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reviews
CD The Leadgate Sessions
Colin Ross. Northumbrian Pipers Society Magazine, Volume 26, 2005
If you want to hear what the Border Pipes may have sounded like back in the 18th Century, then this CD will give you the best idea that is available on record at the moment. Paul Martin and a group of his musician friends have put down nine tracks of tunes, mainly from the Border pipe repertoire. They were recorded over a couple of sessions that are full of the joy and excitement that session music has, over the rather formal studies effect you get with a studio recording.
What is noticeable in Pauls piping is the emphasis on the tune, rather than on the formalised playing of the usual range of Highland piping cuttings, doublings and other gracings that seem to override the tunes in the hands of less skilful pipers.
Of course I am assuming that the Border tradition was different to the Highland style of playing as developed bby the MacCrimmons and others: this is a view shared by others of us interested in a revival of our Border piping tradition.
What Paul does is to use mainly the essential cuttings required in playing an open-ended chanter to achieve a simpler style that allows the tune to come through more clearly. Since the live tradition of playing the Border pipes has been lost for about two hundred years, we cannot be sure what the original style was. However we feel it has to be different to the Highland style, and perhaps more related to the style of piping being played in the Celtic fringe of Europe in France and Spain.
This type of playing can be heard on track one in Peacocks March and in track eight in Idbury hill, Muneira de Casu and the English Jig, as well as on other tracks. The expressive nature of the playing is occasionally emphasised with the introduction of some vibrato in places.
It is especially good to hear old favourites of the Northumbrian small pipe repertoire being played with great skill and spirit on the open ended pipe, whether it be the Scottish small pipe or the Border pipe. These tunes were taken by the Northumbrian small pipers about two hundred years ago from the dying Border pipe repertoire, and adapted for the small pipe chanter, thus keeping them alive and waiting for a revival in Border piping which is just starting to take hold at the present time. You can hear Lads of Alnwick; Meggys Foot;Go to Berwick Johnny; Peacock Followed the Hen, Sunderland Lasses and others from this period being played as they were probably intended (for the first time as far as I am aware).
There are other modern tunes on the CD from Pauls past, that are more Scottish in style, and serve as a contrast to the older Border tunes and help in showing up the difference between the traditions that identify our Border style.
This is a thoroughly enjoyable CD which ever way you wish to listen to it, and I recommend it.
Note: The Leadgate Sessions is now out of print: have a look at our new CD roughshod