Music from the Depths of the Heart
There is a revolution afoot. A revolution whose instruments are not the guillotine or the sword but the bodhrán, the harp, the uilleann pipes and the noble voice of a trained vocalist. Unlike revolutions past, which sought to replace the past with ideas of a utopian future, this revolution is rooted in the most noble of traditions past. It seeks to build and not destroy.
This Neo-traditional musical revolution has been underway for some years now. In many ways it can be viewed as a counter-revolution, a rebellion against the “tyranny” of noise as the late great Roger would describe it.
Every revolution needs a vanguard, those who don’t just consume but take it upon themselves to produce. This vanguard, which we will outline below, consists of some of the greatest musical talent in all of Christendom. While difficult to condense into a simple canon, some names of note include Eimear Quinn, Ella Roberts, Clamavi De Profundis, UCD Coral Scholars and Anúna.
1996 Eurovision winner Eimear Quinn. Photo: Limerick Post
The Eurovision has a special place in the cultural identity of modern European man. It’s descent into embracing the tyranny of noise is nothing new. The golden age of Irish Eurovision was undoubtedly the 1990s, having won the competition four times in close succession.
Just as the discovery of steel-reinforced concrete led to the visual pollution of architectural brutalism, so too did the advent of computerised electric methods gave rise to a crime of noise pollution in the form of Euro-Pop. As catchy as it is meaningless, Pop Music has had a hegemonic strangle hold on the charts ever since.
It is in the context of Eurovision songs like Sweden’s 1984 1st place winner “Digge-loo Digge-ley”, the words themselves being literally as meaningless as the song was forgettable, that a musical Phoenix rose from ashes of more than a decade of well meaning confusion.
Riding high on three recent (almost consecutive) victories, Ireland, from a position of confidence decided to think outside the box and break the Pop-Cartel. To this end we selected Eimear Quinn to represented us in 1996 Eurovision and the risk paid off, striking gold with “I am the Voice”.
Her victory was directly preceded and succeeded by traditional musical entries (by Ireland in 1995 and Norway in 1997), but soon after the rebellion was suppressed, it was back to business as usual. Israel in 1998 and Sweden in 1999 secured gold with songs that would be better at home in Guantanamo Bay than your Spotify playlist.
Quinn represented not only Ireland but an idea. The idea that music can have meaning, being both pleasing to the ear and the heart simultaneously. In her song she sings from the perspective of Èire/Hibernia, speaking to her children down the ages. It is through ballad that the processing of pain, sorrow and oppression is made possible.
Eimear transmits the woes of Èire, bringing a tear to our eye and then inspiring us to to rally by her side, securing a better, brighter future of peace and new life.
Her’s is a ghostly haunting voice, mythical to its core. Ireland is known for its wind swept coasts and history of emigration and strife. She condenses 700 years of history into three minutes of vocal excellence: “I hear your voice on the wind and I hear you call out my name”.
She tells us that she is the voice of our History, “the voice in the wind and the pouring rain”, the voice of our hunger and pain. Any man, Irish or not, can relate with such words. Eimear, as Èire, calls for us to embrace a future of hope, not forgetting the sorrows of the past but to allowing them to impart on us the valve of peace. For it is in bringing Èire peace that her “wounds, they will heal”.
There can be no doubt to the average listener that this is a more sophisticated musical work than Sweden’s “Digge-loo Digge-ley”.
The rejection of the base and the embracing of the edifying, might not always be an expedient path to riches and fame but it does have its own rewards. In her crusade of musical renewal, Eimear is not alone. A new generation of vocalists have taken up the mantel of traditional Celtic music in a modern context. Chief amongst them is Australian born Ella Roberts.
Roberts, who moved from sunny Australia to Scotland to pursue her musical career, makes the most of the mysterious Scottish landscape and local traditional instruments.
Her performance of “The Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond” stands out as one of the best in the genre. She sings from the heart, her gentle voice contrasting with the harsh wave-struck rugged coast.
The oldest and best instrument at mans disposal is certainly his own voice. When it comes to the capacity of the human voice to reach the depths of man’s heart, then the aptly named, Clamavi De Profundis, has no rival.
This family of vocalists comes together, armed with the highest expression of vocal excellence, Gregorian Chant, to deliver an unparalleled musical experience.
There is. no better tool than Gregorian chant to achieve this effect. For generation after generation western man used this style of singing to express that which matter most to him, namely the transcendent.
James Turner Mohan’s depiction of Thorin Oakenshield
Like Quinn’s 1996 “I am the Voice”, they have an ability to haunt and mystify. They too sing of pain and suffering, but also of nostalgia for a world lost, but not forgotten.
In this way they are guardians of memory, facilitating an oral history tradition that Tolkien, the writer of the poetry that Clamavi De Profundis so often put to music, wished to convey. This can be seen nowhere better that the “Song of Durin”.
Concluding stanza of the Song of Durin:
The world is grey, the mountains old,
The forge's fire is ashen-cold;
No harp is wrung, no hammer falls:
The darkness dwells in Durin's halls;
The shadow lies upon his tomb
In Moria, in Khazad-dûm.
But still the sunken stars appear
In dark and windless Mirrormere;
There lies his crown in water deep,
Till Durin wakes again from sleep.
It is this ability to tell stories that has allowed Clamavi De Profundis to rack up an impressive 128 million views on YouTube and yet the identity of the vocalists themselves remains as mysterious as the music they produce.
