"The Coming of Spring" by Cliff Moses

Review by CEOLAS

Review by Celtic Heritage

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Music score

The Coming of Spring

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Tune list for The Coming Of Spring

HUNTER'S HOUSE¹/JACKIE COLEMAN'S REEL/TOMMY'S TARBUKAS² - reels (3:26)
CRONIN'S HORNPIPE/RIGHTS OF MAN - hornpipes (4:35)
ELEANOR PLUNKETT/KEAN O'HARA/HUGH O'DONNELL/FRANK PALMER/CAROLAN'S WELCOME - Carolan tunes (4:37)
CAROLAN'S CONCERTO/MAIDS OF MITCHELSTOWN/JIG OF SLURS - harp/slow reel/jig (4:50)
PADDY'S RAMBLES THROUGH THE PARK - slow air (2:45)
THANK YOU, MARY³/MIGHTY GOAT³/DICKENS ON THE STAND³ - reels (3:51)
BLACKTHORN STICK/THE MOUSE IN THE CUPBOARD/THE COMING OF SPRING⁴ - jigs (3:29)
CAPTAIN O'KANE'S CANON - Carolan (2:32)
SWANS AMONG THE RUSHES¹/THE ASHBROOK³/CHARLIE'S PRIDE³ - jigs (2:54)
FOUR POLKAS (3:50)
FOXHUNTER/LAD O'BEIRNE'S HORNPIPE¹/FOXHUNTER - slip jig/hornpipe/reel (5:23)
LASS OF CARROWCASTLE/MAID OF MT. CISCO/GRAVELWALK - reels (3:56)
GIVE ME YOUR HAND - harp melody (2:49)
MASTER CROWLEY - slow reel (3:01)
MOON OF CLARE - air (3:12)

composed by Ed Reavey, ŠJoseph Reavey, 1984
composed by Alistair Fraser, ŠNara Music, Inc., 1989 BMI
composed by Cliff Moses, ŠTYM Music, 1995
composed by Paddy O'Brien, ŠJ.D.C. Pub. Ltd., 1992 MCPS

CLIFF MOSES: hammered dulcimer
TOM McMASTERS guitar, bodhran
JAMES GEMBAROWSKI: flute

