Piping Equivs of Mainstream Composers

[Michael Kazmierski Dunn]

Hi guys,

So, my girlfriend Deborah asked me this question recently and I told her that I don't have a good answer. Deborah is an excellent piano player, and given the fact that her mother is an opera singer, Deborah became one too. So she had this question: Since I love bagpipes, she wants to get an understanding of who, in our piping world, would equate to the well-known mainstream composers spanning from the Baroque period onwards. She brings this up because she is a classical music oficionado.

Here is what I've come up with so far: MacCrimmons and MacKays - BachDuncan MacDougall - Clamente (because MacDougall made pipes and Clamente made pianos) William Ross: possibly Gershwin, Debussy? So far these are all the ones I can come up with. If anyone wants Deborah's email, I can PM it to you.

Note: If you email her, please do not call her Debbie. She doesn't mind Deb, though. Thanks and I hope you guys can come up with some correlations between mainstream composers and piping composers. Simply put, if Deborah were a piper (I wish she was), she would have posted this.

Michael

[Jim Fogelman]

It's hard to come up with direct correlations between piping and the classical music world as most of our music from the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic eras were passed down through oral tradition and not written down and attributed to a specific composer.

[Klondike Waldo]

I couldn't come up with equivalents, mainly because the music is not all that equivalent to begin with. While there are certainly Baroque aspects to some forms of piping in the use of variations and a hierarchy of ornaments, and Classical aspects to others including an emphasis on form, you ( or Deborah) is asking us to compare composers from a mainly aural, single-instrument (or at least single voice line) art form with those of a mainly ensemble- playing ( and polyphonic, particularly in respect to the Baroque period) tradition.

During the time the "mainstream" composers you cited were working, there were innumerable minor composers performing on and creating works for traditional instruments ( including dozens of types of bagpipes) all over Europe. That is where you'd find your equivalents

I'm pretty sure you mean Clemente.

[caveal]

G S McLennen - Mozart
Donald McLeod - Beethoven

[Michael Kazmierski Dunn]

I love that one, CaveAl! I'm telling Deborah! Of course, it does however make a lot of sense as the various pipers (for instance not just Willie Ross) composed most tunes we are familiar with (Balmoral Highlanders by Angus MacKay, 79th Farewell to Gibraltar by John MacDonald 79th Highlanders), whereas in the mainstream world few composers produced a great many works which most of us may be familiar with here on the forums, and with which Deborah's certainly familiar. Klondike, sorry about the misspelling of Clemente. I've only heard it spoken, this is likely the reason behind. Ok I'm afraid to be off-topic, maybe the subject of another post, though, this does relate to composing as a matter of fact. Deborah composed the melody of what appears to be her own piobaireachd. I played her several examples of piobaireachd grounds, she stole random lines from various tunes and came up with the melody. She first sang it to me in her (operatic, vibrato-rich) voice, and since she is not a piper I added the appropriate gracenotes for her. If any of you are interested in hearing it, I can Email you the file (you can simply PM me your Emails if that sounds best).

[caveal]

Neil Dickie - Chuck Berry

[Heatherbelle]

Originally Posted by caveal

G S McLennen - Mozart
Donald McLeod - Beethoven

Agreed, and I'd add in John MacLellan Dunoon = Schubert, for his wonderful and memorable melodic writing and his words.

[Michael Kazmierski Dunn]

Love that one, Heatherbelle! And so would Deborah! I know it's been a long time but I'm just looking at it right now.

[Michael Kazmierski Dunn]

So I think Deborah and I have reached a conclusion for a couple years now.
Donald Mor MacCrimmon: J. S. Bach
Patrick Og MacCrimmon: W. A. Mozart? probably (or that could be Ian Dall MacKay)
Malcolm and DOnald Ban MacCrimmon: L. V. Beethoven?
Angus MacKay: G. Puccini
(Can't think of one for Verdi)
Duncan MacDougall: Clemente (MacDougall made bagpipes, Clemente made pianos)
John MacDonald of Inverness: F. Mendelson
Captain John A. MacLellan (or Donald MacLeod): C. Debussy
John D. Burgess: Laura Bretan (Laura Bretan isn't a composer, but a teenage opera singer, likewise Burgess was a teenage piper). Though Laura exists in the world right now, Burgess was more than 60 years ago...
So they don't really have year-periods in common, but more along the lines of what they composed or did in either piping or classical music.
And yes, even though Deborah is an opera singer with (actually) a more stunning voice than the 13-year-old Laura Bretan, I was the first to bring her up in our conversation...

[dorothy]

Donald McLeod=Telemann