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New Tyne Bridge is
Pauline's long-awaited solo album. As well as tunes from some of the oldest
collections of Northumbrian music (Atkinson, Vickers, Bewick and Peacock) it
also includes compositions by James Hill, Billy Pigg and James Scott-Skinner
amongst others. Pauline is delighted to be joined by some very special
guests on this CD.
Musicians:
Pauline Cato |
Northumbrian Pipes |
Phil Cunningham |
Piano & cittern |
Ciaran Boyle |
Bodhran |
Christine Hanson |
Cello |
Dave Wood |
Guitar |
Tracks:
1 |
The Cows Corrant / The Jackdaw / Kielder
Castle / The Sunny Banks of Wooler |
2 |
Follow her over the Border / Jockey lay up in the
loft / Andrew Kerr / The sailors is all at the bar
U |
3 |
Hepple Haugh / Tom of Bellingham / Unknown No 2.
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4 |
Bovaglies Plaid
U |
5 |
The Marquis of Waterford / Bottle Bank
U |
6 |
Robert the Bruce / Cameron Highlanders |
7 |
Reed House Rant / The Dusty Miller / All the
night I lay with Jockey |
8 |
Alloa House |
9 |
The Biddlestone Hornpipe / Biddlestone 2 &
3 |
10 |
Gateshead Waltz |
11 |
New Road to Tynemouth / New Tyne Bridge |
12 |
Maggie Lauder with variations |
13 |
The Great North Run / The Glen Aln Rant / Shields
Fair |
14 |
The Hexham Hornpipe / The Shetland Fiddler / The
Walker Street Reel |
15 |
Chapel Keithack / Mrs Forbes Leith |
16 |
Rookland lasses / My wifes a wanton wee
thing / Rosewood U |
Review - New Tyne Bridge Stirrings, Dec
2005
The Northumbrian piper was once the Robinson Crusoe of English
musicians. Marooned in a far corner of the kingdom, strapped to an instrument
that (until fairly recently) was pitched somewhere between F and F sharp, and
playing a strange, highly specialised repertoire, they had to adapt or pine
away in solitude. And adapt they did, of course; they now play in concert G and
rattle off anything from Danish hopsas to themes from Debussy. But in the
process that unique pipe-specific repertoire was largely left to gather dust in
unthumbed manuscripts in museum basements. Which is why both pipe fans
and English music connoiseurs in general owe a debt of gratitude to pipers like
Matt Seattle and Pauline Cato. It was Matt who, in the 1980s, began
republishing classic pipe manuscripts from the Vickers, Peacock and Bewick
collections; and more recently Pauline has been getting some of that stuff onto
CD and squirrelling around herself in museum archives. New Tyne Bridge
showcases her latest batch of buffed-up beauties from the golden age of
bellows-squeezing.
Her performances here are a-sizzle with the energy
and exuberance that the best pipers bring to their music; and there's delicacy
and restraint too when the mood demands.
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To my ears at least,
Phil Cunningham's piano accompaniments incline towards the over-enthusiastic at
times; they're so high in the mix that they threaten to swamp the pipes.
Similarly, Kieran Burke's bodhran strays into excessive elaboration here and
there. Dave Wood's guitar and Christine Hanson's cello, by contrast, get the
balance just right: a pity they're featured on only a handful of
tracks.
And the tunes themselves? Mad as hares, sweet as rosehips and
foxy as, well, foxes: every one of them is a winner. Pauline lobs in a few of
her tasty originals, and there's a superb set of Billy Pigg's unnmistakable
compositions; and Scott-Skinner gets the odd look-in too. The rest are as trad
as Sunday lunch and as fortifying; and most of them you'll never have heard
before. There's plenty of the distinctive pipers' variations on display:
Pauline's own variations on Billy Pigg's Biddlestone Hornpipe are dazzling and
right in the groove. You'll wonder whether human fingers are actually capable
of moving that quickly.
To play a lot of notes very fast is not in
itself a certificate of virtuosity; as often as not, it's mere technique. But
Pauline proves here that she has the feel which takes precision and velocity
into a higher realm. That's virtuosity, m'Lud - the real deal.
Raymond
Greenoaken |
Review - New Tyne Bridge Folk
Roots, Dec 2005
Pauline's one of the country's finest exponents of
Northumbrian pipery and here she's backed dexterously by Phil Cunningham, David
Wood, Ciaran Boyle and Christine Hanson on a series of expertly-gathered tune
sets reflecting Pauline's recent research into archives and manuscript
collections. Vital, sensitive and an absolute delight from start to finish.
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Review - New Tyne
Bridge Tykes News, 2005
The lovely Pauline should need no
introduction to Tykes' readers; she's usually seen gigging in tandem with the
perennially beaming fiddle maestro Tom McConville, but here she treats us to a
new solo CD with no fiddle in earshot! Of course, with so many years of
virtuoso piping under her belt, the last twelve of them as a professional
musician, no further proof should be needed that Pauline's one of the country's
finest exponents of Northumbrian pipery. She's rapidly gained a reputation for
expanding the repertoire of the pipes and has been involved in stimulating new
projects, while for the past three years her post as Research Fellow at
Sheffield University has enabled her to further examine and explore performance
style and repertoire issues. All this has culminated in the release of New Tyne
Bridge, which includes many of her favourites among the tunes she's unearthed
in her recent research into archives and manuscript collections. |
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I'd imagine (though
Pauline's wonderfully detailed booklet notes don't specify the fact) that the
majority of the tunes chosen for performance on this CD might be
première recordings (but I wouldn't claim to have in-depth knowledge of
this repertoire!). Pauline's technique is precise and exacting yet far from
soulless, for her playing is at once breathtakingly exciting (there are some
incredibly tricky rhythms to negotiate in these tunes!) and highly musical. One
might argue that it's so richly textured in itself that it needs no
accompaniment, but here she's backed selectively and most dextrously by (in
various permutations) Phil Cunningham, Dave Wood, Ciaran Boyle and Christine
Hanson on around two-thirds of the 16 tracks (the rest are purely solo
excursions). Pauline has clearly made every effort to present an appetisingly
balanced menu in terms of pace, mood and texture, and with such vital,
sensitive and abundantly tasteful playing from all participants there's no
trace of cloistered academic sterility, so New Tyne Bridge can only be
described as an absolute delight from start to finish.
David Kidman |
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