Mychael Danna and Jeff Danna - A Celtic Romance
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Track Listing
- Evensong 1:42 (MP3)
- Hills Of Ireland 4:19 (MP3)
- Love of Heaven 4:08 (MP3)
- The Anchor Dream 5:47
- The Blood Of Cu Chulainn 4:07
- The Nightingale's Song 3:46
- Funeral 3:43
- Dia Dha Mo Chaim 4:34
- The Prayerstone 3:33
- Moon & Stars 4:55
- The Silent Sun 1:51
- Iona 3:50
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- MYCHAEL and JEFF DANNA's A Celtic Romance is the imaginary soundtrack for the poignant 9th century Irish legend of Liadain and Curithir. It combines the moods of Celtic folk instrumentation with monastic choral chants and the majesty of symphonic orchestration. Once MYCHAEL and JEFF DANNA set their "Celtic legend" wheels in motion, there was no turning back. Their luminous 1996 Hearts O'Space debut, A Celtic Tale, set a lofty standard for popular Celtic music. Their new collaboration, A Celtic Romance, raises the bar even higher, merging the melancholy strains of traditional Celtic folk instrumentation with the choral magic of early music chants and the majesty of symphonic orchestration.
A Celtic Romance was composed as the virtual soundtrack for John Stuart Dick's story, The Legend of Liadain and Curithir, (LEE-a-dane and COOR-i-theer) based on a 9th century Irish poetic fragment. A tale of war, exile, treachery, and revenge, but above all a story of abiding love, A Celtic Romance comes to life through Mychael and Jeff Danna's exquisite musical narrative. The intimacy of true loves longing, the intensity of monastic devotion, and the untamed fervor of the battlefield all find expression in intricate arrangements and magnificent performances.
"We had talked about writing songs to a series of paintings, and then to poems," Jeff Danna explains. "But basically we were just looking for something to work on together." As John Stuart Dick is Jeff's best friend, and as both Jeff and Mychael had used Celtic elements in previous compositions for film, turning to Irish legends came naturally.
As did the music. "Celtic music can evoke a very intimate emotional range," says Mychael. "And it is something that is deep in our North American culture. It may be a few layers back, but its been passed down all the way into our pop and country music. I love the rough expressiveness of the instruments."
By taking that root eloquence and putting what Mychael calls "a bigger spin on it," with cinematic flair and meticulous attention to sound design, the Dannas' create vivid musical passages that echo Dick's narrative. The Ritual Choir of Toronto's Church of Saint Mary Magdalene sets the devotional tone of the tale at the outset and in scenes of worship, burial, and prayer. Irish whistles, flutes, recorders, fiddles, and pipes, all buoyed by swelling orchestral strings and ornamented with bells, percussion, and hammered dulcimer, evoke rolling misty landscapes, haunted dreams, and a deep emotional yearning. In the most rarefied moments, Liadain becomes a palpable presence through SHARENE WALLACE's elegant Celtic harp and the gorgeous soprano voice of SARA CLANCY; in the most climactic, pipes and drums thunder against the crescendos of reeds and strings.
"The technique was similar to scoring a film," says Mychael Danna, "Picking the points in the story that have emotional importance and finding the appropriate instruments and ensembles." Painting with an even broader palette than they used for A Celtic Tale, the Dannas have taken the conflicting joys and sorrows of myth, presented them in epic proportions, and resolved them in a breathless portrayal of faith.
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Mychael Danna and Jeff Danna - A Celtic Tale
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Track Listing
- The Prophecy 3:52
- The Child Deirdre 4:04
- Sons Of Uisnach 2:53
- Under High Branches 3:11
- Loch Etive 2:47
- The Vision 5:01
- South by Sail 3:06
- Defeat of the Red Branch 3:32
- The Druid 5:46
- The Drowning Plains 3:33
- Lament 2:55
- Two Trees 3:21
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- This magnificently orchestrated Celtic fantasy soundtrack inspired by the beautiful and tragic medieval Irish legend of Deirdre brings together the best elements of Celtic folk, classical, ambient and film music. Cinematic in scale, mythic in dimension, romantic in concept - A Celtic Tale sets a bold new standard for the popular Celtic genre. Maybe you can figure out how two talented brothers from a second generation Canadian-Italian family got the idea to stage a non-hostile takeover of the durable Celtic folk genre.
A Celtic Tale is the soundtrack for an imaginary film dramatizing the beautiful and tragic medieval Irish legend of Deirdre. In the service of this classic myth it brings together the best elements of Celtic folk, symphonic and ambient recordings, and sets a glorious new standard for popular Celtic music.
We were wondering how the project started, so we asked. MYCHAEL DANNA had previously recorded Celtic themes on his solo albums. On the phone from Toronto, he is enigmatic. "I guess I just like it." JEFF DANNA is not much help either. "Mychael gave me a call..."
