There is a nice mix of music on these CDs. They include both Scottish and Irish music, from O'Carolan to waltzes to jigs, and some songs from the Irish tenor tradition (Believe Me If All These Endearing Young Charms and Danny Boy).

Some of the slow music is a little over-played (notably Pierre Bensusan's Sheebeg An Sheemor) and some is exquisite (El McMeen's Carolan's Farewell). Recording quality is generally superb, with a very natural sound. Surprisingly, listening with good headphones (the environment that really shows up each wart), there is a little hiss on some of the quieter passages, something I hadn't noticed in the 6 or so times I've played them on speakers. The notes are interesting and concentrate on the issue of guitars in Celtic music and on musician biographies; no information on the tunes is included beyond titles.

Rating: B+. (However, this is a must have for guitarists, who may be interested in noting that these CDs accompany a pair of Vestapol Video videos. Each is a combination of performance with a booklet enclosed containing the tunes in tablature and standard notation. For more info about the videos, email Vestapol at gtrworkshp@aol.com.)

Guitar--the more I think about guitar, the less I think it has a place in traditional Celtic music. The lift that a fiddle, accordion, or flute gives to dance music with the rhythmic pulses just doesn't seem to to be possible for guitarists, especially when trying to play the tunes in some approximation of dance tempo (which itself usually isn't possible, except in jigs and hornpipes). And Irish airs cannot be ornamented in the style at least deriving from the sean nós (old-style) singers that they deserve.

On the other hand, music from the harp tradition sits very nicely on guitar, when not over-played, and in some ways a lot more range of expressiveness is possible on the guitar than on the harp. And, when you slow down dance music and re-set it as if it was harp music, you can get a very nice result.

In the notes to volume 2, Pat Kirtley says: This collection of traditional music from Ireland and Scotland arranged for solo guitar is the result of a passionate study and adaptation of the tradition by the musicians featured here. The idea of arranging this music for solo guitar is still relatively new--the steel-stringed guitar appears in the Irish-Scottish traditions only in relatively recent times. Looking back less than a century, you would find this music performed on fiddle, pipes, accordion, flutes and whistles, in solo and ensemble settings, but never guitar, even in its basic role of providing rhythm and chord backup.

I guess that, to me, this particular adaption of the dance music loses something that I feel is important--the styles of rhythm and ornamentation that are basic to the original. However, what comes how is still very good music, and I enjoy these albums. They are late at night music, or dinner music; we set them on auto-repeat for a recent anniversary party (and if that sounds like a backhanded compliment, let me mention that there were a lot of other albums we could have played, and it was an important occasion for us.)