Antoin Mac Gabhann at the PCG house concert
There is no musical experience in the world quite like a house concert. And last Friday’s Antoin Mac Gabhann performance, sponsored by the Philadelphia Ceili Group, was a special one even by house concert standards.
The 25 guests in attendance were too busy enjoying the tunes and stories shared with them by one of Ireland’s best traditional fiddle players to pay any heed to the rain and thunder outside. In the cozy living room, laughter and conversation flowed easily between performer and audience.
Mac Gabhann, whose last name translates from Irish to English as “Son of the Smith,” holds, among other honors, that of being a two time winner of the All-Ireland Senior Fiddle title. In addition to teaching weekly fiddle lessons in his County Meath home for over 30 years, and participating in sessions all over the world, the Cavan born Mac Gabhann has also published two volumes of Vincent Broderick tunes, titled “The Turoe Stone Collection.”
In between playing some Broderick reels and jigs, Mac Gabhann explained how the books came about:
“I had been playing these for years before I knew that they were Broderick tunes. I didn’t know anything that Broderick had composed. And, in fact, I discovered that these were his tunes when I was playing with him, having a little session one night. I played one of the tunes and I said ‘I got these tunes down in Fermanagh.’ And he said, ‘But they’re my tunes!’ And, in fact, I played the three jigs [“The Haunted House,” “The Whistler at the Wake” and “The Old Flame”], and he had forgotten all about ‘The Old Flame.’
“When I played it, he remembered it. So I said to him, ‘Well, do you have more tunes?’ And he said he had, a good few.” Mac Gabhann asked if Broderick would put them on tape and send them to him, which Broderick was happy to do. “He was concerned that the tunes would be lost. And people were playing some of them and didn’t know they were his. So, every now and again, I’d get a tape, and then I’d get another tape, and a few more.
“We published a book of them, it was about 1994 or 1995 I’d say. And then when that was done, he’d begin to give me another tape, and another tape. It took me longer to get to listen to the tapes the second time around, but we did publish, a few years before he died, a second book of his tunes.”
We managed to capture Mac Gabhann playing some Broderick reels and jigs on video, as well as a few other tunes, so take a listen to a snippet of what was indeed a rare and magical night of music: Antoin Mac Gabhann Playing Tunes in Philly
