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For Mhairi Hall, the music on her new album is about three things: It’s about traditional Scottish melodies, it’s about the piano and it’s about a place. The World’s Carol Zall has more. Download MP3
Mhairi Hall Trio © Mhairi Hall 2009
© Mhairi Hall 2009
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MARCO WERMAN: We stay in the Scottish Highlands for some of that good Scottish music Jackie Robertson was talking about. Today’s Global Hit features a pianist from the Highland town of Aviemore. Her name is Mhairi Hall. The World’s Carol Zall has more.
CAROL ZALL: The music on Mhairi Hall’s new album is inspired by a place. A place called Cairngorm.
MHAIRI HALL: Cairngorm is the name of the mountain which lies near Aviemore, and in fact it’s a mountain range. And I grew up looking onto the mountain.
ZALL: That mountain, and the range that bears its name, the Cairngorms, lie in the central Highlands of Scotland. But it’s not just the mountain that’s important to Hall. It’s the whole region, and the music that comes from it. And that’s why the name of her debut CD is Cairngorm. Cairngorm features a mix of Mhairi Hall’s own compositions, and 18th and 19th century melodies with roots in the area. Hall says she’s been collecting tunes from old musical manuscripts for ten years. And the ones she found herself hanging onto turned out to be the ones from the Cairngorm region.
HALL: It really happened subconsciously because I’d be looking through these books and occasionally come across a tune with a title from back home, and I would just kind of store it away in the back of my mind. And eventually I realized that there was an awful lot of material from our area that wasn’t being played. So I started kind of sifting through it and picking the tunes I liked.
ZALL: Tunes like An Cairn Gorm. Hall says this tune has roots that go back a long way. A man from the area named John Robertson was said to have sung it about 300 years ago.
HALL: I was just really drawn to that, to have a piece of music which is called An Cairn Gorm, written, goodness knows when, and to think that John Robertson would have looked upon that mountain and been singing that tune, and the same can happen today. I would just look on the mountain and have the same tune in my head. I just thought that was lovely.
ZALL: Hall and her trio are not merely resurrecting old Scottish tunes. They’re reinterpreting them. Their lead instrument is the piano and that’s uncommon in traditional Scottish music.
HALL: But I think it’s becoming more and more popular now to be playing the melodies on the piano. However there’s not really many folk out playing with a band and really trying to push the piano as a lead instrument, so we’re kind of breaking new ground in a sense here.
ZALL: That’s called Mrs. Forsyth’s Pibroch. It’s one of the old tunes from the region around the Cairngorm Mountains that Mhairi Hall loves so much. In fact, Hall and her fellow musicians debuted the music from their CD in a concert at the top of the mountain.
HALL: It took quite a lot of planning but we managed to take a grand piano up on the mountain train, and into this lovely venue at the top of the mountain, and we were lucky to get lovely weather, so there was a beautiful sunset and we performed the music from Cairngorm for the very first time.
ZALL: Old friends and family were on hand to celebrate, and, Hall says, even a reindeer or two were spotted listening in. For The World, I’m Carol Zall.
WERMAN: From the Nan and Bill Harris studio at WGBH in Boston, I’m Marco Werman. Join us again tomorrow for another spin of The World.
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