The Score for Fiddler's Passage (build 3)
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donnchad.html (pause) donnchad0a.html while in the splashing notes of the not yet named jig, Irish streams and rivers flowed down to the sea, like the waters of the fountains in Rome where Donnchad mac Briain courted a princess so long ago donnchad1.html Many years ago, in the 11th century, Donnchad mac Briain, a former High King of Ireland, went on a pilgrimage to Rome, and there he met an Italian Princess, or so the legend went. donnchad1a.html "Well, I took a stroll on the old long walk Of a day -I-ay-I-ay" donnchad2.html According to the Great Book of Irish Genealogies. the Powers family is descended from this unlikely union of a deposed High King of Ireland and a daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor.
17th century Irish historian donnchad2a.html (pause) donnchad3.html So, deposed of his throne, an Irishman in his late 70's, takes a long trip to Rome. donnchad4.html And in Italy, he fathers a new family with an Italian princess.
But Keating thought that Donnchad "Oh woman full of wile, Keep from me thy hand" donnchad4a.html (pause) donnchad5.html Found on the 4th of July, by a musician who had discovered -- in a book by Michael J. O'Brien -- how Walter Power arrived in America, chained on the Goodfellow, it was a story to be sung on the Shannon River.
But Donnchad mac Briain, And there was more. donnchad6.html The history or legend, the epic not yet sung, is that this O'Brien family made its way North to Normandy, France then to England or Wales, and then, in the 12th century, returned to Ireland with Strongbow -- bearing the Norman name of Le Poer. donnchad6a.html (pause) donnchad7 And then only a week ago, in the pub where she performed the lay of Walter Power, an art historian named Liam O'Brien told her an echoing story.
(his hair was brown "Will you meet me for coffee or beer?" donnchad7a (pause) donnchad8.html In her mind, Liam O'Brien was standing beside the table where after her performance she was sitting with her family in the pub. He was telling the story, Irish-serious, about how Hiram Powers went to Italy and made a statue that traveled around America in the days before the Civil War. donnchad9.html And the story, that a descendent of an Irish captive created a statue that became a symbol, for the Abolitionist movement was true. donnchad10.html How had she missed this part of the story? Miracle that Liam O'Brien showed up in the pub when he did.
But then, there was a lot of the story donnchad11.html And she did not think he knew what had happened between Walter Power and Trial Shepherd. donnchad12.html The young woman whom Walter Power married in 1660 or 1661, was born on December 19, 1641 in Weymouth, Massachusetts. Her name was Trial Shepherd. If Walter Power was 14 years old when he arrived in Marblehead in 1654 Walter and Trial would have been close to the same age. donnchad14.html But there is more to this true story of an Irish captive and a Puritan maiden. As documented in the transcript of the 1661 Middlesex Court Records, Walter and Trial were "convicted of fornication by them committed together before marriage". donnchad15.html (pause) donnchad16.html Walter and Trial were married by the time their conviction for violating Puritan statute 23 came to Court, but Walter had to be in the words of the Court: "openly whipped with 15 stripes by the constable of Cambridge & to pay a fine of fifty shillings for his wife or else she to be whipped also." donnchad17.html The Court also records that Trial's Father, Ralph Shepherd, appeared in Court for his daughter, and paid the fifty shillings to Middlesex County Court "in behalf of his son-in-law". donnchad18.html So whatever had happened between Walter and Trial, her family supported them. They helped the young couple purchase land to make their own home. And in Massachusetts an English Puritan family gave Walter Power back the land that was taken from his family by Cromwell. donnchad19.html With their daughter, Trial Shepherd, Walter Power fathered a family, and one of their descendants made a work of art that in the fight for African American freedom became symbolic.
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passage_maire.html pause passage_maire1.html Irish men with curly black hair and blue eyes were too darned attractive. Forget Donal. Maire Powers threw her jacket on the chair, opened the fiddle case; picked up the fiddle; played a few bars of a seductive song. passage_maire1a.html And I asked myself what's a girl to do if his hair was black and his eyes were blue passage_maire2.html Forget Donal. In mid-pace she changed song. passage_maire3.html passage_maire4.html Abruptly, the music moved from the entrancing melody of "The Galway Girl" to the rapidly flowing notes of the "Mason's Apron Reel". passage_maire4a.html She would be making dinner for Donal. They would play together, enjoying the way the music of the fiddle fit with the music of the guitar. She remembered Sean McGuire's words in an interview in Fiddler's Magazine: the readying of the home for making music. passage_maire4b.html The cleaning of the kitchen, the washing of the floors. The smell of homemade bread baking in the oven. "The porter or Guinness would be ready to hand, and anybody that wanted to partake of the beverage, they could help themselves." passage_maire4c.html "And meanwhile the merry-making went on. You were called on to play a solo, play a few tunes, sing a few songs...." passage_maire4d.html Her fingers flew on the strings, as if she were legendary Irish fiddler, Sean McGuire, or at home, when her mother's friends and family came over to play, and her mother sang, and she herself played the fiddle.
passage_maire5.html passage_maire6.html The "Mason's Apron Reel" had been running through her mind ever since she saw the photograph of Hiram Powers in his white sculptor's apron.
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In the photograph, passage_maire7a.html In the photographs of his studio, Hiram Powers was surrounded by white marble statues of beautiful women.
In his reoccuring dream, passage_maire7b.html Such visions had come to her since childhood. She was a boy riding on horseback through an open field. In the distance, there was a stone castle. It was a repeating vision. Sometimes it seemed as if it was Normandy and sometimes it was Ireland. passage_maire7c.html Sometimes when this vision played and replayed in her mind, Máire Powers imagined she was Walter Power, riding in the Waterford countryside, before he was forcefully taken from his home. As she played, the vision was intertwined with words from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. passage_maire7c1.html "While on their way, they would make the dense old woods, for miles around, reverberate with their wild songs, revealing at once the highest joy and the deepest sadness." passage_maire7d.html Two hundred years later, Vermont-born Hiram Powers, the descendant of an Irish captive, was on a packet ship to Florence with his Irish wife by his side.
Máire Powers had passage_maire8.html Like a recording heard by thousands of people in a country where you've never played, The Greek Slave toured America in the years before the Civil War, Over 100,000 people saw his sculpture, while Powers stayed in his studio in Florence. passage_maire9.html She began "Mason's Apron" again from the beginning. She hadn't played it for years. This time playing it in a style that was closer to her own. Martin Hayes. She loved the way he played. passage_maire10.html Did Liam O'Brien know what had happened with Walter Power and Trial Shepherd. She did not think so. passage_maire11.html The new jig was like quicksilver, fast, flowing like water. She had written it herself, and it was as yet untitled. She segued easily from the "Mason's Apron" into the jig with no name. passage_maire12.html In the splashing notes of the not yet named jig, Irish streams and rivers flowed down to the sea, like the waters of the fountains in Rome where Donnchad mac Briain courted a princess so long ago passage_maire14.html Wildly flowing notes sounded in the livingroom of the small house where she was practicing. In the rapid, clear music, it was hard to know where the sorrow ended and the joy began. And she knew how perfectly she was playing her own song. passage_maire15.html (pause) fiddle24.html The music of the jig that she had not given a name moved in silvery phrases. She slowed her playing, as if the softly flowing notes of the song she had written for Focluth Wood spoke of a new path, and who knew what would happen? |
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Well she wasn't going that far.
"Well, I took a stroll on the old long walk
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"Will you meet me
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