The Pibroch.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4610, 5 February 1883, Page 3

The Pibroch.

A correspondent sends the following :— The late Dr Norman M'Leod, in writing of " The Bagpipe and its Music," gives the following regarding the pibrooh, whioh will doubtless be interesting to both Highlander and Sassenach :

The music of the Highlands is the Pibroch of the Great War Pipe, with its fluttering peonons, fingered by a genuine Celt in full Highland dress, as he slowly paces a baronial hall, or amidst the wild scenery of his native mountains. The bagpipe is the instrument best adapted for summoning the clans from the far off glens to rally round the standard of their chiefs, or for leading a Highland regiment to tho attack amidst tbe roar of battle. The pibroch is also constructed to express a wolcome to the ohief on his return to his clan ; and to wail out a lament for him as he is borne by hiß people to the old burial place in the glen, or in the sainted Isle of Graves. To those who understand its carefully composed musio, there is a pathos and depth of feeling suggested by it, with whioh a Highlander alone can fully sympathise ; associated by him as it always iB with the most touching memories of hiß home and oountry ; recalling the faces and forms of the departed ; spreading forth before his inward eye panoramas of mountain, loch, and glen, and reviving impressions of his early and happiest years. And thus, if it excites the stranger to laughter, it exoites the Highlander to tears, as no other musio can do, in spite of the most refined culture of his after life. It iB thus, too, that what appears to be only a tedious and unmeaning monotony in the music of the genuino pibroch, is not so to one under the magio influence of Highland associations There is, indeed, in every pibrooh a certain monotony of sorrow. It pervades even the " welcome," as if the young ohief who arrives recalls also the memory of the old chief who has departed. In the " lament " we naturally expect this sadness ; but even in tho " summons to battle," with all its fire and energy it oannot conceal what it seems already to anticipate, — sorrow for the slain. In the very reduplication of its hurried Botes, and in the repetition of its ono idea, - thore are expressions of vehoment passions and of grief — " the joy of grief," as Osßian terms it — whioh loves to brood upon its own loss and ever repeats tho ono dosolate thought which fills tbe heart, and whioh, in the end, again breaks forth into the loud agonising ory with whioh it began. All this will, no doubt seem both meaningless and extravagant to many, but it is nevertheless a deliberately expressed conviction. The characteristic poetry of tho Highlands is Ossian, its music the pibroch, and thoso two voices embody the rspirit, and sing tho praisen of " Tir nan* beann Man' Olean's nan 1 Gaisgeach."