There has been a call in recent years for change in the long-standing arrangements in the big piobaireachd competitions; that the Piobaireachd Society should stop naming its own settings as the preferred ones, or stop setting the annual tunes at all, allowing the performers free choice in which tunes they […]
Tag: G. S. MacLennan
P.M. James Robertson’s family / Ali Levack / Irish Piobaireachd Society
Tobar an Dualchais, the archival project that digitises, catalogues and disseminates Gaelic and Scots sound recordings online, is seeking information on the surviving family of Pipe Major James Robertson, Gordon Highlanders (b. 1886-d. 1961). Recordings of Robertson, the composer of Farewell to the Creeks, have been discovered – both spoken […]
A contemporary account of Willie Lawrie’s death
Tomorrow, Remembrance Sunday, millions of people around the world will commemorate the contribution of British and Commonwealth military and civilian servicemen and women in the two World Wars and later conflicts. At 11:00 thousands of pipers will participate in ceremonies at cenotaphs and churches and elsewhere. During the First World […]
The image of an unchanging art form
Part 2 of Iain MacInnes’s 2000 John MacFadyen Lecture Competition is very much part and parcel of the piping culture here in Scotland, and its shaped not just the music, but also the style of performance. It all goes back to 1781, when the Highland Society of London started the […]
Hornpipes – from jaunty dance to finger fireworks in a few years
• From the January 2012 Piping Times. By Iain Bruce The hornpipe has had a long run in the history of music but it is not clear how long. The Oxford Companion to Music describes two meanings of the word ‘hornpipe’. In the first place it refers to an obsolete […]