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Donald MacPherson: A Living Legend (www.siubhal.com)
This is a CD-sized hardbound book, 168 pages in length, with an accompanying 76-minute CD of the pibroch playing of Donald MacPherson, solo piping from the old, “big house” Scottish tradition that was at one time aurally transmitted and has only in recent years begun to be more fully appreciated and preserved for future generations. It is not the massed pipes-and-drums of the regimental pipe bands onstage here, but instead solo piping, meant for the careful listener to the virtuoso performer. The CD has seven tracks, ranging from the longest, “Mary’s Praise” (at 13 minutes and 40 seconds) to the shortest, “Donald Gruamach’s March” (at 4 minutes and 24 seconds). The latter is exceptional, the other tracks ranging upwards from “MacCrimmon’s Sweetheart” (10:33) thro “Lord Lovat’s Lament” (11:11), to “The Blue Ribbon” and “Ronald MacDonald of Morar’s Lament” (both 11:38), to “The Big Spree” (12:32) to the aforesaid “Mary’s Praise.” Each tune has its own special beauties, discussed in the extensive liner notes (translated into four EU languages), which make up much of the text of the accompanying book, together with newspaper reviews of competitions in which Donald MacPherson won some of his pibroch trophies.
This choice of pibrochs at full elaboration and length will of course limit its use on most radio programmes – the initial point of entry for much traditional music these days - to any but the most specialized shows, which is something of a pity, since the fluid, absorbing pibroch is potentially among the most enchanting of traditional musics, given a chance to be heard. At the same time, samples of two of the pibrochs here, “Ronald MacDonald of Morar’s Lament,” and “Lord Lovat’s Lament,” can be heard if you go to the website above, the samples being 1.9 and 2.0MB in length, for the “taste and try before you buy” listeners, so they can appreciate some of the rippling grace-notes of this mellifluous playing style. Donald MacPherson is an award-winning piper – so good that eventually he was retired from competition to the judges’ bench, a not-unknown fate for such excellence in traditional crafts – but it is difficult to appreciate fully his playing without already having the CD in your hands, given the elegant intricacies of the pibroch, which clearly does require to be listened to at length in order for its development at the hands of such a master to be appreciated (a short pibroch is almost a contradiction in terms – as soon demand of a Bach sonata that it be trimmed to fit the hurried listening requirements of a pop-music-trained audience). Still, the sound-samples available, as noted above, should win some converts to this beautiful music.
The mission of the non-profit organization that lies behind this recording, Siubhal (the name translating from the Gaelic as “journey,” as a musical term meaning “variation” – see the website, www.siubhal.com) is to preserve and perpetuate the traditional musics of Scotland, Ireland and Sardinia, viewing them as currently in danger of being submerged by commercial and pop music traditions in the European Union. It has chosen a beautiful example of Scots pibroch for its first outing, and this beautiful CD/book combination should most definitely be in the hands of every Scots piping enthusiast. It should be on the birthday or Christmas shopping list for any aspiring young piper – or appreciative older one – to learn something of the beauty of the old tradition from one of its masters.
(Review copyright John McLaughlin 9/7/2004)