Dozing and Composing

By Vincent Broderick

Over the years I have composed many pieces of music, reels jigs, hornpipes, marches, slip jigs, polkas and slow airs. Yet I cannot read music. I play all by ear. A good friend of mine Antóin Mac Gabhann has written a lot of my music for me, I hope to print it sometime.

People often say to me “how can you compose when you cannot read music, have you a gift, have you to be in a certain place or in a certain mood”? Well I don’t know about a gift, but places and moods are very important to me. I could go for weeks and nothing would come to me but, if I came to a certain spot music would come rushing into my mind. This could be on a mountain drive, in an old house, the sound waves by the sea, the whistling of the wind, even sitting at home alone by the fire. If the mood was right the music would come to me.

It all began many years ago down a bog in Carramore outside Loughrea in County Galway. I was one of a big family on a small farm. We had a very large bog.  We cut a lot of turf for sale which meant quite a bit of time was spent saving it. I spent hours on my own in this way. To me this was the perfect place to be. The sounds of nature, the birds singing, the frogs croaking in the bog hole, a dog barking, the cuckoo, the corn-crake, the wind humming through the heather. All these sounds were music to me.

It was here the first pieces of music came to me. One evening I was sheltering from a thunder storm under the turf bank. Reading a book by the great Seamus O’Kelly, a Loughrea man who was a gifted writer. The book was called The Leprechaun at Kilmeen.

When the rain was over, the sun came out I saw the most beautiful rainbow on the horizon. As I watched the lark soaring up into the sky I thought of the Leprechaun and the crock of gold. In a flash the music came to me. I found myself whistling one reel then another. As I watched the rainbow fading in the distance I dozed asleep. When I awoke the rainbow had vanished but the music remained all down through the years.

I decided to put names on the two reels: ‘The rainbows end’ and ‘The crock of gold’.

The compositions of Vincent Broderick have been recorded and played by many musicians.  This playlist is an introduction to his tunes and contains recordings of Vincent playing himself, taken from the tapes he recorded for Antón Mac Gabhann, and also from others. He was renowned for telling the stories behind his compositions and one is included here. There are tracks recorded by members of the Pipers’ Club CCÉ, of which Vincent and the Broderick family were active members.  Vincent was friendly with Isao and Masako Moriysau from Japan, known as Paddy and Bridget, and the playlist also includes their recording of two compositions that he wrote for them.  Antoóin Mac Gabhann has contributed both a solo recording and one where he plays with the Mac Gabhann family.  Catherine McEvoy and Paddy McEvoy have also recorded a track specially for this playlist.

Interactive scores and printed notation are available below for five of the compositions on this playlist.  For more tunes, stories, songs and recitations see The Vincent Broderick Tapes.

The performers on the Pipers’ Club CCÉ recordings are

Des Broderick, fiddle ; Lorraine Hickey, fiddle ; Seán Montgomery, fiddle ; Clare Walsh, fiddle ; Orla Brennan, fiddle ; Lil Brennan, fiddle ; Joe Harte, fiddle ; Larry Broderick, flute ; Proinnsias Ó Faircheallaigh, flute ; Pádraic Ó Lochlainn, flute ; Don Farrelly, flute ; Philip Denmead, accordion ; Jimmy Brennan, accordion ; Anne O’Connell, accordion ; Peter Denmead, concertina ; Niamh Denmead, harp ; Theola Doran, bodhrán

These same performers also performed at Ceolchoirm Mór le Chéile – Concert from CCÉ Cumann na bPíobairí Uilleann, Craobh Leo Rowsome and Craobh Cluain Tarbh in Cultúrlann na hÉireann on 12 May 2017.  The video below is an extract from the full concert.  ITMA would like to thank all the performers for their permission to publish these recordings.