I really liked this CD and found the combination of voice and pipes beautifully done. I am not great lover of the bagpipes but this album has such a varied use of the pipes I enjoyed it very much. Margaret has a beautiful voice and even though I do not speak Gaelic I felt the emotion of the songs.

Margaret Stewart was born and brought up in Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. She won the premier award for singing at the National Mod in 1993. Her chief interest has been in traditional songs and in the singing style of her home area. At the first integrated Summer School of Gaelic music, song, and Dance - Ceolas - in South Uist, she and Alan decided to make a recording which reunited the song and pibroch, and one which represented the traditional singer's style

Allan MacDonald is one of the three famous brothers in the Scottish piping world, from Glenuig in Moidart. He is interested in the relationship between Gaelic songs and pibroch and has written an academic thesis on the subject. He and Margaret focus on that connection with some of the songs in this production.

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1. FHUAIR MI POG A LAIMH AN RIGH (I got a Kiss of the King's Hand) 3:39 Margaret heard this song for the first time from Morag MacLeod on a tour of Ireland with the Scottish poets in 1996. She heard it from the late William Matheson. 2. BHA CAILEAG AS T-EARRACH (There was a Girl) 5:19 This song comes from Mary Smith and Jessie MacKenzie, Lewis. It is a love song by a fisherman and he praises the girl for her beauty and modesty. Her leaving the township in which they both lived has devastated him, and if she marries another, he may as well die. 3. CILLE PHEADAIR (Kilphedir) 2:41 Allan Macdonald played this tune for the time on 31st December 1985 on the ferry from Loch Boisdale to Oban after visiting my aunts and other relatives in Uist. 4. DOL DHAN TAIGH BHUAN LEAT (Going to the Eternal Dwelling with You) 5:08 This song is short but evocative. The pibroch-like variations were added extempore, confiming short songs can easily developed into the pibroch genre. 5. O MHAIRI 'S TU MO MHAIRI(Mary, You are My Mary) 2:00 A version of a walking song which is popular in Lewis and Harris, but known in other guises elsewhere. The girl wishes she were in the shieling with her lover, herding cattle and making dairy products. Then the theme changes as was typical of the genre, and a hunter wishes he had his gun to follow the deer which he sees. This variant is from Lewis. 6. I HO RO'S NA HUG ORO EILE 4:00 A love song composed by John MacLean of Tiree, but in the person of a Mary MacDonald, as if for her husband. The tune is a variant of that ascribed to Ruairidh Dall O' Cathain, an Irish harper, and it was borrowed by Robert Burns for Ae Fond Kiss. Margaret's version of the melody is influenced by the singing of the late Malcolm Angus MacLeod, Cape Breton. The text is available in Tiree Bards, ed. Cameron, 1932, Glasgow. 7. HE NA MILIBHIG 1:07 A flirty waulking song from Lewis, where the girl says she is betrothed, and later that she is too young to marry. 8. SLAINTE BHON T-SEANN DUTHAICH (Good Health from The Old Country) 3:03 For the people of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, who may or may not have had their dream fulfilled of visiting what many there still affectionately call the "The Old Country". 9. OCHOIN A RIGH, GUR TINN AN GALAIR AN GRADH (Alas! sore is the Disease of Love) 3:48 The well known song by Henry Whyte, Fionn (1852-1913), Air fal al o, was probably based on this one, as they have words in common. William Matheson's text which he learned from oral tradition, is a women's love song, in which she praises the man for his character and his looks, and wishes they could be in a deserted place alone together. Margaret particularly liked the variant of the tune she heard to another text as sung by John Norman MacSween from Scalpay, Harris. 10. CRO CHINN T-SAILE (The Cattle Fold of Kintail) 4:00 OCHOIN A RIGH, GUR TINN AN GALAIR AN GRADH (The Wedding Coistal) SIUTHADAIBH BHALACHAIBH (The Devil in The Kitchen) Tradition has it that this song was composed by a soldier who was wounded at Sheriffmuir, and fearful that he would never get home to Kintail. The melody is known to several other sets of words. There is an echo here of Dol dhan taigh bhuan leat, where it refers to the Winter dwelling and the Summer dwelling in other words, the grave. This version came from a recording by Donald Joseph Mackinnon, Barra. 11. CUMHA MHIC AN-TOISICH (Macintosh's Lament) 3:53 Oral traditions connect this song with a Mackintosh chief who was thrown off his horse and killed on the day of his marriage. Mackintosh's Lament has commonly been considered one of the oldest pibrochs in the piper's repertoire, dating af far back as the early 1500s. It is unlikely, however, that the pibroch from as we know it today, with its highly standardised scheme of variations, was in place as early as this. What is clear is that many of the pibrochs were based on songs, such that their theme or urlar was melodically and rhythmically closely related. Internal evidence strongly suggests that this particular song was a caoineadh or keening, performed as part of the rituals of funerals by professional women. The album unites the earliest song text of the 18th century with the melodic line of the pibroch, suggesting the performance style of that time. 12. RUIDHLICHEAN PIOBA (Pipes Reels) 3:21 13. UAMH AN OIR (Cave of Gold) 3:22 Although a pibroch exist with the name Uamh an Oir, Allan says that he cannot find any melodic relationship between it and any of the songs with that title, of which there are several. The song is attached to the story of a piper going into a cave and never returning. He predicts that calves will be marts and children will be heads of households before his return from the Cave of Gold. The poet Sorley Maclean composed a long poem musing on the legend of the piper and the cave. 14. 'S OLC AN OBAIR DO THEACHDAIREAN CADAL (Sleep is Ill Work for Messengers) 1:55 The story is told of a man in South Uist who was sent to fetch a midwife for his wife, but because the tide was in he could not cross the ford. While awaiting the turn of the tide he sat down and fell into such a deep sleep that he missed the turning of the tide. He was wakened by a fairy woman singing this song, and when he got home it ws to find that his wife had died in childbirth. 15. PORT NA bPÚCAÍ (The tune of The Fairies) 2:45 This tune is from one fo the Blasket Island - Inishvickillane - in Eire. One story of its origin, going back to nineteenth century, is that a women was wakened by strange animal or bird-like sounds one night. She wakened her husband and they both learned a melody from the sounds. It was called The Tune of the Fairies around the islands. No-one lives there now, but there is a £3m Resource Centre looking out to it from the mainland.

You can find more articles in the archive under Notes on Celtic Music.