Ragg Set By a Gentlemen (Irish Rag)
03. Ld Gallaways Lamentation
04. Sr Ulick Burk
05. Mary O'Neill
06. On the Cold Ground
07. Bellamira
08. Molly Halfpenny (Molly O'hailpin)
09. Limbrick's Lamentation
10. I Loved Thee Once
11. Siege of Limerick
12. Counsellor Mc Donoghs Lamentation
13. Jennys Whim, Role the Rumple Sawny
14. Lads of Leight
15. Johney Cock Thy Beaver: A Scotch Tune to a Ground
16. Kings Hornpipe, Newcastle
17. Miss Hamilton
18. Da Mihi Manum (Tabair Dom Do Lámb)

Personnel:
Siobhán Armstrong, Irish Harp
Les Witches