Description
Tabhair Dom do Lámh (orginal Latin title Da mihi manum) and Carolan's Concerto are two of the best-known melodies in traditional Irish music. The first is connected to the world of the early Irish harp, and the second is one of the best known compositions of Ireland's most famous harp composer, Turlough Carolan (1670–1738). There's a fascinating problem with both compositions: the versions now played by most harpists are quite different to the earliest surviving ones.
In the first three sessions you will be guided through the earliest – mid-1600s Scottish lute-manuscript – setting of Da mihi manum. You will gain some familiarity with the lute tablature it is written in; Tamzin will discuss with you how a harp setting might be reconstructed; and you can start playing a ‘new’, evocative setting of this iconic piece.
In the second three sessions, you will get as close as is now possible to the original, much more harp-friendly setting of the iconic Carolan's Concerto. Exploring 18th–20th-century printed sources, you will learn how much Carolan's Concerto has changed, and why, and how we can confidently get back to the actual performance idiom of Turlough Carolan himself, as revealed in the earliest surviving sources.
This course is suitable for players of all kinds of harps interested in learning to find, and use, more plausible sources for historical Irish harp music.