Liz Gill spends a fascinating day in Glasgow at two very different museums
It is not called the Great Highland Bagpipe for nothing. It has led soldiers into battle for hundreds of years, first in Scotland and later across the British Empire, its distinctive penetrating sound able to be heard above the roar of warfare. It has lamented the fallen and consoled the grieving but also enlivened the wedding party. It has even woken monarchs every morning at Balmoral. And now I’m going to have a go.
It is going to happen at the National Piping Centre in Glasgow under the tutelage of champion musician Ruairidh Brown (whose name I am relieved to learn is pronounced Rory). He starts by handing us all the basic pipe called the chanter. He is kind and encouraging as he shows us how to use our fingers to cover the holes to produce the different notes.
Some of our group seem to do reasonably well – perhaps they’ve played a tin whistle or a recorder at some point or just have natural aptitude – but I am, in a word, hopeless: my arms feel too short and my fingers too clumsy to produce anything but a caterwaul. I comfort myself by the fact, Ruairidh tells us, that trainee musicians spend around eight months mastering the chanter before moving onto the actual bagpipe complete with its three drones – two tenor and one bass – and, of course, the bag itself, traditionally made of sheepskin but often today of synthetic fibres. A further two years are then needed to become even reasonably good – “but you never stop learning”, he adds.
My failure does not in anyway reduce my enjoyment of this neat little museum with its modest £5 entry fee. If anything it enhances it: once you realise how difficult something is you respect its mastery even more. Displays and exhibits explain its history, its construction and its cultural importance. It explains the difference between the classical tradition or piobaireachds (pronounced peebrochs) and the lighter jigs, reels and marches.
Bagpipe playing is on the increase. Thousands are now made every year and sold for around £1,000 for a basic instrument to between £2,000 and £3,000 for a more sophisticated one They are sold not just in the U.K. where there are currently about 400 pipe bands but around the world. Another interesting development is that although it is still predominantly a man’s instrument, a growing number of women and girls are now getting involved.
The National Piping Centre is obviously a niche museum so in contrast I go in the afternoon to the extraordinary Burrell Collection. I get a ten minute train ride from Central Station – itself a very impressive edifice – to Pollockshaws West and walk through Pollock Country Park where I glimpse some Highland cattle to the stylish modern building which houses the collection.
The fact that it is in the countryside is what Sir William Burrell stipulated when he gave it to the city in 1944. He had built it up over 75 years (he lived to be 97) using the fortune he had made from shipping: now he wanted everyone to have not only free access to it but for them to be able to see it in a beautiful setting. There is a shuttle bus to it too so it is accessible to all.
The range of the collection is staggering: from Egyptian pottery to Roman sculpture, from mediaeval stained glass to Chinese furniture, from armour and weaponry to paintings by the likes of Monet, Degas and Cezanne.
Only a fraction of the 9,000 items can be actually on show so to get a sense of the scale you can sit in front of a huge screen which reels off such staggering statistics as: 221 cups, 143 cushions, 354 plates and dishes, 146 carpets and rugs, 46 vases, 194 swords and daggers. The screen then turns transparent and behind you can see into the storage areas which, reassuringly, anyone can request to visit. Unnervingly though it reminds us in a memento mori moment that these objects are hundreds, in some cases thousands, of years old so we the viewer are ‘only a brief moment in that object’s life’.
The museum helpfully has a list of top 30 suggestions but I just wander around at leisure taking in as many jaw-dropping items as I can. I also visit the current Degas exhibition which runs until September 30th and features 30 works on loan alongside the Burrell’s own 20.They are not just beautiful in their own right but placed in context they are a reminder of just how radical and innovative an artist Degas was with his scenes of everyday life, his racehorses in the rain or his ballerinas pictured in rehearsal or in the wings.
My visit to Glasgow this time was very brief but I have been to the city before and enjoyed many of its attractions including those triumphant monuments to its mercentile past when it was the ‘Second City of Empire’ such as the City Chambers, the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and the Necropolis when architects and stone masons vied to produce the most extravagant memorials to the distinguished dead. Alongside the river Clyde are reminders that this was one of the world’s biggest ship builders: it produced a fifth of all shipping.
Further back is the beautiful mediaeval cathedral, further forward the reminders of the work of artist and designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh, including his first home and the Willow tea rooms which he was commissioned to create by the temperance entrepreneur Catherine Cranston.
Hop on, hop off buses which cover most of the major sights are good for first time visitors and there are also interesting themed walking tours including street murals, music and of course a whisky tasting one.
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