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Martin Mulvihill’s Complete Collection of Traditional Irish Music: Four Volumes Prepared by Martin Mulvihill
By 1985, Martin Mulvihill (National Heritage Fellow and renowned fiddle teacher) had collected over 2300 tunes in several manuscripts. He prepared to release the collection as four volumes of music. In his first collection released in 1986, Martin said “Volume Two will contain 566 tunes, with a lot of compositions from different people.”  He had clearly already prepared all four volumes to be released sequentially. As most already know, Martin died in 1987 and the remaining three volumes were never released to the public. In addition to the traditional music value of the four-volume collection (for the tunes and variations included), the collection tells the story of where Martin played and heard music and the many musicians he came across. In the first volume, Martin said “Quite a share of this music was recorded from sessions and fleadhs …. Not all the tunes were taken from fiddle players, some were taken from flute players, pipers, accordion players, and tin whistle players.”  This is true of all four volumes.  Martin also said: “The settings of most of these tunes are up to date, and I hope you like them. Some of these tunes have been published before, but quite a share of them have not.”   Thus, the collection includes more than one setting of some tunes but it is worth noting that Martin intended to provide “updated” settings of tunes that might have already been included in older collections.

As in the First Collection, throughout the four volumes Martin has handwritten notes naming people who shared the tune with him, who composed the tune, or who played the version that is written. There are about 375 Tunes with composer names; with 83 different composers referenced. It includes 41 tunes composed by Martin. There are 1449 tunes with a reference to a source – person, record, live recordings, radio, book, other collection or reference a date. Among the many sources, Martin references his parents – Bridget Flynn and Denis Mulvihill, his grandfather Maurice Flynn, and musicians from many places where he spent time, of course including New York, England, and Ireland.  

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