Podcast: Bagpipe Composers, E1 - Peter R MacLeod Sr, The Piper Whose Music was ‘Too Difficult’

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Welcome to my podcast on bagpipe composers and bagpipe music. My name is Dr. Jordan Alexander Key; I am a composer and a bagpiper, and I started this podcast and its related series of musical recordings to share with you music for this instrument that I love. This is Episode 1, “Peter R MacLeod Senior: The Piper Whose Music was ‘Too Difficult’,” and since this is the first episode, let me briefly explain what this podcast is all about.

In my musical career generally, it is my goal to share interesting and compelling music that few people hear or know – this pertains as much to Renaissance Polyphony as it does to bagpipe music. However, here we are just looking at bagpipe music. I have spent years and hundreds of hours working in libraries, reading through hundreds of bagpipe music books, compiling and playing through thousands of tunes to bring these collections and gems to your ears. Some of these pieces a bagpiper might know, but many they likely will not. Maybe with time, some of these forgotten masterpieces will reemerge within the popular repertoire for the bagpipe should we lend them our ears.

If you are not a bagpiper, then this podcast is still for you, because it is also my mission to garner more interest from the broader musical community in the bagpipes. The bagpiping world is very insular. Coming from a background of diverse classical and folk musical training; playing many instruments from the pipe organ to the bagpipes well; performing in orchestras, jazz bands, chamber choirs, and even avant-garde musical ensembles; working as a professional composer of contemporary classical music for all sorts of instruments composing ballets to string quartets, I would like to see the bagpipes become an instrument better understood and respected by the classical musical community and considered as an instrument worth composing for and incorporating into musical ensembles without the prerequisite of the composer themselves being a bagpiper, which is the case nearly 100% of the time presently. I would love to see modern non-bagpipe-playing composers become more interested in composing for this bizarre and beautiful instrument. See this channel as a resource to you to see the tradition of this instrument. This series is about the present repertoire and the history of bagpiper-composers. This is some of the best music the instrument can offer, but so much more is possible if we just stretch our compositional imaginations. My hope for new avenues springs eternally!

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Peter Roderick MacLeod (1879-1965) is one of the most iconic bagpiper-composers of the early 20th century, laying a foundation of style upon which many bagpipe composers would build to the present. In addition to the exceeding quality of many of his tunes, he was a relatively prolific composer, his oeuvre estimated to be well over 200 tunes, many of which are currently lost and/or unpublished. This collection of 50 tunes is those that are in published volumes from the 20th century, the largest collection of which is The Bicentennial Collection Volume 2 published in the United States; about 60 tunes are printed therein. There are perhaps still many tunes by Peter MacLeod Sr. to yet be explored. Enjoy this compilation of many of his most iconic and lesser played works.

Presentation & Performances: Jordan Alexander Key
Website: www.jordanalexanderkey.com