Скачать с ютуб 07 An Mhaighdean Mhara (The Mermaid Song) -Kitty Gallagher/ Cití Ní Ghallchóir, Gweedore, Co.Donegal в хорошем качестве

07 An Mhaighdean Mhara (The Mermaid Song) -Kitty Gallagher/ Cití Ní Ghallchóir, Gweedore, Co.Donegal

Both the language and melody of this song appear to be quite old. It forms part of the mermaid folklore common to Donegal and the Hebrides, where mermaids were often said to be seen in the last century. The singer, age 18, comes from a farm family. She learned her songs from the old women in the community and her blas is typically Northern. [This text is obscure and fragmentary, which gives an impression of antiquity.] The Historic Series World Library of Folk and Primitive Music, Volume II, Ireland Original Introduction by Alan Lomax, London, 1951 The last notes of the old, high and beautiful Irish civilization are dying away-a civilization which produced an epic, lyric and musical literature as noble as any in the world. Two hundred years ago, most Irishmen spoke Gaelic and so were heritors of this remarkable oral culture. The conquest of Ireland by the English, the potato famine in the 1840s which reduced the population by half, the subsequent emigration that filled America with Irishmen, the recent impact of films, and the like, have dealt Gaelic culture terrible blows. Today, only cottagers in the West still speak Gaelic as their everyday language. The scientists in the Irish Folklore Commission feel a special urgency in their work, for the see an entire culture traced on the sands of the western beaches. They must recover what they can, before the next wave washes the beach smooth of the old words. There is also an urgent need to publish records like this one from which a new, live singing tradition may grow. The singing style of the Irish is impossible to notate in our Western musical script. Scholars and composers of the 18th and 19th centuries published their written versions of the songs so that the real McCoy was hidden by volumes of badly transcribed or even censored material under layers of imitations and rewrites. The best modern versions of Irish folksong were created by anonymous Irish singers, who apparently made up verses in their heads in Irish and translated them into English as the sang. From this stems the Irish come-all-ye tradition ("Morrisey," etc.) which is the basis for many of our American ballads. Recently, the government of Éire has officially sponsored the Irish language. In street names, in the schools, in contests in songs, in every way possible, the attempt has been made to revive and spread this beautiful tongue. The issue is in doubt, but at least dozens of young singers have gone into country districts and learned the songs from the lips of surviving singers. I have included several such versions in this collection. The recordings were made by Robin Roberts and myself in 1951, and by Brian George and Maurice Brown of the BBC in 1947. All of us travelled with Seamus Ennis, a great piper and son of a great piper, a fine singer of ballads, and a man known and loved wherever Gaelic is spoken and music made in Ireland. This collection is his. Thanks go to Séamus Ó Duilearga and Séan Ó Súilleabháin of the Irish Folklore Commission, under whom we all worked, and to Radio Éireann and the BBC for generous help when it was needed.