Planxty Irwin Acoustic Guitar - Digital Sheet Music

Instrumental Duet Guitar,Instrumental Duet,Mandolin - Digital Download

SKU: A0.1017673

Composed by Turlough Ó Carolan. Arranged by Gordon Jackson. Baroque,Celtic,Classical,Folk,World. Score and parts. 1 pages. Gordon Jackson #6434557. Published by Gordon Jackson (A0.1017673).

Planxty Irwin

Turlough Ó Carolan (1670-1738) was an Irish harper and composer. Carolan’s music does not sit comfortably in any one particular musical tradition. He was the product of a long line of Irish harpers dating from medieval times or before. He was also aware of Irish folk music, with many of his tunes having a ‘trad’ quality, particularly in his jig-like compositions. Finally, Carolan was influenced by the music of Italian Baroque composers that he would have heard played at the great houses he visited. Carolan’s Draught is an example of the latter.

This pleasant little tune is actually titled ‘Colonel John Irwin’ (Carolan’s modus operandi was to compose tunes, often with lyrics, in honour of his wealthy patrons and their various family members). However, this one has become much more widely known as ‘Planxty Irwin’. A planxty is a tune, usually lively, composed in honour of a patron, although the actual etymology of the word is unknown, and may even have been coined by Carolan himself.

For my arrangement of the tune I have written a counterpoint, which comes in second time around. Whilst the basic melody is mostly ‘swung’, i.e. with beats comprising dotted quaver-semiquaver-quaver (dotted 16th-32nd-16th), the counterpoint is ‘straight’, i.e. a quaver-quaver-quaver beat (16th-16th-16th). This creates a pleasant (I hope!) syncopation throughout.