Pìobaireachd: The Great Music of the Highland Bagpipe

Each major claim carries one of three labels. established means supported by primary records, official bodies or several independent reliable sources. shared means the core fact is sound but sources disagree on details, dates or interpretation. traditional means widely repeated but not traceable to a primary or independent source.

The early history of pìobaireachd is poorly documented, and many attributions of tunes to particular composers are traditional. Scholars debate how the music was played before written collections of the nineteenth century standardised it.

Great music and little music

established Highland bagpipe music is divided into ceòl beag, "little music", which includes marches, strathspeys, reels and jigs, and ceòl mòr, "great music", or pìobaireachd. Pìobaireachd is slow, stately and complex, and is considered the highest form of the piper's art.

Structure

established A pìobaireachd begins with the ùrlar, a slow theme. This is followed by a series of variations, each adding more complex gracenotes and embellishments, such as the taorluath and crùnluath movements, building in intensity before the piece returns to the ùrlar. A performance can last fifteen minutes or longer.

The MacCrimmons

shared The MacCrimmons were hereditary pipers to the MacLeods of Dunvegan on Skye, and tradition holds that they ran a college of piping at Boreraig. Many famous pieces, such as "Lament for the Children", are attributed to MacCrimmon composers like Patrick Mòr MacCrimmon. Other hereditary piping families included the MacArthurs and MacKays. Some aspects of these traditions are documented; others rest on later oral accounts.

Canntaireachd

established Pipers traditionally learned pìobaireachd orally, using canntaireachd, a system of vocables, sung syllables representing notes and embellishments. The Campbell Canntaireachd, a manuscript of 1797, preserves many tunes in this form.

The harp and the great music

established Harp and pipe side by side. Before about 1700 the piper was not the only professional musician in a great Highland household. Keith Sanger and Alison Kinnaird, in Tree of Strings (1992), their archival history of the harp in Scotland, show that chiefs kept harpers too. At Dunvegan in the 1680s Iain Breac MacLeod employed the piper Patrick Òg MacCrimmon and the blind harper and poet Roderick Morison (Ruairidh Dall). The harp served song, verse and the feast; the pipe was the outdoor and martial instrument.

established The harp had variations too. Sanger and Kinnaird describe two ways in which harpers built variations on a melody. One kept the main notes of the tune and set them in a repeated rhythm, often a 6/8 pattern, which they compare with the galliard that followed a slow pavane at court. The other added the same, or a similar, run of grace-notes to each main note, the decoration growing more elaborate with each variation. The second method is the one a piper will recognise. They find both methods in harp tunes such as "Caoineadh Rìoghail" (The Royal Lament), said to have been made by John Garbh MacLean of Coll on the execution of Charles I in 1649, "The Lament for the Earl of Wigtown" and "The Lament for the Bishop of Argyll".

shared An early written clue. The earliest notated Scottish example is "Port Ballangowne" in the Skene manuscript of about 1615, written for the mandora, which gives the harp tune with one full variation. In that variation groups of semiquavers replace some melody notes. Sanger and Kinnaird argue that on a wire-strung harp these groups make better sense as grace-notes attached to the melody notes than as notes of full value. If that reading is right, the piece may show an early stage of the variation form now known as ceòl mòr. It rests on one transcription by a lute or mandora player, so it remains a suggestion.

shared Shared forms. The salute (fàilte) is a class of tune found in both repertoires. The Gaelic poem "Cumha Choire an Easa" (Lament for the Corrie of the Waterfall) recalls a hunting party in the Reay country of Sutherland in the 1690s at which "Ruaidhri Dall" played a salute. Sanger and Kinnaird think this was probably a version of the pibroch now called "Cumha Craobh nan Teud" (Lament for the Harp Tree), one setting of which is titled "Corrienessan's Salute". Their tune list renders the title as "The Tree of Strings", the image that also gives their book its name. They also note that an analysis of pibroch structure gives a pattern like the "Scottish Measure" (Albann Hyfaidd) in the early 17th-century Welsh harp manuscript of Robert ap Huw, while saying that this may be coincidence.

established Musicians who played both. Several 18th-century musicians crossed between the instruments. Ranald MacAilean Òg of Eigg (c. 1662–1741) was said to play harp and fiddle, and pibrochs such as "The Finger Lock" are attributed to him. William McMurchy of Kintyre (born about 1700, died by 1782) was piper to MacDonald of Largie in 1745–46 and also played fiddle and harp. shared A letter of 1808 from Argyll's chamberlain says McMurchy "put all the pibroch and many highland airs to music". Sanger and Kinnaird read this as making him one of the earliest people to write pibroch down. His surviving papers in the National Library of Scotland contain poems but no music.

shared Caution. Sanger and Kinnaird note that pibroch reached its present formal structure only over the last 150 years or so, though it probably existed in a similar form from at least the 16th century. The shared features of harp and pipe variation are an argument from form, not a documented line of descent. See also the article on the Great Highland Bagpipe, and the clàrsach article for the harp itself.

Today

established The Piobaireachd Society, founded in 1903, publishes collections and promotes the music. Top pipers compete for gold medals at the Northern Meeting in Inverness and the Argyllshire Gathering in Oban, and for the Glenfiddich Championship, founded in 1974.

• Pìobaireachd is pronounced roughly "pee-broch".
• Ceòl mòr means "great music".
• A single piece can last over fifteen minutes.
• Canntaireachd uses sung syllables to teach tunes.
• The MacCrimmons were pipers to the MacLeods of Dunvegan.
• The pibroch "Cumha Craobh nan Teud" means "Lament for the Harp Tree", and one setting is called "Corrienessan's Salute".
• Kintyre piper William McMurchy, who also played the harp, was said in 1808 to have "put all the pibroch" into written music.

• Do not present traditional tune attributions as documented.
• Do not state details of the Boreraig piping school as established fact.
• Do not say pìobaireachd descends from harp music; the shared variation forms are suggestive, not proof.
• Do not treat "Cumha Craobh nan Teud" as a documented harp composition; the identification is an argument from title and tradition.