About the Author

David Cooper is Senior Lecturer in Music and Director of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Scientific Research in Music, University of Leeds, UK

Reviews

Petrie devoted his life to promoting knowledge of Irish antiquity. His book is regarded as one of the most important 19th-century collections of Irish music. It contains nearly 200 melodies and texts of songs in Irish and English, with notes about their provenance. As David Cooper remarks in his excellent introduction, Petrie "brought scholarship, enthusiasm and the love of the amateur to the study of what was widely seen as barbaric and uncivilised music. In doing so he helped to lay the foundations of the traditional music revival. - Irish Times