Patrick Ball - Celtic Harp, Vol. 4: O'Carolan's Dream
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CD Details
Artist: Patrick BallEdition: Music CD
Audio: English (Original Language)
CD Release Date: 1991-10-16
Music Label: Fortuna Records
Soundtracks:
- The Butterfly
- Morgan Magan
- Carolan's Dream
- Carolan's Draught
- The Orange Rogue
- Mable Kelly
- Cremonea
- Coilsfield House
- Rory Dall's Sister's Lament
- La Valse Pour Les Petites Jeunes Filles
- Bridget Cruise
- Thomas Burke
- Miss Rowan Davies
Music reviews of Celtic Harp, Vol. 4: O'Carolan's Dream
Music Review: Magnificent harp performances
Rating: 5 Stars
This album and its predecessor show Ball in his prime as a harpist. I tend to prefer the previous one because I think the tunes have more variety; this album is almost entirely Irish material, and, while it's well chosen and balanced, it's a more gently rolling landscape by contrast with his other albums' peaks and valleys. Still, the performances and arrangements are superb, and the album is thoroughly listenable even if you're not a big Irish music fan.
Description of Celtic Harp, Vol. 4: O'Carolan's Dream
The lilting, crystalline tone of the Celtic harp must be one of the most joyful sounds in mankind's history. The harp originated a thousand years ago in ancient Ireland; it shone through the age of the bards and brought hope during long years of occupation and oppression. As it is a challenging instrument to play well, nearly two centuries ago the wire-strung Celtic harp was abandoned in favor of the easier to play, more subdued gut-strung neo-Irish harp. Patrick Ball would not let that sweet voice fall silent. He brings to audiences world-wide the ancient Celtic harp that "has always been loved and celebrated by the Irish people for its mystical power to enchant them, to draw them into realms beyond thought, and to refresh their spirit." That is exactly what Patrick Ball accomplishes in these five sparkling recordings. Listeners are enchanted by his performances. They are drawn to the emotional portrait that Patrick paints with each piece, romantic, melancholy or jubilant. Although Patrick is a delightful storyteller with words, these instrumental works tell their own stories, requiring nothing more than Patrick's fingernails deftly plucking the brass strings of his beautifully crafted harp. The harp he plays is a re-creation of the ancient Celtic instrument, lovingly crafted by master harp builder Jay Witcher of Houlton, Maine, who has made it his life's work to allow the sound of the great instrument to live again.Patrick Ball pays his greatest tribute to the legendary Turlough O'Carolan, a blind, itinerant harper who wandered the Irish countryside at the turn of the eighteenth century, playing for wealthy landowners. O'Carolan was witty, a prolific composer and a genius on the Celtic harp. It is little wonder that Patrick Ball has included O'Carolan's brilliant tunes in each of his first four volumes.
O'Carolan's Dream is Patrick Ball's fourth collection of tunes composed by the 18th-century Irish harper Turlough O'Carolan. As on the previous volumes, Ball plays these lovely melodies on the wire strung, an instrument that fell into disuse in the late 18th century and was revived in the middle of the 20th century. The wire-strung harp is louder and has longer sustain than modern gut-strung harps. But because he believed that O'Carolan's music should be played on the same sort of instrument on which it was composed, Ball became one of the first musicians to master it in almost 200 years. This is not just an exercise in early-music correctness. The bell-like tone of the brass strings gives the slower tunes a haunting resonance and the quicker tunes an invigorating clangor that modern harps just can't match. Bands such as the Chieftains may have been among the first to revive the melodies of Turlough O'Carolan, but Patrick Ball has shown us how the music would have sounded when it was originally composed. --Michael Simmons
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