The Irish Traditional Music Archive has sent the following press release. It may be of interest to members.

John Moulden

ITMA Press Release************************************

FIRST COLLECTION OF IRISH MUSIC REPUBLISHED

Music has been performed in oral tradition in Ireland now for some ten thousand years, but it was 1724 before the first notated collection of Irish music appeared. Consisting of forty-nine tunes and far older than any surviving manuscript collection, A Collection of the Most Celebrated Irish Tunes Proper for the Violin, German Flute or Hautboy was published that year in the yard of Christ Church Cathedral in central Dublin by the musical-instrument makers John and William Neal, a father and son of obscure origins who dominated the Dublin music trade in the first half of the eighteenth century.

Sold for the new and fashionable instruments of the violin, German flute and oboe, the collection proves on examination to consist almost entirely of traditional Irish harp music and the melodies of traditional Irish-language songs, many with titles in Irish. The famous blind harper Turlough Carolan, who composed several of the tunes, was alive at the time of their publication here, aged fifty-four. Many of the tunes reveal a sympathy with the defeated but still powerful Jacobite cause, surprising in a publication produced in the heart of ascendancy Dublin.

A new facsimile reprint of the Celebrated Irish Tunes has now been published by the Irish Traditional Music Archive. It has been made from the single surviving copy of the original publication, and it makes generally available again a collection of Irish traditional music that was current three hundred and more years ago, music that differs greatly from the Irish traditional music of today. A document of social and political significance, the collection is chiefly important as a foundation source of Irish music, offering insights into its distant past and providing melodies for modern re-creation and study.

The illustrated introduction and notes on the tunes by Nicholas Carolan, Director of the Irish Traditional Music Archive, contain new information on John and William Neal, the earliest important publishers of music in Ireland, and on the state of music in the capital and the country in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. As an aid towards the re-creation and understanding of the tunes in the collection, early Irish-language song texts have also been provided, with translations, for the some half of the tunes which are song airs rather than instrumental melodies.

DETAILS
Title: A Collection of the Most Celebrated Irish Tunes Proper for the Violin, German Flute or Hautboy, [published by] John & William Neal, Dublin, 1724
Edition - Second facsimile ed.
Editor: Nicholas Carolan
Publisher: Irish Traditional Music Archive in association with the Folk Music Society of Ireland, 73 Merrion Square, Dublin 2, Ireland
Specifications: Hardback, 26cm., xiv+118 pp., illustrated introduction, music (49 melodies), notes on the tunes, appendixes, bibliography, indexes
ISBN:978-0-9532704-3-9
Price: €30
P&P Charges
(750g)
Ireland: €7
UK & Europe: €8
Rest of World: €11

Orders/Payment Options: Irish Traditional Music Archive, 73 Merrion Square, Dublin 2, Ireland
tel.: +353-1-661 9699, fax +353-1-662 4585
e-mail: sales@itma.ie, web site: www.itma.ie
Prepayment by cheque/ draft/ credit card (Mastercard, Visa) or PayPal on www.itma.ie required except from libraries/ institutions

Discount for Friends: Members of the ITMA support group Friends of the Archive can purchase the publication for €24, a discount of 20%. To join the Friends of the Archive go to www.itma.ie; the annual subscription rate is €20/ €10

ITMA Press Release ENDS