Planxty George Brabazon reel

Since today (23 April) is St George’s Day I thought I’d submit a tune with “George” in the title (there are already one or two in the tune list here). I did a search in JC’s and found “St George for England”, an absolutely dreadful cringe-making tune that I never want to see or hear again. Then I came across Planxty George Brabazon, a delightful little reel by Carolan, so it’s Irish and that’s ok then. I believe I’ve heard it played once or twice in sessions.
Trevor

This tune apaers in Scottish collections as “Prince Charlie’sWelcome To The Isle Of Skye”. Which is the original ?
There’s a song to this tune , “Twa Bonny Maidens”, about Prince Charlie fleeing to Skye after the battle of Culloden dressed as a woman to foo lthe Goverment “redcoats”. A traditional Scottish song of transvestitism !

I’m sorry Trevor, but this is not a reel but a march; BTW there are two George Brabazon Planxty’s.

Henk, as Jeremy has recently pointed out, there is no specific category for a “march” on this website, because a march can be in any of a number of time signatures - 2/4, 6/8, 4/4. There are probably some in 3/4, and modern “classical” composers have even used 5/4 (e.g. “Mars” from Holst’s “Planets” Suite).
Tunes can only be categorized as far as the software on this website is concerned by the time signature. The same reasoning applies to free-form tunes such as slow airs; we have to submit a slow air as a waltz or jig or whatever, and in the comments tell everybody to ignore the tune type and play it as a slow air.
Trevor

Despite the limitations of posting the ABC notation, you also called it a reel in your comments–so he might be responding to that. Given that, the correction seems on the mark.

Henk Bos, this is most certainly NOT a march either. You might more closely describe as an air, but you’re way off with the whole march bit. This tune is often attributed to O’Carolan.

How do you know O’Carolan didn’t compose it as a march ? If he composed it at all. Jack Campin’s CD-ROM of Scottish flute music has a version of this - as “Prince Charlie’s Welcome To The Isle Of Skye”, as I said above, - but with 4 parts. If that was the original, being Scottish, it could well be a march.

Well there Kenny, that’s why I said it is *often attributed* to O’Carolan, and not *this was written by O’Carolan*.

You could be right about the whole march thing though Kenny. Who knows what came first. Maybe somebody does, but I certainly do not. I’ve just never heard it played as a march is all, even by Scottish bands who call this tune Twa Maidens, or Twa Bonnie Maidens. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t start out as a march, and surely, if someone played it as a march, I wouldn’t be an ass about it.

To be clear, there are two George Brabazon tunes. This entry is the “second Air”. The first was written as a dance in 6/8 time.

http://www.contemplator.com/carolan/complt.html

This tune precedes Young William Plunkett on track 9 of the CD “Celtic Spring” by Casadh An tSugain. I learned it from the CD but cannot find its name. Can anyone provide a name, please? Thanks!

Sorry .. Track 4, not 9 (that would be the jig set Swallow’s Tail-Kid On The Mountain-Star of Munster)

Prince Charlie’s Welcome to the Isle of Skye; Isle of Skye; Twa Bonnie Maidens; There Were Twa Bonnie Maidens; Planxty George Brabazon
https://thesession.org/tunes/1609

Thanks very much for identifying the tune, Nigel. I will remove this listing in a day or two and add the variation to the other entry.

Thanks to Nigel Gatherer for identifying the variation I posted above. I didn’t recognize the piece so scored it from track 4 of the “Celtic Spring” CD by Casadh An tSugain, where is leads into the O’Carolan tune “Young William Plunkett.”

Note that O’Neill does not credit this tune to O’Carolan, for whatever value that may have in the discussion of authorship above.

I know it’s a sin but I sometimes play this in a hornpipe set. It has a nice Scottish ending to it - hup de deedle, hup de deedle dare I o.

Lovely Carolan piece.

I believe that Randal Bays plays it as if it was a hornpipe although I might be wrong in that it may be played like a march.

I do feel like it has a hornpipe sort of sway to it. Great version on the Very Best of the Chieftains(Claddagh Years). Perfect piece for Derek Bell’s harp playing. Just got it down on mandolin, learned from playing the Chieftains track over again. Has a bit of a Flowers of Edinburgh feel as it resolves in a similar way.

Setting in G Major with chords

In “Carolan - The Life, Times and Music of an Irish Harper”, by Donal O’Sullivan (which is pretty well the last word on Turlough O’Carolan), there is “George Brabazon, First Air”, in 6/8 time, and this piece as per #1, titled “George Brabazon, Second Air”. It is correct to say that its attributed to Carolan, O’Sullivan says that the only place this appears is in O’Neill’s, and that he can find no other mention of it. O’Sullivan would have only said it was composed by Carolan if there was no doubt, quote “I mark it as doubtful; but it resembles Carolan in style and may well have been composed by him”. I think it’s fair to call it a March, that’s how I play it.

https://youtu.be/Mi2lehyJIG8

play video

https://youtu.be/8PteuIE1zFc

play video