O'Neills Music of Ireland

Rating:
Summary: This book should be the basis of any library of Irish tunes.
Review: O'Neills contains hundreds of well known and not so well known tunes collected around the turn of the 20th century. This is an excellant source book to find traditional settings for tunes. Though this revision is geared towards the fiddle player, any musician will find this a wonderful reference. There is a previous version of O'Neills that contains some tunes that were lost in the revision by Mr. Krassen. Some people prefer this earlier edition.

Rating:
Summary: Over-rated, overly-simplified settings of tunes.
Review: The problem isn't only that a lot of tunes have been left out that were in the original edition offered by Daniel Collins. But Krassen has altered many tunes so that instead of presenting piping versions -- which the original offered -- we now have simplified fiddle-friendly versions. Many pipe ornaments have been lost. Krassen has lost much of the magic.
O'Neill was a piper and many of the versions of tunes he saved came from pipers. This is also true of the earlier collections of tunes from which O'Neill drew for many of his tunes, such as Ryan's Mammoth Collection. In Krassen's version a lot of the classical, 19th. Century pipery flavor has been sacrificed for "cleaner," presumably "modern" versions. This is the last edition of O'Neill's one should consider buying. I play fiddle, flute, and concertina, I've lived in Ireland for years, and have been playing Irish traditional music for over thirty years. I know this sounds terribly opinionated. But even if you play fiddle and learn from the dots you should use a tune-book closer to the source than this. Get the big yellow Collin's edition or the slim white-covered "condensed" O'Neill's collection. You'll be happier in the long run.