Overland Park Civic Band Plays Fantasy On An Irish Air
For some reason lately I’ve been telling you about odds of Irish classical music that are being performed even among many non-Irish selections, and I see no reason to stop.
The Overland Park Civic Band’s annual holiday concert on Friday, November 30, 2007 includes a selection of pieces of music from all over the place, including Fantasy on an Irish Air.
And this could be the very concert for you. If the truly dreadful Danny Boy isn’t bad enough in its original form.
Because Fantasy on an Irish Air is really just Danny Boy all dressed up in an orchestral arrangement. Irish schmaltz in other words. Or really English schmaltz. English pretending to be Irish.
The recently performed Kirkpatrick Fanfare just used strains of the thing, but Fantasy is it. Wholesale.
Still, a lot of people like the tune, and others have fond memories of Barry McGuigan fighting for peace Irish unity money Ireland, that his celebrity reality television appearances somehow haven’t yet eradicated. So I’ll go ahead and stick it on the KC Irish Events calendar, for mine is not to reason why (mine is to fight the Crimean War).
The Overland Park Civic Band is an all volunteer group that includes 60 amateur and professional musicians from across the Kansas City metro area.
You can enjoy seasonal and Broadway show music in this free concert by the Overland Park Civic Band at 7:30pm on Nov 30, at the Atonement Lutheran Church, 9948 Metcalf Avenue.
Eolaí gan Fhéile:
But the tune is actually called Londonderry Aire, and preexisted “Danny Boy”, and actually is from Ireland, according to Wikipedia (or see here. So, while the popularity of the tune is due to an Englishman matching his lyrics to it, the tune itself is Irish.
Ah, I was afraid of such a response when I took the lazy option of not reporting on the history of the tune.
There are almost as many books as there are legends about the origins of the tune, with many opinions holding that the tune - yes, long before the Englishman Weatherley applied his Danny Boy lyrics - was not written in Ireland. Michael Robinson in the Standing Stones piece linked even considers a couple of possible English origins though ultimately he declares he thinks the song to be of Irish descent.
As it’s almost half-past 4 in the morning here now, I’ll post again on it in a while (I thought I had months ago, but that was a draft I never finished) but my simplistic point is that the tune’s fame and popularity, and with it its perceived Irishness, are due to the application of the “Danny Boy” lyrics and so the modern-day instrumental performance of it is but a rendering of that particular pretend-Irishness rather than a continuity of the traditional music from where it arguably came.
I’d certainly go easy on the Wikipedia especially with its simplistic absolutisms in this case not being much longer than my own.
Oh, and forgive my manners - I should’ve said thanks for bringing up what I lazily skipped over.
Why does it always come down to Danny Boy?
Of all the thousands of great legitimate tunes and songs out there in this extensive folkloric tradition, people still have their addiction to this sugared-up, over-sentimental Broadway-made-famous piece. It persists as being their personal vision of Ireland handed to them by American entertainers. They want so badly to believe that it’s Irish because they like it and god damn it, it proves they like Irish music…
Turning to any internet source as proof used to get students an immediate ‘F’ grade.
“The problem with Wikipedia, the school officials said, is it can be modified by anyone. There have been many cases of incorrect information on the Web site, some of which has been biased.”
this from an article about banning Wikipedia in a school district.
That, Lizzie, is why I also linked to the site that the Wikipedia article lists as a source. Not that you have to trust that article either. But your comment doesn’t apply to it. Oh, and it does go into theories that the song it not Irish, along with why the author of that site thinks that it is.