Annotation:Carolan's Welcome
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CAROLAN'S WELCOME. AKA - "O'Carolan's Welcome." Irish, Air (3/4 time). E Minor (Johnson): A Minor (O'Sullivan). Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (Johnson, O'Sullivan): ABB. Donal O'Sullivan (1958), the primary source for information on Turlough O'Carolan (1670-1738) and his music, identified this as one of the O'Carolan tunes which has come down to us without a title and was one of his melodies "probably composed for patrons whose names have been lost; they have come down to us either with wrong titles or with no titles at all." The tune was found by P.W. Joyce in the manuscripts of collector William Forde (c.1759–1850) in the Royal Irish Academy, [Dublin, p. 62], although Joyce altered it slightly in his Old Irish Folk Music and Songs (1909). "Carolan's Welcome" is a modern title for the tune, appended by the Irish group the Chieftains for the occasion of the Pope's visit to Ireland in 1979. The piece was also re-worked by the Pope's composer, Monsignor Frisina, who orchestrated it for the album "A Christmas in Rome" [Bonnie Shaljean, Appendix to the 2001 edition of O'Sullivan's Carolan].
Source for notated version: Given to (the collector William) Forde (1795-1850) by "Patrick MacDowell, the distinguished sculptor, born in Belfast 1799, died in 1870" ([oyce], and is marked 'said to be Carolan's' [O'Sullivan]; Kit Nelson and Kathrine Gardner (San Francisco, CA) of the band ContraBandits (who knew the tune as "Carolan's Circle Waltz") [Matthiesen].
Printed sources: Complete Collection of Carolan's Irish Tunes, 1984; No. 171, p. 119 (appears untitled). S. Johnson (The Kitchen Musician No. 3: Carolan), 1983 (revised 1991, 2001); p. 14. Joyce (Old Irish Folk Music and Songs), 1909; No. 552, p. 293. Matthiesen (Waltz Book II), 1995; p. 11. O'Sullivan (Carolan: The Life, Times and Music of an Irish Harper), 1958; No. 171, p. 197 (untitled tune).
Recorded sources: Folkways FTS 31098, Ken Perlman - "Clawhammer Banjo and Fingerstyle Guitar Solos." Green Linnet GLCD 1200, Lúnasa - "Otherworld" (1999). Rounder 0216, John McCutcheon - "Step by Step" (1986). CBS 36401, Chieftains - "Boil the Breakfast Early" (1979).
See also listings at:
Jane Keefer's Folk Music Index: An Index to Recorded Sources [1]
Alan Ng's Irishtune.info [2]