Steve Tilston, Duck Baker, Seth Austen, Angelo Eleuteri: The Music of O’Carolan (1987)

Very beautiful acoustic guitar recordings of tunes from Irland's most famous harpist.

I just love this one. Some of you may remember "Silently The Snow Falls", a similar album posted here about a year ago - and just re-posted to accompany this new post - which also featured Tilston and Austen. This is equally gorgeous stuff.

The compositions of famed 17th century Irish harpist Turlough O'Carolan are interpreted by four great and distinctively different acoustic guitarists. Most tracks feature at least one more instrument. Steve Tilston plays in a trio with cello and flute, Duck Baker adds concertina or haunting Northumberland pipes to his guitar and Seth Austen duets with hammered dulcimer.

No need to go into detail about the players. People who love acoustic guitar music usually know the music of Duck Baker. Steve Tilston was featured here before, read about him and Seth Austen in the above mentioned post. Angelo Eleuteri was a new name to me, the liner notes only tell us about him that he's from Rome.

John Renbourn wrote a longer and very readible text about O'Carolan, his time and music for the liner notes. He also discusses the transfer of music that was written for harp to the guitar:

"In many ways the guitar is well suited for the transcription of this type of harp music and the steel-string guitar is a particularly appropriate vehicle for the bard's compositions. 

Carolan's own harp would most probably have been the smaller knee harp, suitable for carrying on horseback, and his portrait shows an instrument with a range of about three octaves - equivalent to the range of the guitar. The old harps were traditionally metal strung, originally with strings of white bronze and even silver and gold, which makes the sound of the steel-string guitar rather more authentic than that of the Spanish guitar. 

Also in general, Carolan's compositions are set pieces which means they sit more comfortably under the fingers than most of the single-line dance tunes from the purely traditional repertoire of the fiddle and pipes."



Took me a while to get my hands on a vinyl copy of this, but it was well worth the wait. There's nothing here that i don't like and much of it is simply heavenly.



Steve Tilston, Seth Austen, Angelo Eleuteri, Duck Baker: The Music of O’Carolan
Shanachie Records 95009. USA 1987

Side 1
1 Planxty Irvin (4.37)
2 Thomas Leixlip the Proud (2.22)
3 Planxty Eleanor Plunkett (2.05)
4 Carolan’s Ramble to Cashel (2.40)
5 O’Carolan’s Farewell to Music (3.57)
6 Blind Mary (2.40)
7 Bridget Cruise (2.24)

Side 2
8 O’Hara’s Cup (2.44)
9 O’Carolan’s Concerto (1.46)
10 Squire Wood’s Lamentation on the Refusal of His Half Pence (5.15)
11 Princess Royal (2.15)
12 Planxty George Brabazon (1.55)
13 Hewlett (2.21)
14 Carolan’s Welcome (3.05)


Musicians on tracks 1,5,11:
Steve Tilston, guitar; Tony Hinnigan, cello; Maggie Boyle, flute [1, 5 only]
recorded at Heartbeat Sound, London, England, engineered by Michael Klein;

Musicians on tracks 2,3,9,12:
Seth Austen, guitar; Madeline MacNeil, hammered dulcimer [3, 9 only];
recorded at Bias Studio, Springfield, VA, engineered by Bill McElroy;

Musicians on tracks 7,8,13:
Duck Baker, guitar; Alistair Anderson, concertina [8,13 only] Northumberland pipes [7 only]
recorded at Craighall Recording Studio, Edinburgh, Scotland, engineered by George Veal;

Musicians on tracks 4, 6, 10, 14:
Angelo Eleuteri, guitar
recorded at Studio TM, Rome, Italy, engineered by Paolo Antonini;

Produced by Stefan Grossman;