Customer Reviews

Traditional Dance Music of Ireland

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For the 10 short tracks of the Donegal fiddler Johnny Doherty alone this recording deserves at least 6 stars. These were recorded while he was still in his prime, in the 1950's. All these recordings are gleaned from the huge store of field recordings made by Peter Kennedy in the 1950's and 60's and are priceless. It's not the best conversion to digital, some of the harshness of the reel-to-reel recordings remains, though some audio cleaning took place in the transfer, but the beauty of the music and the playing comes through, superb, a priceless education for the ears...

This was never recorded for or intended as a recording to accompany dance...but to exercise your ears, to learn to play dance music and eventually to exercise dancers with that knowledge and understanding, I can highly recommend this collection of tracks of Ireland's traditional dance music by some of it's finest exponents...

Sadly, Peter Kennedy lost his battle with cancer on Saturday,June 10th, 2006. His work continues with folktrax.org...

I really enjoy the music in regards to quality; however, as an Irish step dancer, a few of the songs- such as the slip jig (song #2)- are a bit fast. The reels and hornpipes are easy to dance to, though. I would recommend this c.d. to anyone who enjoys Irish stepdancing or simply likes to listen to Irish music.