Used to tell stories and communicate deep, often difficult to express realities, Gregorian chant might not bring the life to the party, but it does bring it to the soul. However, sombre deep singing does not necessarily mean uninspiring. The medieval sound of their voices harks back to the days of knights and dragons.
“When the Hammer Falls” is one of the best examples of the bellicose potential of their style of singing. Just like the Dwarfs they sing about, their craft is “of legend and myth”.
The focus of the Tolkien’s text here is that of the Hammer. In this poem the simple tool of the hammer, which has become synonymous with dwarfs, develops at agency of its own. The Hammer is the driver of Dwarfen civilisation and is repeated thirty times throughout all seven stanzas.
”When the hammer falls
Freeing treasures from the walls
When the hammer strikes
And the kingdom comes to life”
The word hammer, even if found thirty times in the text, is sung each time with renewed enthusiasm, building up to the crescendo of penultimate and ultimate stanzas. It is here that the hammer finally goes from a tool of industry to a tool of war. The tone and tempo of the singing matches this shift and a strong sense of momentum is conveyed to the listener.
The concluding stanzas:
When the hammer falls
Back our enemy crawls
When the hammer quakes
Orcish cowards’ bones will break
When the hammer cracks
And it beats their armies back
When the hammer's boom
Sends the monsters to their doom
When the hammer falls
When the hammer falls!
When the hammer falls
Then our victory calls
When the hammer falls
Songs of glory fill the halls
When the hammer flies
Mighty heroes now arise
With the hammer's sound
Live the Dwarves down underground
When the hammer falls
When the hammer falls!
Singing every rhyming word with extra emphasis, their music takes on an element of structured continuity and this makes for a pleasant experience for the listener.
Similar genres of medieval inspired fantasy universes have also inspired similar musical excellence.
Deploying an effective combination of harp, violin and elegant vocals, Sabina Zweiacker and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra’s performance of “The Dragonborn Comes” from the video game Skyrim, proves the modern relevance and potential for success that music rooted in the romanticised mythical deep can have.
The closest thing to Middle-Earth or the Kingdom of Skyrim in this world is perhaps the British Isles and within that, perhaps the west coast of Ireland. Almost untainted by the excess of what William Blake in 1804 would call those “dark Satanic Mills”, the west of Ireland had long been a bastion of everyday simplicity and literary excellence.
Tapping into this cultural tradition, The University College Dublin (UCD) Choral Society has given new life to many almost forgotten songs. Vocally complex songs like Dúlamán have, thanks to their youthful energy, captured the imagination of listeners around the world.
From Dúlamán’s desperation of collecting seaweed from the shore to Mo Ghille Mear’s description of the voyage of a noble hero, UCD demonstrates what’s possible with trained voices and high quality video production.
Once again singing from the perspective of Èire, this ballad in Irish is a swansong for the failed 18th sentry efforts of the House of Stuart to regain its rightful throne in Scotland.
Typical for any song depicting the romantic demise of a hero, the performance balances a mournful and triumphant tone.
The simple combination of bodhrán (a small hand lead drum made from wood and goat skin) and vocal chorus transports the listener back to the era that its wishes to describe.
The constantly reoccurring theme of romanticised defeat and exile can be found throughout traditional Irish music. One of the best known examples is the song “The Parting Glass”. Similar to other songs known the world over, “Caledonia” for example, it pines for the unattainable home.
In an era of past transatlantic emigration, saying goodbye, meant goodbye for good. Before leaving for the new world, the whole community would gather and wish the prospective emigrant well. A mix of cheer and sense of mournful loss would ensue and thus the term “American Wake” was born.
While the days of famine and economic exile have largely ceased, many of Irelands finest youth still leave the green shores of Èire every year, some never to return. In this context the song remains ever relavant, holding a special place deep in the hearts of Irish men and women.
Before being selected to represent Ireland in the 1996 Eurovision, Eimear Quinn performed with the traditional Choir group Anùna. Today this group continues to compose and perform in the “Sean-Nós” tradition of Munster and Connaught (the South and West of Ireland).
Fill, Fill a Rún Ò is a good example of Sean-Nós. Simple, lamentive and tells a story. In this case the call of a mother to her son to not abandon his Catholic faith, urging him to not reject “Peter and Paul for the sake of gold and silver” (“Peadar is Pól már gheall ar an ór ‘s as an airgid”).
Life however is not all one long swansong recounting the trials and tribulations of our passage through this “Valley of Tears” that we call Earth.
While man suffers from his fallen nature, there is much in the world to celebrate. Christmas is such a time. The birth of Christ has long been a source of joy and light in the darkest of winters.
Anùna capture this joy in their performance of 15th Century Christmas carol Gaudete. Gaudete, meaning “rejoice”, celebrates the birth of Christ, the bringer of salvation.
Gaudete, gaudete!
Christus est natus
Ex Maria virgine,
gaudete!
Rejoice, rejoice
Christ is born
Of the Virgin Mary
Rejoice!
In this effort Anùna have a solid ally in the aforementioned Clamavi De Profundis. Their performance of “Adeste Fideles” (“O Come All Ye faithful”) desires pride of place in all seasonal playlist.
The counter-balancing of both deep and high voices, and Latin with English, all directed towards the glory of God and the edification of the soul, makes their rendition of the Christmas classic unparalleled.
From the depths of winter comes music from the depth of man’s hearth, all rooted towards his deepest desire.
Niall Buckley
October 2020.