Ireland

Drawn from field recordings made between 1949 and 1969 (gathered now under the umbrella title of Folk Songs of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales), Classic Ballads of Great Britain and Ireland deals with storytelling songs as recorded by Francis James Child in his English and Scottish Popular Ballads (the first uniform attempt at getting these songs onto paper). Time, naturally, brings changes – often dramatic ones when it comes to an oral tradition such as folk song – so this collection is replete with songs varying from Child's versions (even where Child himself recorded numerous variants), sometimes with verses dropped, sometimes with verses added, sometimes both; others have been modified for a particular purpose, some are regional variants, and others have changed little over the years. Others yet are familiar in either lyric or melody but not both – folk song being sometimes a crazy quilt. The notes for this edition acknowledge several collecting and reference sources.

Celtic Thunder presents… Emmet Cahill's Ireland a collection of Irish classics that have been passed down from generation to generation from celebrated Irish tenor and member of Celtic Thunder Emmet Cahill. Emmet Cahill's Ireland offers the very best of the traditional Irish repertoire. Song selections include: "I'll Take You Home Again Kathleen," "An Irish Lullaby," "My Cavan Girl," "Macushla," and more.

Irish rockers U2 celebrated St. Patrick’s Day by launching their “Virtual Road” concert series with the first-ever digital broadcast of U2 Go Home: Live From Slane Castle. The 2001 concert features the band at the legendary venue, just outside of Dublin.

Larry Coryells Last Swing With Ireland contains guitarist Larry Coryell’s final studio outing recorded in Dublin during May 2016. Coryell was in town working at The Sugar Club with his hand-picked local rhythm section of Dave Redmond (bass) and Kevin Brady (drums). Incidentally, Angel Air promise a release of a live performance at the club by the trio sometime later this year.

Music never happens in a vacuum. The places where it is played inspire it, shape it and help it to develop; they are like an extra musician. And therein lies the creative stimulus which Siggi Loch provides as producer to Julian and Roman Wasserfuhr. He continually seeks out new contexts for their playing, and that opens up hitherto unimagined musical perspectives. After the Wasserfuhrs’ musical journey to meet the elite in Gothenburg in Sweden in 2009, and a thrilling session in hip and happening Brooklyn in 2017, the brothers, who come from the peaceful little village of Hückeswagen near Cologne, have now travelled to the South Coast of Ireland, and to John Fitzgerald’s Lettercollum Studio in Country Cork, a secret bolt-hole where several Irish and English rock stars have recorded albums.

Bridget Cunningham marks St Patrick’s Day with a new harpsichord CD that gives a glimpse into Handel’s fascinating time in Dublin. In 1741 at the age of 56, following a financially difficult time in London and with fashions turning against Italian opera, Handel went to Dublin for 9 months – a thriving musical city and the 2nd largest in the British Isles after London. The story of this fascinating trip is told in both music and detailed accompanying notes by harpsichordist and musicologist Bridget Cunningham. This disc is part of Cunningham’s ongoing series with the ensemble London Early Opera, which has already seen releases of several volumes of Handel’s music, including Handel in Italy and Handel at Vauxhall.

English Tone Pictures by Sir John Barbirolli - Side One features two very gifted composers in John Ireland and Arnold Bax, Band 1 features John Ireland (1879-1962) who is described as one of the most gifted composers of the English 'Renaissance'. Arnold Bax confessed himself a brazen romantic; yet his romanticism was as much intellectual as purely emotional, and though his music is full of personal feeling he was not an emotionally self indulgent composer.