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Artist:
The Belfast Harp Orchestra, Matt Malloy, Derek Bell
Genre:
Classical
Duration:
Label:
RCA Victor
Release:
Feb 1993
iTunes:
No
Summary:
`The Celtic Harp' by The Chieftains is a very nice means by which this leading Irish music group can avoid simply performing `The Irish Song' over and over again. (While I do not subscribe to the theory that there is but one Irish song, done with different instruments and different beats and different dance steps, there is an undeniable sameness, similar to the sameness in all blues songs. While blues performers escape this sameness with their innovative guitar playing, this improvisational tradition has not reached the Emerald Isle yet).
And yet, this album seems to be a bit less successful than other recent Chieftain diversions such as their `Santiago' album with Basque music, `Irish Heartbeat' with Van Morrison, and `The Long Gray Veil' starring Sting and Mick and Van and a cast of thousands.
The album is subtitled `A Tribute to Edward Bunting' with contributions from the Belfast Harp Orchestra. But, checking the back of the album shows that the Harp Orchestra appears on only four of the twelve cuts, and, to my non-Irish ears, I do not hear the harp as the featured instrument on some of the tracks.
While I am not an expert on Celtic music, I am very fond of Robin Williamson's songs and music, and I find his Irish Harp work as good or better, or at least more interesting than what I find on this album. This may have a lot to do with Williamson's more interesting lyrics and stories, but the end result is the same. This may not be the best Irish harp album on the block.
The significance of Edward Bunting is that he was an Irish composer born in 1792, so this album is done on the bicentennary of his birth.
If you are a Chieftains fan, you must have this album. If you are a harp fan, this just may not be the best exemplar of Irish harp music, in spite of the fact that it is an enjoyable `Irish' album with excellent vocals on `The Green Hills of America' by Kevin Conneff.
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