SOME four or five hundred years ago, at Dunvegan Castle in Skye, no one knows exactly when, a fairy presented a young MacCrimmon, an apprentice piper, with a silver chanter. This enabled him to play superlatively well and to surpass the performances of the pipers of a number of other clan chiefs, who had been invited by MacLeod of MacLeod to Dunvegan to compete against each other.
Forty years ago an annual recital was established, which takes place in Dunvegan Castle, organised by the John MacFadyen Memorial Trust, in the very room in which many of the MacCrimmons’s tunes had their first performances. At the end of the recital a trophy, known as the Silver Chanter, is awarded to that piper considered by the adjudicator to have merited it.
There are always five invited competitors, each of whom has won a major award for ceòl mór, the classical music of the Highland bagpipe, during the previous twelve months, including the previous year’s Silver Chanter. This year, of the five, two were newcomers.
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Iain Speirs, who won the Silver Chanter for the third successive year last year, began the recital with A Flame of Wrath for Squinting Patrick.
Squinting Patrick was the younger brother of Donald Mor MacCrimmon, hereditary piper to MacLeod of MacLeod from 1620 to 1640. Patrick was murdered by his foster-brother, a Mackenzie of Kintail. Donald Mor asked MacLeod to bring the murderer to justice, but MacLeod, who wished to avoid strife with the Mackenzies, told him to wait for a year and he would see justice done. At the end of that year, nothing having been done Donald Mor pursued the murderer to Kintail, where the inhabitants hid him and refused to give him up. So that night Donald Mor set fire to many of the houses in the village. It is said that 18 were destroyed, and several people died. Donald Mor’s tune seems to have been inspired by the sight and sound of the conflagration: the fury, the sound of the flames and the cries of the victims should all be heard in the playing of this unusual tune.
Simon McKerrell who also played last year, and was winner last year of the Dunvegan Clasp at the Skye Games,played Patrick Mor MacCrimmon’s Lament for the Children. Patrick Mor succeeded his father, Donald Mor, as hereditary piper to MacLeod. He had eight sons, seven of whom died in an epidemic of smallpox all in one year.
Mrs MacLeod of Talisker’s Salute was the composition of Donald Ruadh MacCrimmon, hereditary piper from about 1799 to 1825. This tune was played by Niall Stewart, last year’s winner of the Dunvegan Medal. Unhappily, late in the tune, a rebellious reed spoiled what had been a good performance.
Donald MacPhee, winner of the Highland Society’s Gold Medal at the Northern Meeting last year, made a valiant attempt at the Lament for the Harp Tree, playing the first variation from the Campbell Canntaireachd. This was the only tune in the recital not composed by a MacCrimmon. It is said to be the oldest known piobaireachd, and is certainly the longest, taking some 27 minutes to perform.
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The last to play was Euan MacCrimmon, a descendant of the hereditary pipers to MacLeod. He was the 2005 winner of the Highland Society’s Gold Medal at Oban. His tune was The Lament for the Earl of Antrim. There is some uncertainty whether it was the composition of Donald Mor or Patrick Mor MacCrimmon, and also as to whether it was for the first or second MacDonald Earl of Antrim. Euan MacCrimmon gave a very good performance of this tune, and was awarded the Silver Chanter for it. The adjudicator, Hugh MacCallum (himself the winner six times of the Silver Chanter), said that Euan MacCrimmon’s performance had made his task of adjudication easy.
The Silver Chanter was duly presented to Euan MacCrimmon by John 29th MacLeod of MacLeod. This was a historic occasion, it being the first time that a Chief of MacLeod had presented the Silver Chanter to a MacCrimmon. It was also the first time that the Silver Chanter had been presented to a MacCrimmon at all since that very first time when the fairy gave the original to that young apprentice, first of the MacCrimmon pipers to MacLeod.
The silver replica of the chanter, as is customary, was presented to Iain Speirs, last year’s winner, by Liz Maxwell on behalf of William Grant & Sons Ltd, which sponsors the event.