The Given Note

The Given Note is the fourth solo album by master uilleann piper and prominent Irish traditional musician Liam O'Flynn.

[1] The title was suggested by O'Flynn's good friend Seamus Heaney, winner of the 1995 Nobel Prize for Literature.

In his review for AllMusic, Chris Nickson called the album "an object lesson in the way [Celtic] music should be played in the 1990s".

[2] Nickson concludes: A master uillean pipe and whistle player, O'Flynn's magic is apparent right from the first notes of "O'Farrell's Welcome to Limerick," which daringly also includes some growling bass and didgeridu.

Equally adept on both his instruments, O'Flynn is a virtuoso who can dazzle on the whistle with "The Rambler, the Aherlow Jig" and move with some wonderfully lyrical phrasing on the slow air "The Girl of Brown Hair.