A Bruxa waltz

Composer: Anton Seoane
Source: The Mermaid’s Song by Tannahill Weavers
Transcription: gmp
Note: Anton Seoane plays with the Galician band Milladoiro

I love this tune and have been playing it in sessions with a flute player. Some really interesting chords here for the bored session guitarist. Where or what is Bruxa? Anyone know?

I think “A Bruxa” means a witch. Seem to remember that from sleeve notes on a recording of “La Lugh”, which is showing up in the “Recorded By” link. It’s been popular with many Northern Ireland players for years now.

We recorded this tune as “La Bruxa” (pronounced bru-ha) and understood it to be a Galician tune that meant, The Witch. I think there might be a spell cast over this melody because it seems to make a lot of people cry.

in portuguese, “a bruxa” means “the witch” 🙂

I know Galician is more similar to Portugese than Spanish (Castellano). Solas also recorded this.

We, Siansa, do this tune on our CD …the imaginatively titled Siansa. Please email if you would like a copy. Sales pitch over.

It’s a really good tune from Galicia.

Doesn’t solas have a different version of the second part and a completely different third part? Must go and re-learn it!
What always confused me about the way Solas plays it is that they leave out the last beat of the 2nd part and make it into the first beat of the third part. (I think that’s right anyway??)

I believe the first (and best) recording from the British Isles to be that of the Easy Club in the early 1980s

I agree; indeed I think they were the band to bring the tune to everyone else’s attention. By the way I think it is pronounced ‘Bru-sha’ in Galicia, and it does indeed mean ‘The witch’.

By the way the fiddler player in the Tannahill Weavers is the same John Martin as appeared in the Easy Club and Ossian. Clearly putting himself about.

If the composer is Antón Seoane, then this tune is definitely Galician and “A Bruxa” means “The Witch”.

Jamie Laval and Ashley Broder do a stirring rendition of this one on their recent “Zephyr in the Confetti Factory” CD. Anton Seoane is credited with writing it. Best version I’ve heard so far.

The composer, Anton Seoane, is a member of the Gallician group “Milladoiro” and this tune appeared on the first album(LP) of Milladoiro: “A Galicia de Maeloc” (French label: Escalibur, +/- 1981).
and indeed, a beautiful song, as many by them are.

Indeed, “A Bruxa” means “the witch” in Galician, but my understanding is that bruxa means a nice witch who will do good deeds, as opposed to a wicked witch, which is a “meiga” (I think).

In Galician, ‘x’ is pronounced either like a ‘sh’ in English, or like the s-sound in “measure”, “pleasure” (the same as a French ‘j’). So the name of this tune is pronounced something like “a BRU-ja”, or “a BRU-sha”.

A few edits (preferential) by Clare Connors of Columbia, MO that I think is a more enjoyable setting.

Raising it a whole step to see if it can more easily be played in a session with D whistles and low whistles. That single A# is a lot easier to half-hole than a plethora of F♮s.

This tune (X3) went beautifully paired with the fourth setting of the Far Away Waltz https://thesession.org/tunes/187
A Bruxa followed by Far Away. Two dark and beautiful Bm waltzes

Learned this setting from the Milladoiro album A Galicia de Maeloc. very similar to X:1 posted above but with a few minor adjustments. The composer plays quite a few hammer ons/slides (not sure what these ornaments are referred to as on hurdy-gurdy) and also they play the tune in C minor. I posted the tune in Fdor because it shares the same key signature and the session doesn’t allow C minor or Bb major as options (I’m assuming cause they don’t pop up in ITM very frequently, but does F dorian for that matter?). Im guessing that since this album has the first commercially recorded version of the tune, that perhaps its the key it was written in?

The Tannahill Weavers version seems to be recorded in Bb minor, Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas play it in Em, La Lugh and Solas recorded it in Am. Seems like this tune, like many Galician tunes, doesn’t seem to have a set “correct” key for playing. Im a little preferential to Am myself. Does anyone out there play this tune at their local session? If so, what key is it typically played in/known?

Included in the BARNES ENGLISH COUNTRY DANCE TUNES Book III p 60. The name of the dance is Flying Sorceress written by Kalia Kliban (West Coast caller) to the tune A BRUXA (in a minor) by Anton Seaone. Also makes a beautiful waltz.

Mexico City’s A Campo Traviesa plays this tune with the traditional Mexican tune “La Bruja”

https://music.youtube.com/channel/UCwBeg63tfw5a1WACPMD3qgg

I noticed an old comment up there - it may sound like Solas skips a final beat in between the second and third part… or is it third into the fourth? Their version is something like AABBCC I don’t know exactly. But I know what the person was referring to. I think it just sounds that way based on how it’s recorded and arranged. Seamus Egan plays the final part as a sort of flute solo, just a few bars, but the other preceding parts played by Winnie and Mick just sort of fade out and provide harmonies as Seamus comes in. So it can sound jumbled or even that they skipped a beat there. Sometimes when I play it on fiddle, I’ll deliberately not finish the middle part, and go into the flute part; it’s kind of open to interpretation. I guess. Lol.

Something else I’ve sort of figured out, over the past two decades playing La Bruxa; for fiddlers, that very first opening phrase (starting with the sharp fourth, or “d# e c B A B c e3…” that long E), it sounds to me like Winnie Horan isn’t playing the open E string, but rather using the fourth finger E, for a softer effect. You can even do an open E double stop with the fourth finger E, for a more resounding feel.

Definitely useful and perhaps obvious, but I’m not classically trained yall! I’m a lil bit country.. a little bit of rock… a lot Irish… so I figure these things out gradually. 😉