Celtic Lullaby [Import, Compilation]

Then I read the liner notes.

Scratch cheerful.

I suppose it was too much to expect the Celts to be cheerful. Many of these lullabies also double as laments. The last track of the CD, "Darling Gregor" is a wife's lament for her executed husband, chief of the Clan MacGregor of Glenstrae. The last verse your baby will hear as he or she falls asleep is "My sweet-spiced apple/ Lies with the back of his head to the ground." Luckily, your baby probably doesn't understand Scottish Gaelic.

Various singers and instrumentalists recorded these lullabies, all of them specialists in their particular branch of Celtic music. Scottish folk singer, Jean Redpath might be the best-known artist on this CD. She sings "Hishie Ba" unaccompanied, which is ruefully perfect for this Lowlands lullaby since it expresses the viewpoint of an unwed mother.

Most of the songs have minimal accompaniment on instruments such as guitars, lap harps, mandolins, flutes, whistles, and small pipes. "Morag's Cradle Song/ Water Kilpie" and "Now I am Asleep" are instrumental pieces for harp and wooden flute, respectively.

The voices range from a pleasant, but nasal baritone, a husky alto who sounds consistently flat to an ear unaccustomed to Celtic music, a softly blurred soprano, to a Welsh choral group called Plethyn, who sing eerie, four-part harmonies. Some of the solo voices double up upon themselves through the miracle of modern recording techniques. Other than this, none of the singers go in for complicated vocal techniques. All sing in a tender, disarmingly simple fashion.

Although somewhat difficult to read because of eccentric fonts and several misspellings, the liner notes are well worth perusing as a brief introduction to the magic of Celtic lullabies. I was especially taken by the warning: "Be wary of translations that rhyme, especially---they often completely misrepresent the original!"

Don't buy this CD just for baby. It has a fine sampling from various Celtic traditions, from a Manx slumber song to a beautiful little Cymric lullaby, "Si Hei Lwli" with only four repeated notes.