The High Road to Kilkenny: Gaelic Songs and Dances of the 17th & 18th Centuries

Featuring

Robert Getchell
François Lazarevitch
Les Musiciens de Saint-Julien
Anonymous (Traditional)
Turlough O'Carolan
John Peacock

Thomas Connellan
David Murphy
James Oswald
William Connellan

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Historical Context

The ancient harper-poets, such as Turlough O'Carolan and his predecessors, came from 'polite society,' and the music they left is that of the aristocracy.

Composition History

The works on this album were composed in Ireland chiefly in the 17th and 18th centuries and published in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Historical Context

Much of the music on this album reflects the vacuum in artistic patronage in Ireland after the 1607 Flight of the Earls and the religious and political consequences of plantation.

Instruments

The album features a hümmelchen (small bagpipes) made in 2008, after an original found in a shipwreck from 1625.

Album & Artwork

This album, "The High Road to Kilkenny," follows Les Musiciens de Saint-Julien's recording of the complete flute sonatas of J. S. Bach.

Composer Biography

Turlough O'Carolan (1670-1738), the most famous Irish composer, relied heavily on the last remnants of patronage at the turn of the 18th century.

Interpretation

François Lazarevitch, the conductor and flutist, discovered Irish music and its performing practice about twenty years ago while studying Baroque flute in Brussels.