Customer Reviews

O'Riada's Farewell

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However, I don't agree with the editorial review of the pipes obscuring the "stateliness" of the music. I've heard some pretty stately music from the hands of a master piper. Sean O'Riada was a seminal composer and unfortunately, this recording doesn't do much for his reputation or for the harpsichord. I'm not sure why he even chose the harpsichord unless it was because he couldn't play the harp, on which most of these tunes would have been heard upon.

The phrase "a selection of ancient tunes played on an 18th-century harpsichord" caught my eye and seeing I was in Richie O'Shea's Manor Irish Gift Shoppe up there on Covert Avenue at the time and the musical recording in question was only a fiver I said to the old biddy in charge of the cash register sold I said. Sean O'Riada was apparently something of a gigantic cheese in traditional Irish music circles but be that as it may this valedictory splankfest on a frankly banjaxed ould clavicytheriam is spectacularly difficult to get even the slightest morsel of craic out of if you ask me. Jumping Jeebus but right from the opening bars of the very first ancient tune it becomes evident--horribly evident--that this celebrated Corkonian is not firing on all four potatoes at all at all. The batty old geezer sounds like he was recorded in an outhouse noisily pedaling a wooden exercise bicycle for the love of George Butterworth! And just in case anyone is tempted to doubt my bona fides in the matter of evaluating this laughable little leprechaun's musical chops I can state straight up that I own a Horslips t-shirt. Appalled I was in any event. (With emphasis.) AP-PALLED. I endured O'Riada's rickety Celtic claptrap to the bitter end too only because I was actually immobilised right there in my La-Z-Boy by alternating onslaughts of terror and despair. Mostly I kid myself I have an open mind about stuff like this but occasionally stuff like this will just waltz right up to you and pee on your pant leg. Am posting this rare negative review here just to remind myself of this melancholy fact is all.