Remember, I was looking forward to receiving a pile of old Sol-Fa music the other day? Well, it proved as interesting as I expected. And in amongst the copies that I was expecting, were a couple of choir booklets for ‘The Glen’ concerts – which were annual open-air concerts on the Glennifer Braes in Paisley. I’ve written about these concerts, actually. (You’ll see, when my book comes out!)
As predicted, the programmes were mainly of Scottish songs, but the first song in 1915 was an Irish one – ‘Killarney’. I carefully read the score – I have no problem with the Sol-Fa note pitches, but I can’t have learned the rhythmic notation quite so well when we did it at school! And then, I wondered if I could find a recording of the song, to see if I’d got it right!
I found a YouTube recording of 1905 by Marie Narelle. I have not the first idea who this lady was, but it occurred to me that her singing style probably wasn’t a million miles from what the Paisley United Choirs would have considered a good rendition. It was a strange feeling, to be listening to something 118 years old, and the closest I could get to what was sung on the braes that afternoon.
But that’s not all. On a completely unrelated note, I remember reading about the fascination people had for echoes in the Georgian era, when I was researching the early 19th century Scottish song collector, Alexander Campbell. Alexander Campbell went to Fingal’s Cave with a bagpiper in his boat, just to hear the echo. And I read somewhere that in Ireland, people did a similar thing at Killarney Lake, where they’d take a few instrumentalists in the boat to listen to the echo – but sometimes the musicians would ask for more cash before they’d play a note!
Maybe it was my destiny to find that YouTube recording!
Karen McAulay, Musicologist 