IRISH TUNE from County Derry

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THIS IS THE IRISH ANTHEM, ALSO KNOWN AS 'LONDONDERRY AIR', MORE WIDELY KNOWN AS 'DANNY BOY'. THIS IS ONE OF THE 43 BRITISH FOLK SONGS WRITTEN IN 1902 BY PERCY GRAINGER AND SCORED FOR BAND IN 1918. PERFORMED BY THE 1979 UNIV. N. COLORADO WIND ENSEMBLE

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Symphonic Band Performances

Contemporary band compositions, classical music arrangements, marches, jazz, symphonies, overtures. A collection from bands that I have played in throughout hi

Hello and welcome! "Symphonic Band Performances" is a compilation of recordings from several high school and college bands that I played in including the TMEA (Texas) All State Band, the TMEA Region X All Region Band, the Interlochen Arts Academy National Music Camp, the Cal Poly Tech Band, San Luis Obispo, the USAF Golden West Band, and recordings from my h.s. band, Beaumont H.S. and a few band recordings that were passed down to me. Also included are various All State groups and college and university bands. I participated and played in the large majority of these recordings. There are no professional recordings here and every recording is Public Domain. Most are available for free download. Each song has been converted from the original analog or digital source and edited with Audacity or Dak software. In the majority of these recordings, I play the tenor sax or alto sax, b flat or e flat clarinet, or directing. I was drum major for 2 years in high school, I have a BA from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, where I studied music ed, composition and theory. I had about 500 more recordings I was planning to digitize and upload, but this past Nov. 20th, my home was completely destroyed by fire, and all the contents, including all my music and instruments. So, this is it. Please feel free to post a comment here or on my member page. If you like, please become a fan by clicking "I'm a fan" below.

Song Info

Genre

World • Traditional Irish

Charts

Peak #23

Peak in subgenre #1

Rights

public domain

Uploaded

September 14, 2009

Track Files

MP3

MP3 5.4 MB • 192 kbps • 3:56

Story behind the song

In the late spring of 1901, with his studies at Frankfurt's Hoch Conservatory behind him, the young Percy Grainger settled in London and began making his way as a society pianist and a seriousâ€”even revolutionaryâ€”composer. Between provincial tours and engagements at the houses of aristocratic patrons and the well-to-do, he read copiously, attended lectures by George Bernard Shaw, heard other pianists (Busoni and Harold Bauer loomed influentially), and began delving into folk music. The readiest source for the latter, before he began his own song-collecting forays into the hinterlands, was The Petrie Collection of the Ancient Music of Ireland, published in Dublin in 1855. One of his first finds was the "Irish Tune From County Derry," also known as "Londonderry Air," which he set between 1902 and 1904 for wordless chorus; F.E. Weatherly's mawkish "Danny Boy" lyrics are an extraneous addition. He also began a piano arrangement, which was not completed until 1911. Settings followed for string orchestra (with one or two horns ad lib) in 1913, wind band in 1918, orchestra in 1949 (at the request of Leopold Stokowski), and "large room music" (chamber orchestra) in 1952. Grainger quotes George Petrie's annotation to the melody at the head of his own piano arrangement, "For the following beautiful air I have to express my very grateful acknowledgement to Miss J. Ross, of New Town, Limvady, in the County of Londonderryâ€”a lady who has made a large collection of the popular unpublished melodies of the county...The name of the tune unfortunately was not ascertained by Miss Ross, who sent it to me with the simple remark that is was 'very old,' in the correctness of which statement I have no hesitation in expressing my perfect concurrence."
Amid folk material, the melody is unusual in remaining resolutely diatonic throughout, possessing regular phrase lengths and a recognizable beginning, middle, and end. Grainger's piano setting is, characteristically, marked "Slowish, but not dragged, and wayward in time," which translates the usual but grudgingly given Italian (in small print) Rubato il tempo, e non troppo lento. The widely spaced chordal accompaniment, though deceptively simple, is fashioned from what Grainger called "tone strands," that is, real partsâ€”not the usual harmonic fillerâ€”making for a richness heard to varied but always beguiling effect in its several arrangements.
While those arrangements are essentially the same piece, in 1920 Grainger made a more elaborate and eerily affective setting, under the unconsciously humorous title County Derry Air (British Folk-Music Settings 29), for orchestra and wordless men's chorus, with a prominent harmonium part. The familiar melody is beset by chromatically anguishing voices and a plethora of descending thirds, suggesting at the same time one of Peter Warlock's more arcane choral pieces and a blackface or minstrel, number.
It is largely owing to Grainger's familiar settings that the "Irish Tune From County Derry" has gone on to worldwide popularity.

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ALEXIS PATRICK

Oct 29, 2009

So-o beautiful, Ivan. Lovely work.