• PART 63 •
BY JEANNIE CAMPBELL MBE.
In 1998 the dates for the Gathering were 26th and 27th August. For the Gold Medal four tunes were to chosen from The Big Spree, Earl of Sea forth’s Salute, Isabel MacKay, Lament for Colin Roy Mackenzie, Lament for Patrick Og MacCrimmon, The MacKay’ s Banner, The Stewarts’ White Banner, The Old Men of the Shells. There were 30 competitors.
For the Senior the set tunes were MacDonald’s Salute, Lament for the Union, Lament for John Garve Macleod of Raasay, Red Speckled Bull, War or Peace, The Phantom Piper of Corryarrick, Lament for the Harp Tree, The MacLean’s March. Four were to be submitted and there were twelve competitors. The tunes for the Silver were All the Men Paid Rent but Rory, The Bicker, The Blue Ribbon, Catherine’s Lament, I am Proud to Play a Pipe, Lament for the Little Supper, The Munros’ Salute, Salute to Donald. Four were to be submitted and there were 30 competitors. The junior MSR had three entries and the MacGregor had 15. In the evening there were 16 pipers listed for the Former winners but two did not play.
A Sideways Look at Oban
In 1998 Ian K Murray wrote an account of the Gathering under the title A Sideways Look at Oban: “The 1998 Argyllshire Gathering opened in the brightest of weather with the colours of Oban Bay looking as if they had been illuminated for the occasion.
“The absence, even on a small scale, of an Eden Court Theatre causes problems for the organisers of the piping events. There is of course the Corran Halls: a purpose built building the purpose of which was evidently to provide an aircraft hanger constructed of materials which would decay as rapidly as possible in the raincarrying Atlantic winds. Surely this magnificent site deserved and deserves better. The Silver Medal Competition was held there with the Gold Medal in the Great Western Hotel. The Senior Piobaireachd was in the Royal Hotel at the other end of Oban from the Corran Halls.
“Despite the unfortunate experience of last year when so many competitors succumbed to a virulent form of breakdown plague, I thought I’d give the Senior competition a second chance. There was a new room this year with better acoustics and no extraneous noise. The audience was welcomed by a fear an continuity – a thoughtful gesture.
“A terrible sense of foreboding descended on the competition. One competitor was absent and two out of the first three retired after playing a few lines of their tune. However Angus MacColl and William McCallum came to the rescue and settled the atmosphere for the remainder of the competition.
“I have to confess that I missed Angus MacColl’s Lament for the Union because I suddenly remembered that I had omitted to buy a parking ticket at the Corran Halls car park necessitating a sharp exit and a brisk walk to escape a fine. Willie’s Lament for the Harp Tree started with a melodious ground and initial variations. The taorluath did not hold my attention – in fact I dozed off a couple of times – but the crunluaths sparkled with life. Given that the room by this stage was hot and airless, the McCallum bagpipe retained a remarkable steadiness throughout this very long tune.
“I remember the late D. R. MacLennan saying that, in his young day, no one could call himself a piobaireachd player unless he knew War or Peace. Sadly, no competitor even submitted this tune. In addition, MacDonald’s Salute and The Lament for John Garve MacLeod of Raasay were too impenetrable for me to pass any judgement on how they were played. These are tunes which require to be studied by members of the audience prior to the competition. I began to wonder whether the ancients repeated the ground between variations in order to remind the listener of the melodic line of the urlar.
“Another difficult tune for the listener is The MacLean’s March. However it does have some interesting features notably the GD and E grace notes on B in the taorluath singling. This was Roderick MacLeod’s tune and I found myself warming to it as it progressed. The first rate instrument must have helped my learning process. I actually listened to the whole of Robert Wallace’s Union. A fine ground well played but I remain unconvinced about the variations especially the repetitious a mach.
“The highlight of the competition for me was The Red Speckled Bull. There were two of them. One had been especially prepared for the show ring. Its hair had been brushed until the coat glistened. The hooves and horns had been burnished. It walked with a stately grace and a superior look. This was Dr Angus MacDonald’s creation. The other, Allan MacDonald’s beast, had a wicked glint in its eye. It pawed the ground; steam emanated from flared nostrils. Its matted hair was festooned with dried excrement. For excitement this was the Bull for me. The tempo was allegro but not rushed. There was a tension in the playing which had at least three members of the audience sitting on the edge of their seats wondering what was going to happen next. Could this be the way the composer intended the tune to be played?
“I will leave the editor to tell you what the judges decided because I don’t know nor am I anxious to find out. There was, after all, enough good music to make me feel that my journey was well worthwhile.
“Just to end, here are two quotations from Oban. The first is from the gentleman who made the announcements at the Senior Competition. ‘The judges this morning are Messrs MacDonald, Young and McRae. The toilets are on the second floor.’ The second is from the official programme. ‘A special prize of £15, presented by the Royal Celtic Society, will be awarded to the best all-round piper.’”
The Gold Medal
Dugald MacNeill reported on the Gold Medal: “This event was formerly open to anyone other than previous winners of the medal, but for some time the entry has been restricted to 30 as at the Northern Meeting and those eligible are screened by a joint committee of both competitions. This year the competitors had to submit four tunes out of a list of eight which the Piobaireachd Society set and published in October’s Piping Times. This year’s tunes which are for both Oban and Inverness are a very good selection. Twenty-one out of the 30 had chosen Patrick Og and the same number had chosen The Old Men of the Shells. The next most popular choices were The Big Spree, Earl of Seaforth’s Salute and The Mackay’s Banner. Only two had chosen The Stewarts ‘ White Banner and predictably each of them got it to play.
