Michael Culhane's Song for Isabella Gail
Michael
B. Culhane wanted to give his daughter a gift to offer his love, his sympathy and his support after one of her twins died
before birth.
For the 67-year-old Darien resident, his feelings could best
be summed up in music, especially with Irish slow airs.
So he wrote “A Song for Isabella Gail,” which
was recorded in late 2007 by the Shamrogues in tribute to the young life that wasn’t fulfilled.
“While in general you are dealing with something sad, sadness occurs but at the same time there’s a kind of equilibrium
that comes back in some kind of joy, and in this particular piece, I think I tried to express the idea that life, no matter
how brief, is nevertheless majestic,” he said.
Music and poetry have been a part of Culhane’s life
for as long as he remembers. When his daughters were young, he penned sonnets and free verse poems to capture the particular
awe they inspired as he watched them grow. Music and dance were a part of that process, and music brought a particular satisfaction,
he said.
He moved from listening to playing music in 1999 after his
children gave him a Chieftains CD, he said.
Culhane was entranced by a sound he heard on the CD that he
hadn’t heard before. It was almost like the sound of the poetry he had written — a mystic melody line that called
up emotions and dreams, laughter and tears, he said.
“I didn’t know what the instrument was,”
he said. “I went to a store and they said it was a D whistle and I got one for $9. That was the beginning of the obsession.”
Where many whistle players are attracted to jigs, reels or hornpipes, Culhane was attracted to
slow airs. They allowed him to express the core of Irish traditional music, he said: its roots in the misty, green and mysterious
island from which his own people spring, and to call up the power of such a simple-looking instrument.
He was content to play the music for nearly a decade, experimenting with whistles in different
keys, expanding to fiddle and cello and other instruments but coming back again and again to the slow airs that best expressed
his love of soaring melody and tradition.
“It’s almost an expression of emotions through
the almost archetypal model that the Irish air has become,” he said.
So when he learned of the death of Isabella Gail shortly before
she was to have been born, it was to music that he turned for his own solace and to express his thoughts to his daughter.
There was joy, too, in the survival of Isabella’s twin brother, Kion Adian.
In their notes to family and friends announcing the birth
of Kion Adian on July 9, 2007, and the passing remembrance of Isabella Gail, Culhane’s daughter wrote the words that
inspired him to move from playing music to writing his “Song,” he said.
“Her song will be sung if we do the singing,” the note said. It was a phrase that stuck in Culhane’s mind.
“That prompted me to try to write a tune,” he said. “What I couldn’t
get out of my head was her name: Isabella Gail. It was singing to me. The tune has that in it. You’ll hear it. Isabelle,
Isabelle, Isabella Gail.”
Culhane worked on the piece for hours over four or five days,
he said. Sections of it came easily; others took more work. He wanted a tune that expressed both sadness and joy and still
played to the specific instruments that make up the Shamrogue session. The tune was recorded in December, and the cover art
was done by Culhane’s youngest daughter: a yellow lily, Isabella’s signature flower.
“I tried to express my feelings through the subtle shifting of time inherent in the delivery of a slow air,” he
explained. “Mood and tone, to a large degree, are established by the subjective control of rhythmic pace. It might be
more clearly understood if we were to say emotional heartbeat controls the rhythm, not some unflinching beat or symbol.
“So, too, voicing — choice of instruments including human voices — influences
mood and time,” he said. “Irish airs face reality head on, but they also do something that is magically more.
They do not deny the reality that wraps us in sadness, but they attempt to lift the weight of that sadness from us.”
The song itself begins with a guitar solo, chords to set the tone, accompanied by the hum of
human voices, which Culhane said was designed to suggest solemnity and somberness. Then come in flutes, and the rest of the
band — fiddles, accordion, whistles, low whistles, pipes to bring body to the song, with Culhane’s whistle clear
and strong over all. The tune then quiets bit by bit, until the only thing remaining is Culhane’s whistle — a
last salute from a grandfather to the memory of a young life never realized.
“The array of instruments used for the recording, and
their voices, which are so in tune with the human voice, make a joyful sound that offers the listener a level of respite:
sadness and joy have reached a level of equilibrium,” Culhane said. “I tried to express in this particular piece
that life, no matter how brief, has majesty.”
Hearing the music played by the band of which he has been
a member for more than five years was a revelation, Culhane said. Hearing something in your head first and then hearing it
played out loud was a thrill, but having friends play it with him added a new dimension.
“It was just absolutely awesome to hear the people play that,” he said. “I was very lucky meeting this group
and (had) the further luck of writing a tune that I hope gives somebody in a similar situation a gift of hope. I think that’s
what keeps us alive and moving forward.”
-- Randi Weiner
