Danny Boy - Glenn Weiser, Celtic fingerstyle guitar

Описание: “Danny Boy” is among the world’s most famous and beautiful songs. Many musicologists consider it the most perfect specimen of a folk tune in existence because the wave-like contours of its melody. In evidence of this, in 2007 the Catholic Church, condemning the song as “emotionally manipulative,” banned it from being played at church funerals because of its power to reduce congregations to tears, thus distracting the mourners from a more dignified solemnity.
The melody is believed to have composed by the Irish harper and nobleman Rory Dall O’Cahan under the title of “the Lament for Ulster, as he lived at the beginning of the Ulster Plantation, a dark period in Irish history when England resettled Protectants from the southern Scotland and norther England on Irish lands belonging to Catholics (Oliver Cromwell famously told the dispossessed Catholics that they could then “go to hell or go to Connaught” west of the Shannon River).
According to legend, Rory Dall was a bit tipsy one night and wandered out onto the grounds of his castle. There he saw a harp standing on the lawn and being played by invisible fairy fingers, and heard the tune we know today as “Danny Boy.” Around 1845 George Petrie collected the melody from County Derry fiddler Elizabeth Ross, who told him the air was 250 years old. In 1855 Thomas Moore wrote lyrics to it and published it under the name “Londonderry Air.” The same fame grew further when in 1913 and English lawyer named Fred Weatherly wrote the new lyrics describing a mother waiting for her son to return from a war and published it as “Danny Boy.”
Since then it has been recorded thousands of times in arrangements ranging from classical harmonization (like the guitar version here, for example) to straight-ahead jazz.
The guitar piece here is from the book “Folk Songs for Solo Guitar” by Glenn Weiser. Performed by Glenn Weiser on a 1928 0-21 Martin guitar. Recorded January 6, 2014 at The Soundry, Soddy Daisy, TN.
For information about Glenn’s CDs, fingertsyle guitar and harmonica books, and virtual private music lessons, visit wwwDOTcelticguitarmusicDOTcom