Pibroch, piobaireachd or ceòl mòr is an art music genre associated primarily with the Scottish Highlands that is characterised by extended compositions with a melodic theme and elaborate formal variations.
This term encompasses music of a similar nature to pibroch, pre-dating the adoption of the Highland pipes, that has historically been played on the wire-strung Gaelic harp (clàrsach) and later on the Scottish fiddle, and this form is undergoing a revival.
A number of the earliest manuscripts such as the Campbell Canntaireachd MS that predate the standard edited published collections have been made available by the Pibroch Network website as a publicly accessible comparative resource.
Many pibroch tunes have intriguing names such as "Too Long in This Condition", "The Piper's Warning to His Master", "Scarce of Fishing", "The Unjust Incarceration" and "The Big Spree" which suggest specific narrative events or possible song lyric sources.
The pibroch "Cha till mi tuill" in the Campbell Canntaireachd manuscript,[28] which translates as "I shall return no more", is related to a tune associated with victims of the Clearances emigrating to the New World.
[29] In Angus MacKay's book A Collection of Ancient Piobaireachd or Highland Pipe Music, 1838, the pibroch "Cha till mi tuill" is subsequently published with the title "MacCrummen will never return".
Recent research suggests that the style of ornamentation in pibroch points to earlier origins in wire-strung Gaelic harp music, in particular the use of rapid descending arpeggios as gracenotes.
Probable wire-strung harp repertoire can also be found in a number of collections of Irish and Scottish songs and tunes, often published in arrangements for violin, flute and other modern instruments.
[50] A pibroch that is considered to be one of the oldest in the repertoire appears in the Campbell Canntaireachd with the title "Chumbh Craoibh Na Teidbh"[51] which translates as "Lament for the Tree of Strings", a possible poetic reference to the wire-strung harp.
[59] Ceòl mór repertoire is likely to have transferred from the harp to the newly developed Italian violin in the late 16th century as fiddlers began to receive aristocratic patronage and supplement the role of the harpers.
"[68] This musical lineage had gone into decline around the time the fiddle pibroch repertoire was documented in the late 18th-century manuscripts, culminating in the laments by and for the Scottish fiddler and composer Niel Gow (1727–1807).
1844) in his book History of Skye originally published in 1930, recounts a tradition that the MacCrimmons were "skilful players of the harp, and may have been composers of its music, before they began to cultivate the other and more romantic instrument.
[91] The rise of the bagpipe and the corresponding shift away from the harp and its associated traditions of bardic poetry is documented with a confronting disdain in the satirical dispraising song "Seanchas Sloinnidh na Piob o thùs/A History of the Pipes from the Beginning" (c. 1600) by Niall Mòr MacMhuirich (c. 1550 – 1630), poet to the MacDonalds of Clanranald: "John MacArthur's screeching bagpipes, is like a diseased heron, full of spittle, long limbed and noisy, with an infected chest like that of a grey curlew.
Of the world's music Donald's pipe, is a broken down outfit, offensive to a multitude, sending forth its slaver through its rotten bag, it was a most disgusting filthy deluge..."[92] This can be contrasted with the celebration of the heroic warrior associations of bagpipe pibroch at the expense of the harp and fiddle by later Clanranald poet Alasdair mac Mhaighstir Alasdair (c. 1695 – 1770) in the song "Moladh air Piob-Mhor Mhic Cruimein/In Praise of MacCrimmons Pipes": "Thy chanter's shout gives pleasure, Sighing thy bold variations.
Through every lively measure; The war note intent on rending, White fingers deft are pounding, To hack both marrow and muscles, With thy shrill cry resounding... You shamed the harp, Like untuned fiddle's tone, Dull strains for maids, And men grown old and done: Better thy shrill blast, From gamut brave and gay, Rousing up men to the destructive fray..."[93] Bardic verses traditionally celebrated the clàrsach harp and made no mention of bagpipes.
[105] Angus MacKay's book A Collection of Ancient Piobaireachd or Highland Pipe Music, published in 1838, documented and presented the pibroch repertoire in staff notation with supplementary commentary by antiquarian James Logan.
[113][114] The standardisation of the notated pibroch tunes has made the judging of competitions easier at the expense of the ornate complexity and musicality of an art-music that had passed down from teacher to pupil through the oral transmission of repertoire and technique.
Roderick Cannon and Peter McCalister have recently initiated a public campaign to track down any living relatives of Campbell or other parties who might have acquired the document without realising its historical and musical significance.
Simon Fraser (1845–1934), whose family emigrated to Melbourne, Australia in the 19th century, passed down a distinct body of pibroch repertoire via canntaireachd, staff notation and through the training of students.
He has revived and recorded lesser known pibroch such as "Hioemtra Haentra" and "Hihorodo Hiharara" from the Campbell Canntaireachd MS that have not been publicly performed for hundreds of years and plays them on replica early bagpipes from the period.
[130] Allan MacDonald is a competition winning piper who has been investigating the relationship between Gaelic song and the melodic theme or urlar ground of pibroch as a means to inform the rubato rhythmic and musical interpretation of the performance of this pipe repertoire.
[110] He has researched and recorded pibroch and chanted canntaireachd on the recent album Dastirum[131] that restores and interprets repertoire that was "tidied up" and edited out by Angus MacKay and subsequent PS editors.
[132] Allan MacDonald is a noted composer of new pibroch works such as Na-h-Eilthirich, a wrenching lament for those who suffered ethnic cleansing in the 18th and 19th centuries, commissioned for the BBC series of the same title.
She also performed pibroch on wire-strung clarsach and music from the Robert ap Huw ms on bray harp at the National Piping Centre's 2013 Ceòl na Pìoba concert.
[167] Virtuoso violinist and Scottish fiddler Edna Arthur was one of the first musicians to revive fiddle pibroch in performances and recordings with cellist David Johnson in the McGibbon Ensemble.
[168] Violinists such as Rachel Barton Pine and Bonnie Rideout are continuing this revival of the performance of fiddle pibroch repertoire on the violin, viola and cello with outcomes that are notable for their expressive musicality.
Scotland's Fiddle Piobaireachd Volume 1 features collaborations with pibroch bagpiper and scholar Allan MacDonald, Alan Jackson on gut-string harp and Chris Norman on baroque flute.
[180] Rideout first performed "The Battle of Harlaw" on the BBC radio series Scotland's Music hosted by John Purser,[181] along with the harp and fiddle pibroch "Cumh Ioarla Wigton (Lament for the Earl of Wigtown)"[182] The Harlaw CD features key ceòl mór revivalists including pibroch bagpipers Allan MacDonald and Barnaby Brown, early Scottish luter Ron MacFarlane, flautist Chris Norman and early Gaelic and Welsh harper Bill Taylor.
[192] Taylor and Irish wire-strung harpist Paul Dooley discuss and perform demonstrations of the ap Huw music in the recent BBC documentary History of the Harp.
"[207] The Irish wire-strung harp standard "Brian Boru's March"[208] appears with pibroch variations and a range of titles in the Scottish bagpipe repertoire: Angus MacKay and General C.S.