What a Voice!

Everyone has their preferences in the matter of music; I, for one, generally prefer to listen to male singers, especially in Gaelic, but here is one of the (admittedly growing number of!) ladies I could likewise listen to very contentedly. This is Fiona MacKenzie. Some of the tunes are clips, but go down and listen to "Aileinn Duinn" in its entirety. It is a lament for a Hebridean sailor who was lost at sea. Oddly, I ran across something that implied it was originally a waulking song. I wonder if it was ever done at such a heartbreaking tempo it its original form, then.

A nice change of pace, the lineup here also includes a Scots (not Gaelic) version of Robert Burns' "My Luve is Like a Red, Red Rose". (A sidenote: if you'd rather have it in Gaelic, you can go over to CD Baby and sample track 10 on James Graham's latest album.)

And following the Burns song is the beautiful "Taladh Chriosda," the "Christ Child's Lullaby". Although I don't believe it is an identical version, you can get the basic idea of the meaning and a short history of the piece here. Yes, it is Easter time, and no, there was no way I was going to wait until Christmas to post the most perfect Christmas carol ever written!