Liner notes for The Coming Of Spring

Hunter's House was composed by Ed Reavey, an Irish immigrant from Cootehill, Co. Cavin. He settled in Philadelphia in 1912, and it is said he composed over 200 tunes. I first heard this tune at Augusta. It has become a great session tune as is Jackie Coleman's Reel. Tommy's Tarbukas is a recent composition by Scottish fiddler Alasdair Fraser from his album The Road North; I first heard it at Augusta from Steve Payne, a whistle player from Monterrey, CA.
Cronin's Hornpipe and The Rights of Man are both traditional tunes. I learned Cronin's Hornpipe from Karen Ashbrook at Augusta, but this version is my own development as a competition piece for the Fleadh. The third part of The Rights of Man is a variation by Robin Williamson.
This medley consists of five tunes by the last of the great Irish Harpers, Turlough O'Carolan (1670-1735) I found these tunes in Donal O'Sullivan's authoritative book Carolan: The Life Times and Music of an Irish Harper. While many of Carolan's tunes are named for patrons and friends, others are of historical events. The words to the tune Eleanor Plunkett tell of the only survivor of a family after thirty of them shut themselves up in the castle of Castlecome and were killed by boiling water. It is not certain that Carolan wrote the tune Kean O'Hara (3rd air), but he did write the words concerning this Irish aristocrat from Sligo. The third tune, Hugh O'Donnell is played here in the key of G instead of the key of C; the fourth tune is called Frank Palmer. The last tune is listed by O'Sullivan as an untitled tune, but it is commonly known as Carolan's Welcome; the unusual tone at the beginning is produced by lightly touching the string where it crosses the treble bridge with a finger of the left hand while playing the note with the hammer in the right hand.
Carolan's Concerto and the slow reel Maids of Mitchelstown were the first two tunes in the seven-minute medley that St. James's Gate played in winning the 1986 Fleadh. The Jig of Slurs was originally an exercise for the bagpipes to learn slurs. The descant for the Maids of Mitchelstown came from the Bothy Band album Out of the Wind and Into the Sun.
Paddy's Rambles Through the Park is a slow air that was played by John Doherty, a master fiddler in the rural tradition of Donegal in the north of Ireland. The life and times of John Doherty, as well as his music, were featured in the book The Northern Fiddler. It is said that he learned this air from his great-grandmother. The story is that Paddy was on his way home late one night, and as he passed the park, he heard a lovely voice singing from behind a cairn. Wishing to learn the tune, he went behind the pile of rocks to meet the singer, only the singer was a banshee and seemed now to be behind the next cairn. But when he got there, the voice was from the next. And so Paddy pursued the elusive banshee the rest of the night, but by the next morning he had this tune in his head. I played this tune at the Fleadh having learned it from Paddy Glacken's album In Full Spate, but it was also recorded by John Doherty on his album entitled Bundle and Go.
These three reels are original. Thank You, Mary was my first try at composing a tune and was written for my wife, Mary. In the early days of St. James's Gate, Mary was one of our most avid fans, and her enthusiasm was infectious. We always acknowledged her support by saying "Thank you, Mary!"
Mighty Goat was written for my friend Charlie Byrne, of Thurles, Co. Tipperary, perhaps Ireland's quintessential bodhran maker. I first met Charlie in Listowel, Co. Kerry, during the Fleadh in 1986. Tom and I were playing tunes on the street in front of the hotel. The dulcimer being somewhat of a novelty in Ireland, there was always a changing crowd of about 20 or so people, but one man, Charlie, stood and listened for a long time. When Tom and I stopped to go get a pint, he came up and said, "I can tell you're enjoying the music; I like that." Charlie introduced himself and said one of his friends was Andy Dowling, one of only two older dulcimer players in Ireland. We corresponded for several years, and I remember he often referred to "mighty times" or "mighty men." Mary and I visited Charlie and his home in the Fall of 1989; Charlie was selecting a bodhran for me by knuckle-thumping on every one he had, until he came to one he especially liked and said, "Now that was a mighty goat."
The writing of Dickens on the Strand was serendipity. The Gate was in Galveston, TX playing for a Victorian pre-Christmas festival called Dickens on the Strand. Ronnie, our fiddle player, was trying to teach me a reel called The Custom Gap. Every time I tried to play the opening phrase it seemed to end up in a different place than he wanted. I finally decided to follow my phrase and see where it ended up; this was the result.
I learned the first jig as The Blackthorn Stick, but it appears in O'Neill's Music of Ireland as The Coach Road to Sligo. I first heard The Mouse in the Cupboard on the radio while driving though St. Louis; it turned out to be from the Boys of the Lough's album Live at Carnegie Hall. There is also a nice fiddle version on Matt Cranitch's album Take a Bow, but the title is The Merry Old Woman. The Coming of Spring was written by Paddy O'Brien, an accordion player from Newtown, Co. Tipperary. I first heard it played by Charlie Byrne's granddaughter, Edel Ryan, when I visited Charlie's family before the 1993 Fleadh in nearby Clonmell, Co. Tipperary. Later in the week, when the festivities got going in Clonmell, they played a lot of Paddy O'Brien's tunes over the loudspeakers on the street in between announcements.
Captain O'Kane is a tune attributed to Carolan. The idea for playing it as a canon came from Charlie Byrne's granddaughters, Sharon and Edel Ryan, who played it this way when I visited them in August 1994. The song The Wounded Hussar is a variation of this tune.
Swans Among the Rushes is another tune by Ed Reavey. I found it in a book of his tunes that was given to me by his son one year when the Gate was playing at the Milwaukee Irish Fest. It also was one of my competition tunes for the Fleadh. The Ashbrook and Charlie's Pride are two jigs that I composed; the first is dedicated to Karen Ashbrook, the single most important person in my development on the hammered dulcimer, and the other for Charlie Byrne's granddaughters, Edel and Sharon Ryan, for the times and tunes they gave me.
In August of 1994, I heard this set of Four Polkas played by fiddler player/maker Phil Sullivan in his home near Templemore, Co. Tipperary, but he didn't tell me the names of the tunes. The third tune is a slight variation of Johnny Ryan's Polka which I learned from Karen Ashbrook in her class at Augusta in 1988. The fourth polka is similar to one of several polkas called Din Tarrant's Polka found in Johnny O'Leary of Sliabh Luachra; the Sliabh Luachra, or Mountain of Rushes is along the border of Cork and Kerry, the area of Ireland where polkas are most common, being used in set dances along with slides (single jigs). Charlie Byrne first took me to the home of Phil and his sons in 1989, and when Charlie and I entered the house on this trip 5 years later, Phil immediately recognized me, called me by name, knew that I played the dulcimer, and even remembered some of the tunes we had played during the earlier visit. Amazing!
The Foxhunter's Jig is a slip jig in 9/8 time; it is the final passage in a theme composition, The Irish Fox Hunt, written about 1799 by Edward Keating Hyland, a blind Irish piper; a version of the entire composition appears in O'Neill's Music of Ireland (#1850). The Foxhunter's Reel was not a part of that composition, but it is a popular Irish session tune; I found it in Vol. 1 of Bulmer and Sharpley's Music of Ireland. The modulation to the key of A is reminiscent of a great session in the Icehouse at Augusta led by Joannie Madden when we went back and forth between G and A until the management turned the lights out with Joanie still yelling "Don't stop!" Sandwiched in between the two Foxhunter tunes is Lad O'Beirne's Hornpipe, another tune by Ed Reavey, written in the style of Harvest Home for his son Ed jr, a lover of hornpipes.
I first learned The Lass of Carrowcastle, sometimes called George White's Favorite, from Sean Egan, son of John Egan and one of the original members of St. James's Gate. This version is my own development, and was one of the tunes I played at the Fleadh in 1994. The Maid of Mt. Cisco is a popular session tune that was written in America referring to Mt. Kisco, NY. The Gravel Walk is a robust fiddle tune from Donegal; I first heard it at Augusta.
Give Me Your Hand (Tabair Dam Do Lamh) was composed by Rory Dall O'Cahan, a renowned blind (hence the name "Dall") Irish harper who lived in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. It was written on the occasion of forgiving a Scottish noble woman for slighting his rank as a harper. He was born in Derry of a wealthy family, but lived most of his life in Scotland. About a dozen of his tunes are extant.
Master Crowley's Reel is a slow reel that was introduced to me by Sandy Brown Wadlington the evening we were finalizing the cover art. Sandy was one of the original fiddle players in St. James's Gate, but went off to seek her fortune as an artist. It is included here as a special "Thanks!"
Moon Of Clare is obviously Claire de Lune, a piano composition by Claude Debussy. I have included it as a tribute to those who started my musical career as a child: my grandmother who gave me my first piano lessons, my mother who kept me going, and my father who wouldn't let me quit. The imagery of this composition doesn't seem out of place.

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