April Tunes - 2025
Hebrides Music
As soon as I began writing this ‘Tale’ I found a gap in my knowledge - arising from my lack of understanding of Gaelic language and music.
Most of the tunes I thought were traditional Hebrides music weren’t very traditional at all! Many old tunes were collected around the turn of the 19th-20th century when many Gaelic folk songs were in danger of disappearing as a result of population decline. However, when set to appeal to listeners in England and Lowland Scotland they lost their essential Gaelic-ness.
The Eriskay Love Lilt (SRS-SMC 12.2) was collected in 1905 by Marjorie Kennedy-Fraser and published in her book Songs of the Hebrides. She visited the Hebrides, collecting traditional Gaelic songs from old people who still sang them. Born in Perth in 1857 and trained to be a musician, she was a young widow of 33 with two small children to support and worked as a music teacher and lecturer in Edinburgh.
Marjorie was often accompanied by the Rev. Kenneth McLeod, a noted Gaelic scholar; he wrote the well-known Road to the Isles (SRS-SMC 4.10), which celebrates a journey from central Perthshire to Mallaig, where you take a boat to the Hebrides.
The words for Mairi’s Wedding (Lewis Bridal Song) (SRS-SMC 11.14) were first written by John Roderick Bannerman (1865–1938) as the Gaelic song Mairi Bhan (Fair-haired Mairi) for Mary C. MacNiven (1905–1997) on the occasion of her winning the gold medal at the National Mod in 1934. The tune is an older, traditional Highland folk tune. Sir Hugh Roberton, a musical adjudicator at the Mod and a long-term collaborator of Bannerman, made an English translation of the song naming it “The Lewis Bridal Song” in his 1937 publication Songs of the Isles.
Westering Home (SRS-SMC 4.10) was written by Hugh Roberton in the 1920s. The melody may be derived from the Irish Gaelic song Trasna na d Tonnta. As the song refers to a journey to Islay, we can assume that the seafarer was in a ship to the west of that island.
The tune for the Uist Tramping Song (SRS-SMC 8.35) was composed in 1939 by Bannerman, Gaelic words by Archibald Macdonald of North Uist, with the English words by Roberton. Bannerman was a native of South Uist, a small island just south of the larger island of Lewis.
More recently, the 1960’s thriller ‘Dark Island,’ filmed in Benbecula, used as the theme tune a pipe air Dr. Mackay's Farewell to Creagorry (SRS-SMC 35.07) composed by local accordionist Iain MacLachlan.
My picks for the April tunes are a typical Scottish Waltz, Lovely Stornoway by Calum Kennedy from Orinsay in Lewis (Stornoway is the largest town in the Hebrides). Harris Reel is a driving reel collected in the 18th century by Patrick McDonald: it is a pentatonic tune that can be chorded in several different ways.
In conclusion: the true Hebridean music are the old Puirt-a-Beul (mouth music) tunes and Waulking Songs .
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For more, visit Anna-Wendy Stevenson’s website. Anna-Wendy is a composer/performer who taught at the University of the Highlands and Islands in Uist, and she has written a 25 minute long “Suite Uist” that I think captures the essence of the Hebrides music. Find it here (https://journals.openedition.org/angles/7825).
