Flaithrí & Eoghan Neff
Soundpost and Bridle
Teaghlach
T001; 48 minutes; 2000
This album’s title has nothing to do with horses,
but draws its name from components, respectively, of the fiddle and uilleann pipes.
The soundpost is the little piece of wood which connects the belly and neck of
the fiddle, while the bridle, to quote the album’s notes, is ‘a small thin
ribbon of copper looped around the cane reed of the pipe chanter’.
The Neff Brothers hail from County Cork and are
just into their twenties. Flaithrí is the uilleann piper and whistler
and Eoghan is the fiddler. For many, this combination of pipes and bow is one
of the most exciting sounds and essential pairings in Irish music.
Examples of previous such recordings which spring to mind include Ronan Browne
and Peadar O’Loughlin’s The South West Wind, Paddy Glackin’s albums Doublin’
(with Paddy Keenan) and The Whirlwind (with Robbie Hannan) and Davy
Spillane and Kevin Glackin’s Forgotten Days. 
Now, obviously, it is unfair to compare the young
Neffs to this rather illustrious company, but Soundpost and Bridle is
definitely not an album for the dyed-in-the-wool purist. Indeed, as much as
anything, it reflects the concerns of a younger generation of musicians than
those cited above. So the pace is often frenetic and each brother regularly
adds relatively unusual ornamentations to his playing - an elongated slide up
the fiddle’s fingerboard, for instance, or an extended roll on the chanter.
Furthermore, Flaithrí sometimes plays in the upper reaches of the chanter’s
range, giving some tunes an unusual aspect and often, in contrast, keeps the
drones in operation for the entirety of a tune.
As seems to be the case with many recent albums, Soundpost
and Bridle includes a sprinkling of tunes from other traditions, namely a
Galician air (Nom te Namores Meniña), a Breton air (An Seans
Deireanach) and something described as “a Breton march and laridée”.
Consultation of my Larousse dictionary and several music reference books fails
to produce any enlightenment as to the meaning of “laridée”, but the piece
itself seems to be a 4/4 dance tune with repeated motifs.
The remaining ten tracks are drawn from across the
breadth of Ireland, including compositions by Vincent Broderick, Martin Wynne
and Francis O’Connor, while the brothers are happy to include a number of tunes
popular in Donegal, notably a set featuring the Castle Stirling
strathspey and the reel, The Gravel Walks. However, what is alarming
about this set, which Eoghan plays solo, is that he consciously adopts an
identifiably Donegal style of playing, employing a rawer sound and elaborate
double-stopping. This is clearly a man who knows his John Doherty recordings,
but begs the question of the point of the exercise.
Nevertheless, elsewhere the brothers prove
themselves to be their own men, though sometimes make it a family affair by
being accompanied by their mother Muireann on bodhrán and assorted percussion and
their father Eibhear on mandolin. Personally, I am not fond of some of the
brothers’ use of electronics to create that kind of “ethereal” atmosphere best
left to the producers of films for Bórd Failte and sometimes the pace of their
playing verges on the extravagant, but there is no doubting their expertise nor
their ability to convey the excitement of their music.
One word of warning is necessary. Apart from
including an introduction in five different languages, the liner notes feature
a number of oddities. Each track’s notes commence with a few lines of Irish
while notes on individual tunes appear in English. However, several familiar
names have also been converted into Irish. So, for instance, Francis O’Neill
becomes “Proinsias Ó Néill”. James Byrne (not “Burns” as written) becomes
“Séamus Ó Broin”, a name that James would not recognize since, if anything, he
would be called Ó Beirne. Cathal McConnell is translated as “Chathail Mhic
Dhomhnaill” which simply cannot be correct, especially regarding Cathal’s
gender!
This review
by Geoff Wallis was originally written for Musical Traditions - www.mustrad.org.uk.
For more information about The Neff Brothers - homepage.eircom.net/~teaghlach.