Carolan's Receipt

Carolan's Receipt
Derek Bell
Shanachie
37 E. Clinton Street
Newton, NJ 07860

Turlough O'Carolan, an 18th century itinerant harper blinded by smallpox at the age of 18, has been called Ireland's national composer. His first patron, Mrs. MacDermott Roe, apprenticed O'Carolan to a harper for three years and provided him with a horse, harp, and guide. O'Carolan wrote his first tune, "Sheebeg and Sheemore," on the way to his patron's house.

During his career, O'Carolan wrote more than 200 pieces that run the gamut of musical moods, from light-hearted jigs to reflective, exquisitely contemplative compositions. Carolan's Receipt offers 15 of the blind composer's finest works, flawlessly recorded in Dublin and performed with vitality and grace.

This CD gives modern listeners a rare opportunity to experience the musical outpouring of baroque Ireland with a truly compelling collection of ancient music. Influenced by Vivaldi, Corelli, and Geminiani, O'Carolan's music builds a bridge between the folk melodies of Ireland and the classical traditions of the baroque era. His legacy is a body of work that is distinctively Irish yet truly international.

Derek Bell, former harper for The Chieftains, plays the tiompan, a wire-strung Irish harp, and a neo-Irish harp on the first CD entirely devoted to O'Carolan's music. Bell opens, fitting, with O'Carolan's first composition, "Sheebeg and Sheemore," an infectiously charming piece based on an ancient folk legend about warring fairy tribes. Equally fittingly, Bell concludes this album with the composer's last work, "Carolan's Farewell to Music," a haunting lament also written at the house of Mrs. MacDermott Roe, where O'Carolan returned to die in 1738.