Aires De Pontevedra reel

This has been requested twice, and although I only usually post Irish tunes, I’m happy to make an exception for this great piece of music from Galicia. I was told that this is almost the Galician equivalent of the “Morrison’s” or the “Kesh”, in that it is a tune which is played by all nearly Galician traditional musicians.
I first heard it played in the 1980s by the group “Milladoiro” on a BBC TV series of programmes called “How To Be Celtic” !! [ honestly, but despite that, there was some very good music on it]. A few years later, it was recorded by Pipe Major Robert Mathieson, and that was where I learned it from, by ear. I think the first Irish musicians to record it may have been “The Kips Bay Ceili Band”, which included Pat Kilbride and John Williams. It is now being played by both Sharon Shannon and “Lunasa”, so could be said to be pretty firmly entrenched in the Irish tradition.
Although as I said, I learned it by ear, this is from a transcription by Malcolm Reavell.

Last 4 bars of abcs is not appearing in the sheet music. Maybe something to do with change to 2/4 .

I don’t get why it even changes to 2/4 anyway - ?

It’s not something that would have occurred to me, Dow, but that’s how Malcolm transcribed it, and when played back, it sound correct to me.

Kenny, thanks for posting your transcription. I’ve had a great day working this through my novice mandolin fingers. I spent some time futzing with the time signatures, and have come to the conclusion that it’s, well, weird. I’m familiar with the Kips Bay and Lunasa versions of the tune. They play some odd meters, for sure. There are some measures that, for the purpose of phrasing, are best described as 5/4 followed by a 1/4. Of course with a nudge, it fits into the 4/4 and 2/4 that you described.

Can’t wait to give this to our flute player. He’ll be pleasantly perplexed. Our John Doyle-ish guitarist will spend restless nights carving a groove.

--Bob

Kenny, the 2/4 thing’s fine but it’s not cancelled and made into 4/4 again. So it looks as though that whole B-part’s in 2/4, only it’s written with 4 beats to the bar. ???? Maybe the fact that the sheetmusic came out funny is something to do with that.

Well, I’ve heard this song played by Carlos Núñez in a concert (I don’t where the concert is) and it sounds greater than grear. I’ve found it in e-mule in an archive called Carlos Núñez en concert. Wonderful to listen to.

This is a great piece on the galician traditional repertoire but I think the equivalent of “Kesh” or “Morrison´s” jigs is the “Muiñeira de Chantada”, the well known muiñeira or galician jig. In every session, foliada, etc pipers use to play it here, in Galiza, the original and galician name of our country.
Aires de Pontevedra was played usually by the legendary galician piper Ricardo Portela (RIP), one of my heroes on galician pipes like Manuel Dopazo. Dopazo was born in my little town, Bandeira, and move to Argentina and he was the most famous galician piper last century in America.
I learned a lot of tunes from Portela´s cassettes, 25 years ago. Now I use to play them on my gaita and uilleann pipes too. I would like to play one day “Aires de Pontevedra” with Ricardo Portela on gaita and with Liam O´Flynn on uilleann pipes.

X:9
T:Aires De Pontevedra
M:4/4
L:1/8
R:reel
K:Amix
e | a2 e2 c2 de | fedc B3 c | dedc B2 cd | edcB A2 e2 |
a2 e2 c2 de | fedc B3 c | dcde fecA | edBG A6 :|
|: Bc | dcdB cABc | dcdB cABc | ecdB cABc | dGBd cAce |
g4 gfge |agfe dcde | Addc dcde | agfe dcde |
c2 cB cBce | agfe dcde | B4 cecA | cecA BdBG | B2 e2 A2 :|

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiDKgd96OPM

play video

I first heard this tune on the Robert Mathieson recording but when I started playing gaita my brother in law, who lived in Galicia and learned gaita there, taught me this version which is pretty close to Milladoiro’s recording. There are 27 beats in the first measure and 17 beats in the second so if you write it in 4/4 it will need a time signature change, often a single bar of 6/4 in each measure. I’ve written in 2/4 to make it simpler to read. I’ve also written in D as much gaita music is written in that key, although often played on a C gaita. I haven’t added it as a new setting due to the different time signature.

X: 1
T: Aires de Pontevedra
M: 2/4
L: 1/8
Q: 2/4=100
K: D
EF |: GF GE | FD EF | GF GE | FD EF| AF GE | FD EF | GF GE | FD FA |
=c4 | =cB ce | d=c BA | GF GA| G4 | GD GA | d=c BA | GF GA| F2 FD | FD FA |
d=c BA | GF GA | E4 | FA FD | FA FD | EG EC | E2 A2 | D4 |1 D2 EF :|2 D2 A2 ||
|: d2 A2 | F2 GA | BA GF | E3 F | GA GF | E2 FG | AG FE | D2 A2 |
d2 A2 | F2 GA | BA GF | E3 F | GF GA | BA FD | AG EC | D4 |1 D2 A2 :|2 D4 ||

I’ve added a 4/4 setting with a single 6/4 bar in each measure. You could equally write it with an extra bar of 2/4 in each measure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCb79cydwVo

play video

After 2.00 mins of “The Atholl Highlanders”…..

https://youtu.be/G6jXMBNh_7g

play video

https://youtu.be/LG9tp1_UQFs

play video

Still love this tune.

This is the setting that I added in my comments above, 8 years ago, not realising at that time that I could add a version in a different time signature. I met an uilleann piper last week who played this with the parts the other way round from me so I thought I’d check it out on here, completely forgetting that I had added a version already. This 2/4 setting makes it much easier to read the odd number of beats, 27 in the first part, 17 in the second, and I’ve only ever heard gaita players play the parts in this order, like in the video in the comment above by Kenny.

Chords as per Donnogh Hennessy’s setting, Lunasa tunebook p.44. Melody composite

Apart from playing the parts the wrong way round, i wonder why they play it ‘correctly’ on the album (with the extra half bar or bar depending on how you transcribe it) but published it in the tune book without it.