Silva Caledonia: Scottish Harp Music of the 17th Century (Book & CD)
Silva Caledonia:Scottish Harp Music of the 17th Century is the third book in the series of CD-books by Siubhal.
Harp music was the first-love of the Scottish nobility. Javier Sainz champions two lost traditions: Highland and Lowland. Resurrecting historical instruments and techniques, he brings to life a heritage one prized in Royal courts across Europe.The harp was the king of instruments at the end of the Middle Ages, presiding at court between the decline of the lyre and the rise of the organ, lute and, in Scotland, the bagpipe.
Silva Caledonia features music of the 17th century played on two harps: the gut strung renaissance harp played in the Scottish Lowlands and the silver & brass strung harp played in the Highlands and in Ireland. Although the two harps look and sound very different, both were played with the fingernails, both were associated with the aristocracy and both flourished in Scotland and Ireland.
Javier Sáinz is a native of Cantabria in northern Spain. Since 1980 he has played early harps, focusing particularly on historical techniques such as playing with nails, selective string damping and (on his Renaissance harp) producing finger-stopped semitones. He plays exclusively historical harps and is an effortless exponent of various styles of sparkling melodic ornamentation. On this solo CD from Javier Sáinz, featuring his delicate and expressive playing on early clarsach (an HHSI Student Trinity) as well as on a Renaissance harp (an Ardival Urquhart with the brays turned off). The programme presents Scottish Gaelic music from the Highlands and Scots tunes from the Lowlands, played in quite a Continental style.
Silva Caledonia:Scottish Harp Music of the 17th Century is the third book in the series of CD-books by Siubhal. Siubhal (pronounced "shu-al") is the Gaelic word for 'journey' and the musical term for a set of variations. The Siubhal Series has two aims:- to improve access to Scotland's most significant oral musical cultures and to nurture artists in rich traditions overlooked by the mainstream. The CD (36 tracks, 56.31minutes) is presented in Siubhal's distinctive packaging, as a stiff paperback book with 62 pages, and with the disc inserted into the rear cover. The book contains essays by Colm Ó Baoill and Keith Sanger, as well as an introduction by Barnaby Brown and an essay by Javier; it also has facsimiles of source manuscripts, and some Gaelic poems.
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