“It was a good competition with only one competitor not completing the tune chosen for them. He chose to stop after playing quite a good urlar of The Big Spree. Had he not learned the rest of it? One other player had a slip in his tune but it was not serious and not noticed by many, his low G was rather more noticeable as being not quite in tune. Leslie Hutt went for a wrong note and then corrected it in The Big Spree and had one untidy tripling. Alan Minty too had minor technical misses in his execution which at this level crosses you out of the prize list no matter how well you play otherwise. The standard of instrument was fairly high but there were some discordant low Gs. Niall Matheson played a very good Old Men of the Shells on a good pipe. I should have liked to hear the D gracenote in the “hiharin “, but it was a good musical performance compared with others who were equally competent but not so able to let the music flow. Euan MacCrimmon and Willie Morrison were the two who had offered The Stewarts’ White Banner. Both were enjoyable, but I preferred Willie’s interpretation and his Donald Mor ‘rundown’ was more suitable. His crunluath may have moved him down the order. One of the disconcerting features of Willie’s bagpipe in a literal sense was the very loud valve noise. Iain Macey, like Willie, does not have a crisp, effective crunluath and sometimes his taorluaths are poor but he has become more musical in his playing recently, and while he could have punched out the message in the ground a little more emphatically with a shorter C before the grip in the ground it was a very pleasing Mackay’s Banner.
“Iain Speirs played The Lament for Colin Roy Mackenzie the longest tune on the list. It was a very competent and musical performance and it cannot be long before Iain gets the Gold Medal for this standard of play. PM Stuart Samson played an excellent Earl of Seaforth on a good instrument with good low G and high G. I have noticed that the army pipers usually make a good job of this tune. Other performances which in another year would have reached the prize list were, John Patrick’s Earl of Seaforth, Allan Russell with Isobel MacKay, Maj. John Cairns, The Big Spree and Stuart Liddell playing Lament for Colin Roy Mackenzie although his low G was on the edge of being unacceptable.”
The results were:
- Niall Matheson
- PM Stuart Samson
- PM Iain Macey
- Iain Speirs
The Games
The report which followed on the Games was not attributed to an author. “Thursday morning started with showers but these cleared up and the rest of the day was fine and dry.
“The traditional parade of the stewards and competing pipers marched from the station to the Games field with the new Gold Medallist Niall Matheson in the place of honour as Pipe Major. The number of pipers taking part in this march was not large in comparison to the number entered for the various competitions, as the programme listed 45 names for the A events and 44 for the B grade.
“First events of the day were the local March and Strathspey and Reel at 10am. The A and B grades of the March and Strathspey and Reel followed, with the Jig competition starting a little later, so five platforms were in use simultaneously.
“The lunch time entertainment this year was provided by the pipe band of St. Thomas’ Episcopal School, Texas, the current World Juvenile champions, under the direction of Mike Cusack. They included in their selections several American tunes which have probably never been played before on the Argyllshire Gathering field.
“Another new event this year was a demonstration by a team of six sheepdogs. This was perhaps an experiment in getting the dogs accustomed to the Gathering field and probably they will be back next year to assist the stewards in shepherding pipers to the competition platforms.”
The full results of this year’s Argyllshire Gathering were:
Highland Society of London, Gold Medal: 1. Niall Matheson, 2. PM Stuart Samson, 3. PM Iain Macey, 4. Iain Speirs.
Senior Piobaireachd: 1. Dr Angus MacDonald, 2. William McCallum, 3.Roderick MacLeod, 4. Angus MacColl.
Silver Medal: 1. Matt MacIsaac, 2. Michael Rogers, 3. Andrew Mathieson, 4. Seumas Coyne, 5. Liam Brown.
March, Strathspey & Reel (Former Winners): 1. Angus MacColl, 2. Alasdair Gillies, 3. P/Sgt. Gordon Walker, 4. Niall Matheson.
March Grade ‘A’: 1. Stuart Liddell, 2. Peter Hunt, 3. Douglas Murray, 4.Niall Matheson, 5. Gordon McLean.
March Grade ‘B’: 1. Liam Brown, 2. Herve Lefloc’h, 3. Margaret Houlihan, 4. Martin Kessler, 5. Kelly Todd.
Strathspey & Reel Grade ‘A’: 1. Stuart Liddell, 2. Seumas Coyne, 3. Niall Stewart, 4. Donald MacPhee, 5. Iain Speirs.
Strathspey & Reel Grade ‘B’: 1. Graham Roy, 2. Neil Walker, 3. Brian MacKenzie, 4. Liam Brown, 5. Fiona MacKay.
Jigs: 1. P/Sgt. Gordon Walker, 2. Donald MacPhee, 3. Greg Wilson.
MacGregor Memorial Piobaireachd: 1. Margaret Houlihan, 2. Brian May, 3. John Mulhearn, 4. Edward Gotstaf.
Junior March, Strathspey & Reel (Local): 1. Angus Morrison.
The Lorne Campbell of Airds VC Trophy: P/Sgt. Gordon Walker.
Best Piper events 2 & 7: Angus MacColl
Best Local Piper Award: Iain MacIntyre.
March (Local): 1. Iain MacIntyre, 2. Paul Tweedie, 3. Donald Files.
Strathspey & Reel (Local): 1. Iain MacIntyre, 2. Donald Files, 3. Jean Morrison.