FLUTEAnonymous
"The Coolin" for Flute, Oboe & Harp
Anonymous - "The Coolin" for Flute, Oboe & Harp
Flute, Oboe, Harp
ViewPDF : "The Coolin" for Flute, Oboe & Harp (8 pages - 211.25 Ko)109x
ViewPDF : Harp (79.51 Ko)
ViewPDF : Flute (67.99 Ko)
ViewPDF : Oboe (67.41 Ko)
ViewPDF : Full Score (140.36 Ko)
MP3 : "The Coolin" for Flute, Oboe & Harp 12x 186x
The Coolin for Flute, Oboe & Harp
MP3 (2.28 Mo) : (by Magatagan, Mike)8x 15x
The Coolin for Flute, Oboe & Harp
MP3 (2.28 Mo) : (by Magatagan, Mike)11x 7x
The Coolin for Flute, Oboe & Harp
MP3 (2.32 Mo) : (by Magatagan, Mike)6x 11x
MP3
Vidéo :
Composer :
 Anonymous
Anonymous
Instrumentation :

Flute, Oboe, Harp

Style :

Celtic

Key :G minor
Arranger :
Publisher :
MAGATAGAN, MICHAEL (1960 - )
Copyright :Public Domain
Added by magataganm, 05 Nov 2021

The Coolin, or The Coolun, is an Irish air often characterised as one of the most beautiful in the traditional repertoire. In Irish, its name has been given as An Chúileann or An Chúilfhionn ("the fair haired girl" or "the fair lady") depending on the text used. The tune is also known as "The Lady of the Desert".

The air, and the texts fitted to it, have a long and very complex history. Its exact provenance is unknown, but it has been variously asserted by different authors as dating from the 13th century, from the time of Henry VIII, or from the 17th century, though the latter is the most credible. There are at least two main Irish language texts and a number of later English translations, or interpretations of both; there are also English words (such as those by Moore) which are not a translation of either Irish version.

The air itself is sometimes claimed to have been composed by Carolan, though John Glen (1900) said that the "ancient Irish melody" was in fact usually known as "Molly St George" at the beginning of the 18th century. The latter-named tune has been often been associated with the great 17th-century harper Thomas Connellan. Connellan was also cited alongside Carolan as a possible composer of The Coolin, but as Glen noted, many supposed "that the tune is older than either of them".

The version of The Coolin printed by Edward Bunting in The Ancient Music of Ireland (1840) was taken from the playing of Donnchadh Ó Hámsaigh (Dennis Hempson), who himself claimed to have learned it from the playing of Cornelius Lyons early in the previous century. Though Bunting's setting claims to present the tune with variations, it in fact appears to print only Lyons' once-fashionable baroque variations while omitting the main tune. Patrick Weston Joyce, who said that Bunting's version was "wanting in simplicity", printed a version of the tune collected from the playing of a fiddler, Hugh O'Beirne, that he said was very similar to that he recalled being sung in his youth in 1830s County Limerick. Other versions appeared in several late 18th century collections, as well as in the 1795 opera The Wicklow Mountains, written by John O'Keeffe with music by William Shield.

These suggestions originated with Joseph Cooper Walker, who said in his Historical Memoirs of the Irish Bards (1786) that the air's title in fact referred to what he called the "coulins", or long locks of hair, worn by Irish men and which were prohibited by a statute of Henry VIII, although he noted that no actual words to the air on this subject had survived. Despite the lack of a text, Walker's assertion was repeated by, amongst others, Renehan and W. H. Grattan Flood: Flood however proposed (based on a suggestion by Lynch in a letter to the Dublin Penny Journal) the air must refer to an earlier statute of the 13th century. The story inspired a 19th-century patriotic poem called The Coulin Forbidden, written by W. B. McBurney under the pseudonym "Carroll Malone".
The distinguished philologist Eugene O'Curry believed that the air known as The Coolin was first given that name in the early 18th century by a Fr. Oliver O'Hanley.

The philologist Eugene O'Curry asserted, however, that the title "The Coolin" was only applied to the air in the 18th century after it was used by a priest, Fr. Oliver O'Hanley, to set a poem he wrote in praise of a famous beauty of County Limerick. In this case, O'Curry commented, the word "Coolin" is used in its sense "fair-haired one", to refer to a girl: he disagrees with Walker, stating "no such word was ever, or ever could have been, applied to the glibbs, or long tufts of back hair, prohibited by old English statute".

The Rev. L. Donnellan, in a survey of the various texts and tunes of The Coolin, published in the 1912 Journal of the County Louth Archaeological Society, was equally dismissive: he states that Walker's "credulous" story of it referring to an English statute was "fabricated by his friend [William] Beauford". He also notes that what he called Walker's "foolish speculation" was encouraged by his insertion of the phrase "glibbs and coulins" into the 16th century statute, which he notes only refers to proscribed "glibbs". Donnellan's conclusion was that the original composition was a 17th-century one attributed to O Duagain.

Source: Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Coolin).

Although originally written for Traditional Irish instruments, I created this Interpretation of the Irish Air "The Coolin" (the fair haired girl) Flute, Oboe & Celtic or Concert (Pedal) Harp.
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