Down by the Salley Gardens

          —  "gloriously inventive"

Irish folk song
for SATB choir
Text by William Butler Yeats
3 min
Santa Barbara Music Publishing  - to be released March 2023 
SBMP1717

Hot off the presses is our brand new recording of Tim Harbold's gloriously inventive arrangement of folksong favorite, Down by the Salley Gardens. Tim's ingenious evocation of uilleann pipes, the national bagpipes of Ireland, immediately transport us to the banks of the Ballysadare River in County Sligo.  — Ensemble Altera

NOTES

My first version of this piece focused straightforwardly on using lush harmonies to capture the wistfulness of lost love.   The harmonies were gorgeous, but the arrangement was missing something.  By chance, I included the arrangement on a concert celebrating folksongs of the British Isles, for which I was collaborating with an uilleann piper and a fiddler.  On a lark, we decided to add some uilleann pipe drones to the performance, and I loved the effect so much that I incorporated the piper's drone into the choral arrangement.  A simple idea that transformed the piece!

SEE ALSO

BACK TO COMPOSITIONS