Piobaireachd
Taken from the 40th annual commemorative program.

John MacFadyen, recognized as one of the world’s leading piobaireachd players is the only person ever to have held the four major piobaireachd trophies at one time. These are the Gold Clasp, Inverness, the Gold Medal, Oban, the Silver Chanter, Dunvegan and the Bratach Gorm, London.

Mr. MacFadyen, a school Headmaster in Busby, Scotland, was a regular Broadcaster with the B.B.C. and was principal of Piping Summer Schools in North Carolina and Ontario. A member of the panel of judges of the Scottish Pipe Band Association and the Piobaireachd Society of London, we were most honored to have Mr. MacFadyen as piping judge.

The Great Highland Bagpipe has been the national instrument of Scotland since it superseded the Clarsach, or harp, in the castles of the highland chiefs.

How and when and where the bagpipe originated is a mystery; but by two thousand years ago, bagpipes already were sounding the war-music of the Roman infantry and their keeing was heard wherever the legions marched. In successive centuries, the instrument became established in infinite variety throughout Europe and in parts of Asia, notably India.

After the close of the Middle Ages, however, the tradition of bagpiping faded or died in country after country with the single exception of the Highlands of Scotland. There it has flourished to culmination in the Piob-mhor, the Great Highland Bagpipe.

For more than four hundred years, and despite the Disarming Act of 1746, which followed the great but abortive Jacobite rising, and which banned their playing, the bagpipe has been associated with all forms of Scottish life and all the moods of her people. Yet few instruments have had to fight so long and so tenaciously for existence in what often seemed an alien world, and few musicians had to rely so heavily on their own conviction of the purity of their music in the face of what was often implacable hostility.

The classical music of the Highland Bagpipe was founded on a deep and academic knowledge of Ceol Mor now more often referred to as piobaireachd. This is a unique and ancient art form, highly sophisticated and artificial in structure, which rose exclusively in the Scottish Highlands and the likes of which has not been found in any other country in the world, not even Ireland!

Among the great composers were the MacCrimmon family who, for generations, were the hereditary pipers to the MacLeods of Dunvegan. In the days when their music was at the summit of its excellence, great events were commemorated by compositions of unusual character which have come down to us through the centuries with a purity of expression unaltered by time.

One such composition was that unforgettably abrasive piece composed by the famous Donald Mor MacCrimmon to commemorate the slaying of his brother Patrick in Sutherland. The tune is called “A Flame of Wrath for Squinting Patrick” and the ferocity and venom conveyed by the variations are proof positive of the primitive instincts in whose clutches Donald was grasped when he gave life and fire to the piece. The story of the tune is a fascinating one and is told in detail by Angus MacKay in the preface to his Collection of Piobaireachd, first published in 1838.

Because of the haunting sadness of many of the pieces, many believe that all piobaireachds must be Laments. This is not so and while some of the greatest of our tunes do lament the passing of some great figure, there are also Gatherings, Battles and Salutes which have been immortalised by the musical genius of the composers of Ceol Mor.

Reprinted from Delaware Scottish Games Program, June 2, 1973