A change of plan regarding the final rehearsal in Inverness and an invitation to Douglas to attend the Tattoo in Edinburgh, where another of his recent compositions was included in the piping programme, put Douglas, who doesn’t drive and relies on public transport, in a bind.
And the Tattoo, where he and his family were being treated to front row seats in the guest box, won. So, like the audience in Inverness, he’ll be hearing An Aifreann Ghaidhlig in its entirety for the first time.
“It’s actually the first time that I’ve ever been involved in something like this where I’m not onstage in the band,” says Douglas, who composed all the music and used the computer programme Logic to demo it before handing it over to Andy Thorburn, the classically trained pianist who also plays with folk band Blazin’ Fiddles.
“I have a rough idea what it sounds like. But computer-generated orchestras and string sections are only a guide and Andy’s much more experienced in orchestration than I am.
“So it’s going to feel strange sitting in the audience, although it means I get to be like a real composer – for once.”
He may jest but An Aifreann Ghaidhlig comes during a year when the Isle of Skye-based accordionist and keyboards player, a founder member of Runrig and with a clutch of outstanding solo albums to his credit, has at last earned the kind of recognition that many feel he has long deserved.
Last December he was named Composer of the Year at the Scots Trad Music Awards and while his music has been played at the Tattoo before – his tribute to Nelson Mandela was used in a dancing sequence a few years ago – having his Tour of Duty march and jig played by a pipe band and possibly entering the pipe band repertoire was special.
“We were all sitting there in our front row seats with all the VIP treatment and it’s quite a powerful spectacle anyway, the Tattoo, but then along comes the Scots Guards’ band playing your tunes and it doesn’t get much better than that,” he says. “It’s something I’ll never forget. I felt really proud.”
Hearing his music in such a public situation is quite a leap for Douglas, who finds composing a lonely occupation.
As the giant poster of Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream speech on the wall in the room where he works and his musical messages to the people of New Orleans (Stay Strong) and New York (Angels from the Ashes) in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and 9/11 suggest, he’s a man who thinks deeply about world events.
He’s also had his own crises to deal with – in the late 1990s his house in Braes and all his family’s belongings, including his instruments, were lost in a fire – and it’s living through events such as all of these that has allowed him, finally, to realise a long-held ambition to write a Gaelic mass.
“I must have begun writing it about 15 years ago, and there have been many drafts and many pieces of paper flung in the bin, I can tell you,” he says.
“I’ve always been interested in religious works and it struck me that the mass has never been done in Gaelic before: the credo has never been sung in Gaelic, it’s always just been spoken.
“The Irish composer Sean O’Riada did a mass in Irish Gaelic a few years ago but that was only for voices and keyboards, and I heard something grander. But I suppose I just wasn’t musically equipped to do it. I had to get to a point where I was comfortable within myself.”
Approval from the Blas committee and firm performance dates were a spur, although by the time these came through Douglas’s musical ideas were well advanced.
“A deadline puts a different complexion on what you’re writing and how you’re going about it,” he says. “But although it was a struggle, it was an enjoyable struggle and once you’re able to imagine the solo singers and the choir plus the various instruments – clarsach, flute, smallpipes and string section – it becomes quite an exciting struggle.”
It was originally Douglas’s intention to use different choirs at the three Blas 2009 performances, so that local communities would become more personally involved. This, though, proved a logistical challenge too far and the Inverness Gaelic Choir will join the touring musicians on the road. The idea of local choirs becoming involved also might have aided Douglas in his desire to see the mass, either in whole or in part, being taken up by the Catholic Church and other musicians.
“Aside from the mass itself, which is in six parts, I wrote four hymns and three instrumental pieces, all of which can stand on their own,” he says.
“My hope is that this won’t be another commissioned piece that gets performed two or three times and forgotten about. Obviously I’d love for it to be taken up again as a complete work at some point. But it’s not a classical piece, it’s rooted in the tradition and it would be good to see some of it passing into the traditional repertoire, or maybe even hearing some of it played at the Tattoo in future.”
Blair Douglas’s An Aifreann Ghaidhlig can be heard at
Inverness Cathedral, tomorrow; St Mary’s Catholic Church, Fort William on Saturday; and
St Mary’s Church, Portree on Sunday. Blas 2009 runs until September 12. For details, log onto www.blas-festival.com
