Blair Collection > Celtic monthly > Volume 1, 1893

THE CELTIC MONTHLY.
DUNCAN BAN'S MUSICAL
ADAPTATIONS.
fT is not probable that Duncan Ban Macin-
fcyre «ms possessed of the faculty ascribed
— to Rob Donn, the Reay Bard, of being able
to compose the musical airs as well as the words
of his songs. At all events a large number of
his pieces are avowedly attached to pre-existing
melodies, some of them being from Lowland
collections, and doubtless very popular in
Duncan's day. The adaptations thus made by
him are in the main most suitable, and are
admirably in keeping with the sentiment and
rhythmical movement of the words to which the
bard has wedded them. Nor could anything
else be expected ; for among our Gaelic bards
there are none whose compositions are more
musical and smooth-flowing than his ; thus testi-
fying to the possession of an acute ear and fine
musical taste. Who has not been charmed with
the delicious and ever-recurring assonances of
his wedding-march of "Mairi Bhan, Og," as
they picture him stepping lightly along to the
trysting-place, humming the air which he was
shortly to immortalise by joining it to the glow-
ing verses of his epithalainium —
"Madaiun Di-luain, ge buan an t-slighe,
'N nail ghluais mi. i inthinn mar ghaoith,
A dh' fhaicinn mo luaidh 'a rud uainn 'n ar dithis
Nach anal da rithisd gun sgaoil.
Thug mi i 'n uaigneas uair a bhruidhinn,
'S anil fhuair an ni_'li. an in- "haul,
Is chluinneadh mo cblnas an thnniin a bhitheadh
Aig luaths mo chridhe ri m' thaobh."
There is one instance, however, in which the
bard's sense of musical congruity and appropri-
ateness seems to have entirely deserted him, and
that is in composing, of all things, a lament
"Cumha Choire-Cheathaich" —and adapting ii to
the air of " The Flowers of Edinburgh." Why,
if he had placed his dead mother in a hearse,
and " rattled her bones over the stones," racing
at express speed with her to the churchyard, the
action would not have been more out of keeping
with the fitness of things, or a greater violation
of the canon* of good taste, than his flying off
to the sprightly movement of a contre-dance
with such words as —
'■ Is iluilich loam an caramli
Tir air coire gorm an fhaaaich,
'S .in nihil mi greis ga in' arach
'S a 1 bhraighe bo thai].'
The whole thing looks inexplicable. Bui (here
is an explanation of the adaptation, suggested
by a habit common in more recent times, and
one which our Yankee friends have carried to
exaggerated lengths, which may tree Duncan
Ban ii the imputation of even once forge!
ting his sense of musical propriety, and gain for
him s • little credit for anticipating posterity
in this special method of exemplifying the varie-
ties of mental effect produced merely by
changing the speed of the rhythmical move-
ment in musical compositions. It is a notorious
fact that some of our soberest old favourite
melodies have been tortured almost beyond re-
cognition by little more — in some cases nothing
more — than a mere acceleration of their move-
ment. Thus our good old friend, " John Ander-
son, my jo," has had all his seriousness shaken
out of him by being rushed along in the charac-
ter of his youthful namesake, in "Johnny comes
marching home." In like manner, our own
stately and defiant- march, " Gabhaidh sinne 'n
rathad-mor," has, without the alteration of a
note, been transformed into that grotesque rant,
once so popular — " Kafoosalum." Conversely,
not a few of our most touching lyric tunes are
neither more nor less than some of our High-
land and Lowland dance tunes, shorn of their
crotchets, and reduced to the proverbial sobriety
of judges. (By the way, it must have been a
Highlander that named the musical symbols for
representing this grave, judicial movement,
"breves" and ''semi-breves"!*) Of such con-
versions numerous acknowledged examples could
be adduced, while there are others which, even
in their changed form, raise the suspicion that,
though fathered upon modern composers, they
are really transfigured versions of ancient Scol
tish dance tunes, which have survived only in
their elevated forms. " Hey, Donald,'' one of
Tannahill's most exquisite compositions, has
been set to a Gaelic air in every respect worthy
of the charming lyric with which it has been
coupled. It has been appropriately harmonised
by Mr. Merrylees. Anyone singing, or rather
playing this melody with allegro speed will not
need to be told what it originally was: nor would
it be easy to decide whether it was best adapted
to do duty in the dizzying whirl of a Highland
Schottische or as the exj enl of the emotions
of a love sick maiden mourning in secret —
" I downa look on hank and brae,
I .low mi greet \\ hen a' are ga} ,
But nh ! my heart will break wi' wae
Gin Donald cease to lo'e me."
But to return to our text. It would be inter-
esting to find out at what period of his life
Duncan Ban composed "Cumha Choire-Cheath-
aich.'' If it was contemporaneously with his
crooning of his inimitable "('end Deireannach
nam lleann," in which he lamented that he
scarce had breath enough left to sing the praises
of his native hills, far less to chase the bounding
roe, we can in imagination lill up the canvas
and picture him to ourselves, with " wandering
* Gaelic, britheamh, a judge.