Union Pipes - Irish Traditional Music Archive

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31 eSTABlIShMenT OF ‘UnIOn PIPeS’ times before the season ended on 31 May 1792. 91 The published libretto and score went into a third edition in 1791. 92 The piece would be revived at intervals over the next thirty years, in Ireland and germany and in the United States as well as in london. Courtney was frequently singled out as one of the main attractions of the first and other early productions. he would play music from it in his general stage recitals until his death, and over the years several professional bellows pipers, following his lead, would feature music from it in their concert performances. Music from William reeve’s score of Oscar and Malvina would frequently be published in sheet-music form and in anthologies of melodies: in london from 1791 and into the nineteenth century; in Dublin in 1793; and in the United States from the second half of the 1790s. These publications were aimed at the general body of musicians and arranged generally for instruments other than the union pipes, but among them a rondo marked for the ‘Union Pipes’ and harp in duet shows that a range of two octaves was required of the pipes. 93 The pipes stave also calls for several three-note chords, but these must have been supplied by the harp as they are not chords that could be played on the then-new keyed closed chanters or ‘regulators’ of the pipes, which only sound when their keys are depressed to add harmony notes to the chanter and drones. While a single regulator was in use on Irish bellows pipes by 1789 94 and three regulators have been standard on the instrument since the nineteenth century, there is no evidence that Courtney employed any. If however he did, it would explain further the success of his playing. 91 hogan 1968: 1384. 92 Airs, Duets, Choruses, and Argument, of… Oscar and Malvina… 93 [reeve] n.d.: 4–5. 94 ‘A regulator’ is mentioned by William Beauford in a description of the uilleann pipes written in August 1789 but not published until 1790. he made no mention of this feature in a similar description which he wrote in 1785 (see Carolan 1984: 61).
COUrTney’S ‘UnIOn PIPeS’ AnD The TerMInOlOgy OF IrISh BellOWS-BlOWn BAgPIPeS 32 One newspaper correspondent, styling himself ‘The ghost of Carolan’ and complaining about Courtney’s stage costume in Oscar and Malvina, incidentally confirms his nationality and that of his pipes: As an Irishman, give me leave to observe, that in the representation of Oscar and Malvina the Irish pipes are introduced; but why the piper should be habited in a highland dress, I cannot reconcile to my feelings... now, by my shoul, I tink an Irishman playing so well upon the pipes as little C——y, should not be ashamed of his brogues, and let the music give his Scotch bonnet the lie. 95 now known for their duets in Oscar and Malvina, Courtney and Weippert had begun to perform together as entr’acte entertainment in variety productions, such as Collin’s Evening Brush at the lyceum in the Strand during March 1792. 96 In May 1792 Courtney is having another benefit in the Crown and Anchor and playing ‘an entire new Concerto on the Union Pipes by Mr. reeve, who Composed the 95 Morning Post and Daily Advertiser, london, 8 nov. 1791. There must be a suspicion that the writer was the Irish actor and humorous dramatist John O’Keefe, who, as said, had been introducing Carolan tunes to london audiences since the early 1780s, sometimes in collaboration with Shield, the part-composer of Oscar and Malvina (see O’Keefe 1826: II, 49,70–1, 77; Fiske 1986: 274, 459, 600–12 and passim). O’Keefe was interested in the Irish pipes: he had introduced the piper James MacDonnell to Cork stage audiences in 1774 (Carolan 1984: 59–61) and had pipers as characters in his 1783 stage production The Shamrock (O’Keefe: II, 49; Fiske 1986: 459). The dilemma faced by the musical directors of Oscar and Malvina – of wanting to represent Scottish pipes on stage, but being unable to use highland pipes because their confined melodic range and their unique temperament (those features which are the very basis of their character and attraction) prevented them playing melodies of extended range and playing in concert with other theatre instruments – is a familiar one. It is usually solved nowadays, from the television series Kidnapped to the film Braveheart, by using Irish uilleann pipes off-screen. 96 Morning Chronicle, london, 29 Mar. 1792 etc. See also Morning Herald, london, 19 May 1792 (in The Irishman in London); and Morning Herald, london, 26 May 1792 (in Kean’s Evening Lounge).
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Union Pipes - Irish Traditional Music Archive

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