Tune Req: Lament from Lewis

Subject: Tune Req: Lament from Lewis
From: GUEST,Tom Bliss
Date: 28 Mar 06 - 09:18 AM

Can anyone suggest a really moving air or lament from Lewis? I'm looking for something to help resolve a really tragic story.
Thanks
Tom

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Lament from Lewis
From: GUEST,Les Millgate
Date: 28 Mar 06 - 10:54 AM

Farewell to Stromness - Peter Maxwell Davies. A haunting piano tune from The Yellow Cake Revue.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Lament from Lewis
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick
Date: 28 Mar 06 - 11:03 AM

Check Music From the Western Isles. Greentrax CD 9002. It's the old Tangent/School of Scottish Studies LP. There are no laments as such on it, but there are one or two pieces from the isle of Lewis which could certainly be described as mournful.

Cheers,

Fred McCormick

Can anyone suggest a really moving air or lament from Lewis? I'm looking for something to help resolve a really tragic story.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Lament from Lewis
From: open mike
Date: 28 Mar 06 - 11:04 AM

do you meant the Maple's Lament by Laurie Lewis?

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Lament from Lewis
From: GUEST,Les Millgate
Date: 28 Mar 06 - 11:12 AM

(Re my earlier submission: Stromness is on Orkney, rather than the Western Isles, but 'Farewell'is a magnificent tune.)

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Lament from Lewis
From: Joe Offer
Date: 28 Mar 06 - 12:07 PM

Open Mike and I are Californians, and I have to admit we don't quite realize what's meant by "Lament from Lewis." I take it from the answers from Fred and Les, that Lewis is off the western coast of Scotland.
Can you tell us more? Oh, and are there lighthouses there?
-Joe Offer, in the Sierra Nevada Foothills-

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Lament from Lewis
From: GUEST,Tom Bliss
Date: 28 Mar 06 - 02:24 PM

Sorry Joe, my earlier reply seems to have vanished.

Yes, Lewis is the largest of the Outer Hebrides, heading your way from Scotland. Lots of lighthouses, lovely scenery, beautiful people and music.

A lament is a very very sad tune.

Tom

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Lament from Lewis
From: GUEST,Jack Campin
Date: 28 Mar 06 - 04:48 PM

The pibroch "The Earl of Seaforth's Salute"? It's not a lament but it might be used as one in your context.

Or, why not use one of the psalm tune recordings from Lewis in the School of Scottish Studies series?

I currently can't get the slow 6/8 march "Leaving Lochboisdale" out of my head, and it would certainly work if played more slowly than usual, but it relates to Uist. (I play it to myself through headphones on the electronic bagpipes on my to work).

A tune from Lewis recycled as a lament elsewhere: #185 in Simon Fraser's collection, "Cha bhas thig air Laoch ach cadal", "A Hero Never Dies", used as a lament for Wolfe of Quebec.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Lament from Lewis
From: MartinRyan
Date: 28 Mar 06 - 04:55 PM

Joe

Yes- even if it looks like a laundry chimney! Click here!

I seem to remember a brick finished one on one of the Frisian Islands - Terschelling?

Regards

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Lament from Lewis
From: MartinRyan
Date: 28 Mar 06 - 05:04 PM

Ooops! Wrong light!
Try this one!

Regards

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Lament from Lewis
From: Arne
Date: 28 Mar 06 - 09:40 PM

Iain Macdonald did a tune called "[Loss of] The Iolaire" about this.

I think his record is out of print.

You might find lyrics in "Songs of The Highlands" here, but I can't seem to find it online.

Pretty d*** depressing, but perhaps not a lament in the sense you're asking for...

BTW, we've been through Harris and Lewis, in a lovely B'n'B in Tarbert, and through the "Forest of Harris" (with no trees), on to Stornoway and back over the Minch. Lovely place.

Cheers,

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Lament from Lewis
From: Peace
Date: 28 Mar 06 - 10:41 PM

Good article here.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Lament from Lewis
From: GUEST,Tom Bliss
Date: 29 Mar 06 - 03:21 AM

Thanks all - am following up suggestions. (And yes, I am indeed working on a story/song/tune set about the Iolaire).

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Lament from Lewis
From: GUEST,Domnull
Date: 29 Mar 06 - 04:12 AM

Anyone got the ABC (or dots) for 'Farewell to Stromness'?

Tapadh leat

Domnull

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Lament from Lewis
From: GUEST,Domnull
Date: 29 Mar 06 - 05:03 AM

Guest Jack Campin
Have you (or anyone else!) got the ABC or dots for 'Leaving Lochboisdale'?
Tapadh leat

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Lament from Lewis
From: GUEST,HughM
Date: 29 Mar 06 - 03:29 PM

Off the top of my head I can't immediately think of a lament from Lewis, but one tune which must be fairly easy to track down would be Macrimmon's Lament, which comes from Skye, not far from Lewis and probably visible from there on a clear day. Alternatively you could try Fear a' Bha\ta (The Boatman) or An Ataireachd Ard (literally The High Surge, but usually known in English as The Eternal Surge of the Sea.) These are not laments but would not sound out of place and should be some of the easiest airs from Lewis to find in print or recorded. I read somewhere that Fear a' Bha\ta was written by a girl from Stornoway, where the Iolaire was lost.
    (I use the back slash to represent a "grave" accent over the previous letter; my computer literacy doesn't extend to writing it properly!)

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Lament from Lewis
From: Joe Offer
Date: 12 Jul 15 - 12:03 AM

Interesting to come across this thread, nine years later, as I'm looking for lyrics to "Farewell to Stromness." I found a piano piece composed by Peter Maxwell Davies, but not a song with lyrics.

I wonder if Tom ever found his lament, and I wonder if he really thought we Americans didn't know what a lament was....

Didn't get to Lewis yet, but I've been to Mull and Skye and Iona and Orkney in recent years.

-Joe-