On St. Patrick’s Day 2015, an exhibit called “IRELAND: Crossroads of Art and Design, 1690–1840” opened at the Art Institute of Chicago. It was accompanied by music, the music on this CD, developed by one of Chicago’s most beloved Irish musicians, fiddler Liz Carroll, in partnership with several others. Chicago, in case you didn’t know it, has a significant Irish immigrant population that has contributed to the Windy City’s commerce and culture for 150 years and more.
The exhibit showcased decorative and fine art works ranging from furniture and paintings to musical instruments such as the Irish harp that graces the CD’s cover. Liz Carroll wrote seven of the 15 musical pieces on the CD to accompany pieces in the exhibit, and fiddler Liz Knowles curated the remaining tunes from among the standard Irish folk repertoir, co-producing the CD along with pianist Marty Fahey. The three enlisted some of the genre’s top players to help her bring these works to life, including keyboardist Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill, harpist Catriona McKay, and uilleann piper Kieran O’Hare, plus guest musicians Jackie Moran, Trevor Hutchinson, Emer Mayock, Mick O’Brien, and Aoife Ní Bhriain.
As befits an album inspired by museum pieces of art, the CD comes in a beautiful tri-fold digipack decorated with reproductions and photos of some of the pieces, and is packaged with a 24-page booklet. The book has photos of the pieces that inspired Carroll’s compositions or that enlighten the trad selections, accompanied by short essays by Carroll, Knowles, Fahey and other musicians, plus an essay about Irish country house culture during the period by historian Karol Mullaney-Dignan, University of Limerick.
The album is appropriately bookended by the works of the best known of traditional Irish composers and players, Turlough Carolan. The opener “Carolan’s Concerto,” a solo harp piece played by McKay, is accompanied by a famous painting entitled “Carolan, the Irish Bard,” that depicts a popular but apocryphal story of a meeting between Carolan and Italian composer Francesco Geminiani. The closer is probably the composer’s best-known work today, “Carolan’s Farewell to Music,” the stately elegiac piece played solo by keyboardist Ní Dhomhnaill on what sounds like a period instrument.
In between those stately bookends are alternating pieces by Carroll and traditional tunes. They’re all approached in a manner that fits their involvement with a museum exhibit – a bit more concert hall than pub session. (Not a criticism, just so you know what to expect.) However, most of Carroll’s tracks are tune sets pairing a less lively track with a more lively one. Her lively reel “Crow Street” is paired with the lovely march “Blind Daniel the Piper,” inspired by a drawing she found in the exhibit, for example. They’re all lovely, but I think my favorite set is one inspired by the Religion, Metalwork, and Ceramics portion of the exhibit. It starts with a very slow and dignified air “The Lough Derg Cross” featuring the two fiddlers (Knowles on a hardanger), and goes on to “A Tale Of A Tub” and “The Potter’s Wheel,” both reels drawing on a large ensemble with particular focus on the harp.
In addition to the Carolan works, the traditional works are highlighted by “The Droning Old-Aged Woman,” a very slow jig,” and “The Dark Slender Boy,” a stunning air played by Kieran O’Hare as an uilleann pipe solo.
The art works that accompany (and inspired) the tunes are every bit as interesting and inspiring as the music. One only wishes to see them in person and full sized.
Kudos to everyone involved in this most memorable project.
(O’Brien International, 2016)
