"The word 'arrangement' as Burnside suggests, doesn't do justice to the inventive piano writing and pacing of so many of these pieces ... Soprano Ailish Tynan's feeling for the musical idiom and, above all, the poetry of her countrymen, matched by Burnside's delightfully poetic pianism, prove irresistible. Highly recommended"
Classic FM
Ailish Tynan - Soprano
Iain Burnside - Piano
Despite the tradition of passing folk songs from generation to the
next, aurally, the Irish folk song had lost its importance somewhat in
19th century Ireland, but by the turn of the twentieth-century the revival
of Ireland’s native music was coming to a head.
Belfast-born Herbert Hughes set about collecting and distributing Irish
airs. From there he began arranging the melodies for voice and piano, but
at a lecture in Dublin pointed out the relationship between the original
song, as sung by ‘the peasant, giving voice to an ancient tradition’
and the same song as put into print with a piano accompaniment. This
original disc brings together both the old and the new, transforming the
traditional folk song into an ‘art-song.’ The 25 folk songs tell of
stories both happy and sad and make this disc as much a literary
landscape, as a musical one with words by Thomas Moore & James Joyce.
Beautifully performed by Ailish Tynan & Iain Burnside.
Featuring a selection of
traditional Irish songs by
Herbert Hughes
Reynardine
Johnny Doyle
She moved thro’ the fair
The stuttering lovers
The Spanish Lady
