Fanny Power Lesson

A portrait made from melody

“Fanny Power” is often placed in modern collections beside anonymous Irish tunes. This one has a more specific story. It belongs to the repertory of Turlough O’Carolan—Toirdhealbhach Ó Cearbhalláin—whose music grew from the meeting of Irish harp tradition, poetry, hospitality, and the changing social world of late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century Ireland.

The title names a real person: Frances “Fanny” Power, daughter of David and Elizabeth Power near Loughrea in County Galway. O’Carolan did not write an abstract character piece called “Fanny Power.” He made a musical tribute for a young woman in a family connected to his network of patrons.

That distinction changes how the piece can be heard. Its graceful rises and balanced phrases are not only pretty shapes; they perform praise. The music presents Fanny publicly, with dignity and warmth, while the associated words bring the tribute closer to a living social occasion.

O’Carolan and the world of travelling harpers

O’Carolan was born in County Meath in 1670. After his family moved to north Roscommon, he lost his sight following smallpox at about eighteen. Máire MacDermottroe sponsored his harp training. After three years, she provided a horse, guide, and money so he could begin the life of an itinerant harper.

That career depended on hospitality. Harpers travelled between houses, performed for hosts, and composed for the people who supported them. Ask About Ireland notes that O’Carolan named many works for patrons and benefactors. A title such as “Fanny Power” is therefore part of the music’s social function: it remembers a relationship between musician, household, and honoured subject.

The label planxty is often attached to the piece today. It is useful as a conventional name for an O’Carolan tribute, but it should not make the work sound like a generic dance type. The centre of this story is patronal praise, expressed through tune and song.

Fanny Power becomes Mrs Trench

Frances Power married Richard Trench in 1732. The associated Irish verse reportedly has O’Carolan hoping he will live to dance at her wedding, which strongly suggests that the composition predates the marriage. It does not, however, supply a precise composition day or an autograph score. “Before 1732” is a well-supported conclusion, not a signed date.

After the marriage, the music acquired another identity. An eighteenth-century collection catalogued by the Irish Traditional Music Archive lists the air as “Mrs Trench” and attributes it to Carolan. A transcription of Edward Bunting’s MS4/29 likewise records “Mrs Trench or Miss Fanny Poer.” The two names are not rival compositions: they preserve the subject before and after marriage.

This change of title is a small piece of biography embedded in musical transmission. “Fanny Power” keeps the young woman’s family name; “Mrs Trench” follows the social naming convention of her married life. Performers today usually return to the earlier, more personal title.

A song as well as an instrumental air

Modern players often meet “Fanny Power” without words, on harp, fiddle, flute, guitar, or whistle. The Bunting archive shows that the history is broader. Queen’s University Belfast catalogues Irish song material for “Fanny Power,” written phonetically in the papers associated with Dr James MacDonnell. Bunting’s manuscripts therefore preserve evidence of a vocal dimension alongside the tune.

Bunting later included the piece in his 1840 Ancient Music of Ireland, a major volume containing 151 arranged harp and song melodies. His publication was designed for piano and belongs to a later collecting and arranging project. It is a crucial source, but not O’Carolan’s own handwritten score and not proof that the piano texture is the original accompaniment.

The layers should be kept separate:

• O’Carolan’s eighteenth-century patronal song and air;
• early transmission under both “Fanny Power” and “Mrs Trench”;
• Bunting’s manuscripts and nineteenth-century piano arrangement;
• modern instrumental versions shaped for new players and ensembles.

This is not a decline from an authentic original into inferior copies. It is the route by which the piece survived, with each setting answering different instruments and audiences.

Between Irish tradition and art-music arrangement

O’Carolan is often described as a bridge between Irish harp music and European art music. That phrase is helpful only if it does not erase his working conditions. He was not a court composer writing for a permanent orchestra; he was a travelling Irish-speaking harper and poet moving through a patronage network during a period when the older Gaelic order was weakening.

The tune’s balanced compound pulse, sequences, broad range, and clear two-part design make it attractive to arrangers. Derek Bell of the Chieftains later spoke of O’Carolan’s capacity to connect cultural worlds, while also warning against judging him solely by continental conservatory standards. Modern performances demonstrate the result: the same melody can sound at home on wire-strung harp, in a traditional set, or in a chamber arrangement.

The National Library of Ireland catalogues “Fanny Power” in a modern score devoted to the legacy of the 1792 Belfast Harp Festival. RTÉ lyric fm has also listed James Galway and the Chieftains performing it in a medley with “Mabel Kelly” and “Carolan’s Concerto.” Those examples do not reconstruct one eighteenth-century performance; they show the continuing reach of O’Carolan’s melodic design.

What the melody says without the old words

The first strain begins in a poised middle register and gradually opens upward. The second strain becomes more expansive, repeats balanced figures, and finally climbs to its highest point before returning home. Praise is enacted through proportion: the music does not overwhelm its subject, but steadily enlarges the frame around her.

Calling the piece simply a lament would be misleading. Its slower modern performances can sound reflective, yet the wedding connection, lilting 6/8 motion, and upward energy point toward affection and celebration. The emotional colour lies between ceremony and intimacy.

Playing Whisflo’s chromatic-harmonica arrangement

Whisflo’s current score is in C major, not the D-major Bunting transcription or G-major session key. It uses all seven natural notes, spans G4 to D6, and restores the early setting’s 6/8 metre at 80 BPM. There are no sharps or flats, so the slide is not required. Playback now uses an orchestral-harp voice rather than the sharper flute sound.

Treat the opening pickup G4 as an invitation into the first full bar. In dotted-eighth/sixteenth figures, keep the sixteenth note light and accurately placed so the two large pulses of each 6/8 bar remain clear. The score has two eight-bar strains and repeats each one; plan breaths over two- or four-bar groups rather than stopping whenever the melody changes direction.

The second strain reaches B5–C6–D6. Begin around 60 BPM, keep B5 at medium volume, and let the final two notes rise through faster air rather than higher pressure. Practise G4–C5 and G5–C6 register crossings separately. When the top D6 remains clear and the repeated ending settles without collapse, increase gradually toward 80 BPM.