By CHRIS MacKENZIE
The Aly Williams band got the action on the Centre Stage of to a brilliant start. Two sets of pipes, one Scottish smallpipes the other uilleann pipes backed by bodhan and keyboard give this quartet a distinctive sound that proves a perfect start to the afternoon’s music.
One of the brilliant features of Piping Live! over the years has been the willingness of the organisers to take a punt on things that on first glance seem at best tangential to piping or even completely left field. The James Scott Skinner recital featuring Paul Anderson on fiddle and Ross Ainslie on smallpipes, held essentially to publicise the push to fund a statue to the Strathspey King in his home town of Banchory, falls squarely in the left field bucket. This, even though most pipers play at least one Skinner tune. Paul starts the recital with a quote from Skinner, ‘talent does what it can, genius what it must’ – modest he was not. His classical training gave him the ability to put classical flourishes into his music, so he did. Paul also mentions that Skinner and G. S. MacLennan had a pact that whoever died first the other would play at the funeral and that is exactly what G.S. did on Skinner’s passing. Paul is one of Scotland’s finest fiddle players and has a touch and expression that few can match. This was abundantly clear when he played Skinner’s ‘piobaireachd’ in tribute to the bravery piper Findlater displayed at Dargai for which he was awarded a Victoria Cross. Paul played ‘Dargai’ with a subtly of expression that made this fiddle tune a highlight of a week devoted to piping. Ross Ainslie played some other Skinner tunes on the smallpipes including one of the great 2/4s The Cameron Quickstep and that other Skinner classic The Music of Spey. The Skinner tune every piper plays is, of course, Hector the Hero, even if they don’t know the story of Hector MacDonald who inspired it. In an all too rare duet, Ross’s pipes carried the melody while Paul’s played the fiddle just under it, with such delicateness and feeling that the tune seemed to reach a whole new level of expression. This was great music played beautifully.
The James Scott Skinner statue will be in his home town of Banchory in the North East, but it was south to the central belt for the book launch of John Mulhearn’s Let Piping Flourish. Compered by Dougie Pincock this event started with John explaining why Glasgow has become the ‘home of piping’ and why he decided to compile a book with tunes, more than two hundred and fifty of them, related to those piping greats who have made Glasgow their home over the years. This engrossing discussion covered everything from economic/forced migration, island societies, pipe makers, the College of Piping, the Piping Centre all the way through to the World Pipe Band championship in Glasgow Green. After the chat, John played some of the tunes in the book, finishing with The Flat Wheeled Tram Car, a cracking tune but not one for the faint of heart or finger. As with all the tunes the story of why it got its name is in the book. This is a big, beautiful book full of stories and pictures of the piping life of Glasgow.
It turned out to be a day of book launches as Richard McLauchlan took the opportunity to present his book, The Bagpipes: A Cultural History. This very interesting and readable book takes a stab at taking the history of the bagpipes, mainly but certainly not exclusively the Highland pipes, and putting it in context with what is happening outside of the piping bubble. Richard asked his original piping tutor Colin MacLellan to provide some musical examples. This gave those in the tent the rare opportunity to hear Colin play. Play he did, starting with a set of Canadian tunes, which he explained were all by composers who had now sadly passed – prompting one wag in the audience to ask if there were any living composers who had asked him not to play their tunes. Tunes related to the military followed interspersed with Richard explaining their significance to the piping world we have today. This was all very interesting and to a degree expected but then something unexpected and fabulous happened. Colin struck his pipes up to play his father’s, Captain John MacLellan, piobaireachd The Phantom Piper of the Corrieyairack. As Colin pointed out this was a very rare event, and it was a delight to hear.
In the sunshine the 35 Club band were running through their preparations for Saturday and entertaining the crowd at the same time.
Inverness based band Cala brought the afternoon’s session to a close with big bold take on traditional music that rocked the mini amphitheater that the steps have become.
