Lennon | Musical Memories | Volume 2 & 2 CDs

A collection of 72 of the great Irish fiddle player and composer Charlie Lennon’s compositions, including piano arrangements and a guide to traditional piano accompaniment. 

Charlie Lennon creates some of the most attractive and popular of the airs and dance tunes being made today in the Irish tradition. He forges a wide variety of different tune types on some mysterious anvil of his imagination; tunes with catchy melodies that stay and vibrate in one’s ear and heart, and with rhythms that dance with the heartbeat of the Irish tradition. 

Charlie is a composer of large-scale works, but to the grassroots traditional players he is, first of all, the craftsman tune-maker who precisely understands their needs and their likes. Often, newly composed tunes being made in the Irish idiom today sound rather artificial and ‘constructed’ when they first appear. If they are good enough at all to make their way into the live tradition they usually have to be tossed around for a while before the corners are knocked off them and they acquire the authentic feel of being at home in the tradition. 



'Charlie Lennon’s tunes have that authentic feel from day one. Every tune in this book could fit seamlessly into a selection of tunes that have been in the tradition for generations. Many of the tunes in this book are already familiar to the traditional music community from the many broadcasts and sound recordings of Charlie’s ever-popular tunes. And this book validates the contribution of accompanists to the Irish tradition. Accompaniments are notated throughout, and there is a sizable bonus for piano players – a really valuable and practical hands-on ‘user’s guide’ to piano accompaniment, of which Charlie is acknowledged as one of the finest exponents today.'
– Jackie Small (Irish Traditional Music Archive)
 
'Musical Memories, Volume 2, proves again why composer, fiddler, and pianist Charlie Lennon remains among Ireland’s most revered musicians.'
– Earle Hitchener (Music critic for The Wall Street Journal and Irish Echo)