Perhaps we'll never know the real reason they came to it, but take one listen to this magnificent Celtic fantasy and you'll be very glad they did. Musically, the Dannas bring together a wide array of Celtic folk instruments: fiddle, tin whistle and flute, guitar and mandolin, Uillean and Highland pipes, wirestrung harp, concertina and bodhran - with all their bite and pungent overtones - and surround them with the harmonic richness, color and power of the orchestra. Add the dramatic sense of a great director and a sound designer's sensitivity to ambience, and you have perhaps the first truly cinematic treatment of Celtic mythology for the audio medium.
The project was written and recorded in Toronto and Los Angeles in lulls between the Danna brothers' ongoing film and video scoring projects. Top soloists from both the Toronto folk scene and the LA studio world built the instrumental beds over a period of months. When this phase was complete, the strings and orchestral elements were added in Salt Lake City, and the mixes finally came together in Los Angeles.
The results are extraordinarily varied and colorful, no less so for the fact that they are a careful exposition of the original Deirdre legend, which has been translated and adapted for the notes by JOHN STUART DICK. In a recording that abounds in outstanding performances, KRYSIA KOCJAN's powerful reading of the song "Lament," with original lyrics by John Stuart Dick, rings in the mind long after it is first heard. The soulful blasting of the highland pipes, flat out against the full strains of the orchestra is another highlight. Mychael Danna says casually "It's a big sound..." - and one which surely stirs the still beating heart.
And yet in the end it is a tragic tale, and the darker moments fully realize the depths of the epic battle between the forces of the druid and struggle of the heroes, and finally, the inconsolate sorrow of love lost.
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Mychael Danna and Jeff Danna - A Celtic Tale (Narrated)
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Track Listing
- The Prophecy 3:52
- The Child Deirdre 4:04
- Sons of Uisnach 2:53
- Under High Branches 3:11
- Loch Etive 2:47
- The Vision 5:01
- South by Sail 3:06
- Defeat of the Red Branch 3:32
- The Druid 5:46
- The Drowning Plains 3:33
- Lament 2:55
- Two Trees 3:21
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- Among our success stories is A Celtic Tale, MYCHAEL and JEFF DANNA's magnificent orchestrated score based on the medieval Irish legend of Deirdre, with wonderful narration by Fiona Ritchie, host of the syndicated Celtic music program THE THISTLE & SHAMROCK. The idea for a narrated version of A Celtic Tale (HS11073) came from several sources, immediately after we released the recording of the music (HS11063). But who could do vocal and emotional justice to the dramatic text, not to mention pronounce all those guttural, consonant-laden Gaelic proper names?
There was always only one choice: FIONA RITCHIE, producer and host of the nationally-syndicated NPR program of Celtic music, The Thistle & Shamrock. Not only could Fiona pronounce all the names correctly, her beguiling Scots brogue would animate the story with the authentic inflection and cadence of the original oral tradition.
The Music for A Celtic Tale was composed by Canadian brothers MYCHAEL and JEFF DANNA, both film scorers, as the soundtrack for an imaginary film of the beautiful and tragic medieval Irish legend of Deirdre. The score brings together the best elements of Celtic folk, symphonic, and ambient recordings, and sets a glorious new standard for popular Celtic music.
A wide array of Celtic folk instruments - fiddle, tin whistle and flute, guitar and mandolin, Uillean and Highland pipes, wirestrung harp, concertina and bodhran, with all their bite and pungent overtones - are here surrounded with the harmonic richness, color, and power of the orchestra. In a recording that abounds in outstanding performances, KRYSIA KOCJAN's powerful reading of the song "Lament," with original lyrics by John Stuart Dick, rings in the mind long after it is first heard. The soulful blasting of the highland pipes, flat out against the full strains of the orchestra is another highlight.
The Legend of Deirdre is a traditional Irish tale, at least a thousand years old, containing all the elements of similar myths from cultures around the world--magic, prophecy, beauty, fate, faith, romantic love, brotherly love, war, and transcendent death. Deirdre's great beauty - and fate - is foretold at birth, and ultimately there's no escape. Like Helen of Troy, her beauty provokes war.
Like other Celtic heroines, Deirdre is a provocative protagonist, able and empowered in both love and war, which are inextricably entwined in Celtic myth. Yet in the end hers is a tragic tale. Destined to marry a king, she nevertheless finds her true love. Inevitably the lovers are exiled, and when at last they return to their homeland, he is slain and she is imprisoned by the very king she was fated to wed. Thus the darker moments fully realize the depths of the epic battle between the forces of destiny and the struggle of the heroes, and finally, the inconsolate sorrow of love lost.
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