The music playing on this page is Si Bheag's Si Mhor.

Carolan's Musical Style and Influences.

In any country there tends to be a division in the musical scene. On the one hand there is the art music composed by the musician trained to that end, and performed by trained professional musicians. On the other hand, there is the folk music that is not composed by anyone in particular, but grows out of the natural preoccupations and inclinations of the ordinary people. In the Ireland of Carolan's time there was also a third tradition - the music of the harpers, the last remnant of what had once been the art music of the Gaelic tradition. The music of the harpers, with the exception of Carolan, has since been absorbed by the oral folk tradition, and is still played and sung today.

Turlough Carolan is unique because he succeded in amalgamating the styles of both traditional and art music. This is perhaps a clue to his immense contemporary popularity. Few of Carolan's tunes are influenced only by the folk style, but there are a few examples such asSi Bheag's Si Mhor, the tune playing on this page. The strongest influence on him was that of the music of contemporary Italian composers. He greatly admired Corelli and Geminiani, the latter of which whom he almost certainly met towards the end of his life, when that composer was living in Dublin. Many of his tunes attempt Italian forms, with their sequences and imitations, and some of his longer pieces have a quick jig added as a coda, in the manner of Corelli. The most obvioous exponent of this influence is the piece entitled Carolan's Concerto.
On occasion in his efforts to copy the Italian style, Carolan gets lost in evtravaganzas of Phrases, indeed, at times it is often difficult to find a tune amongst all the imitations and sequences. He obviously had a very good ear and a talent for writing melodies, but unfortunately he lacked the formal musical training that would have enabled him to use his gifts to the best advantage.

It is a great pity that Carolan's music has survived largely in the form of one-line melody. However there is one rare surviving manuscript which is the property of the National Library of Dublin which suggests that in harmonising his melodies, Carolan followed the traditional harping methods in which he himself had been trained. The melodies are accompanied by a single line bass, and there is often an absence of conventional harmony. On only one or two occasions in the entire book are there more than two notes sounded together at any one time. The most unusual feature is the manner in which the bass continually moves, sometimes in octaves with the treble and often either anticipating or echoing the melody line. This has encouraged modern arrangers to tackle Carolan's tunes and render them more accessible to the modern ear. Comparisons can be made by listening to to separate arrangements of the same piece:

Click here to hear Colonel John Irwin on the harp alone in the style of Carolan.

Click here to hear an orchestral arrangement of Colonel John Irwin.

Click here for notes on the background music playing on this page - Si Bheag's Si Mhor.