Kieran Blais - Fiaich a' Mhada Rua / The Red Fox Chase

I first heard this as Séamus Ennis' version on "40 Years of Irish Piping." Other recordings include Séamus Ennis' "The Fox Chase", Leo Rowsome's "The King of The Pipers", and Liam O'Flynn's "Out to an Other Side".

Sheet music is available in Séamus' tutor: "The Master's Touch"(what I'm using here), "The Dance Music of Séamus Ennis", "O'Neill's Music of Ireland" (and possibly other places).

"Now I should tell you this, it's a descriptive piece and it starts off with the jogging of the individual hunters to the meet, then the meet setting out in trotting time or marching time and then following where the hounds are leading, at a moderate pace. Then, when the hounds are failing to find the scent, it's still more moderate, more marked. After that the hounds are away on a scent and you have the jogging rhythm and that finally slows down, and takes up again when the hounds take up an old scent. And then they discover it's only an old scent, which fades and there's a rallentando, in music parlance, then, coming to the final [sic] of that scent. Then there's some new interest arising, it becomes lively, say, military march time. Then it livens even more because a new scent, a fresh scent, has been discovered, and then you'll hear the 'hark away' of the huntsmen and the 'view halloo' of the leader of the hunt. And then you'll hear the huntsman's horn. and then you'll have the hounds excitedly yelping on the scent. And then you'll have the chase proper itself, speeding up, and then slowing down until you get the wail of the kill. And then the piece plays 'The Lament for the Fox' which is just killed. And finally after a good day's sport, or morning's sport, they jog off home to the tune of 'The Foxhunter's Jig'."

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Irish
• Celtic
• uilleann
• bagpipes
• Fox
• Chase
• CJ
• Dixon
• Practice
• Set
• piece
• lament
• jig
• 6-8