Union Pipes - Irish Traditional Music Archive

45 COURTNEY’S ‘UNION PIPES’ AND THE TERMINOLOGY OF IRISH BELLOWS-BLOWN BAGPIPES
1, York-Street, St. James’s’. 132 From this, he may also have played a
mouth-blown bagpipe or, more likely, he was giving a generally
understood alternative name for his ‘union pipes’.
For the run of a new variety entertainment Mirth’s Museum, which
begins at the Lyceum in the Strand in March 1794 with ‘The Music
entirely new, by Mr. Reeve’, Courtney is back between the acts – as
‘the celebrated Mr. Courtnay’ – with ‘several New Airs on the Union
Pipes, Accompanied on the Harp, by Mr. Wieppart’. 133 Again Reeve
had a hit on his hands and Courtney is uniquely singled out for
notice: ‘Courtnay, on the Union Pipes, as usual, was universally
encored, in the favourite Overture to Oscar and Malvina...’; 134
‘Courtnay, on the Union Pipes, received the most liberal applause
last night in the Overture to Oscar and Malvina...’. 135 By the
beginning of April, Courtney and Wieppert are billed there as also
playing ‘Edmund O’Hanlen’s Gavot with the much-admired Air of
“Eman Eknough, 136 or the Little House under the Hill”’, and ‘an
entire New Overture, for the Union Pipes and Harp, composed by
Mr. Reeve’. 137
But while Mirth’s Museum continues, Courtney himself seems to be
in financial or other difficulties. In the same advertisement he
announces
132
The only other piper in the Directory is the Highland Society of London’s
‘Macgregor, John, Bag-Pipes’ (43).
133
The World, London, 1 Mar. 1794. In later appearances of the advertisement he
is ‘Mr. Courtenay’.
134
Morning Post, London, 15 Mar. 1794.
135
Morning Post, London, 18 Mar. 1794.
136
Irish ‘Éamonn an Chnoic’ (Edward of the Hill).
137
The Oracle and Public Advertiser, London, 1 Apr. 1794. By this date also
‘The Music of the most favourite Airs are published, and may be had at Messrs.
Longman and Broderip’s...’.