Flaithrí Neff

If you’re sick of hearing about my obsession with “The Eagle” feel free to skip this post. This one’s about the soundtrack, so if you’re a music lover you might be interested. (You knew I wasn’t going to let this go, right?)

As I mentioned in an earlier post, there’s a fantastic Celtic fiddle piece used in a deleted scene, the chariot race between Marcus and the local chariot maker. Although the scene was cut, the music was still used over part of the closing credits and is, to my great joy, included on the soundtrack CD. I finally busted out the liner notes this morning. This is why I still buy CDs, all the additional info they supply makes it worthwhile, although there could be a whole lot more info in here. I would have liked a track-by-track breakout of who played which instrument, the vocalists on each track, instead of the more generalized listing that is supplied.

I discovered that the uillean pipes and fiddling on this pulse-pounding piece are the Neff Brothers, Flaithrí and Eoghan. I must be out of the loop because I’ve never heard of these guys despite my adoration of Celtic music. They’ve been busy, too. Happily I’ve now found them and wanted to share. The piece is based on the Irish reel, “The Musical Priest” and performed by Torc, which comprises The Neff Brothers, þórhildur (Thorhildur) Örvarsdóttir, Satnam Ramgotra, and Atli Örvarsson. This music makes me happy.

You can listen to the ENTIRE SOUNDTRACK at their site. Track #7, “Out Swords” is another favorite of mine. It accompanies a battle scene for the most part, although during part of the scene, the music is held, and all you hear are the men grunting from the exertion of the battle, the sound of swords and axes clanging and clashing, and the whoosh of air as they swing their weapons. It was exactly what was needed at that point. It’s grim, to the death, and it’s hard. It doesn’t need to be gussied up with music.

Track #12, “I Will Return” is mournful, heartbreaking uillean pipes and soaring orchestration.

And last one I’ll post here is an old Scottish piece, “Lament for Alasdair Dearg”, Piobaireachd “Ion-do, ion-da” (Ancient Gaelic Song of the Seal People), sung by Allan MacDonald. If anyone knows more about this, please fill me in.