The latest CD release reviewed

SEAMUS ENNIS
Ceol, Scéalta Agus Amhráin Gael Linn ****

Completists will rub their hands in glee with news of this long-overdue remastering of a seminal Ennis collection, dating back to 1961. It's the sheer humanity of Ennis, the renaissance man, that strikes most forcibly amid this gathering of stories, songs, tin whistle and pipes tunes. The genteel bending of notes in the belly of the slow air, Úirchill An Chreagáin, will already be well-known to fans of Ennis's refined style, but his equally chivalrous turn of phrase in his introduction to Cornphíopa Phat Ward, and his plainclothes singing style on An Binsín Luachra simply add further to the man's mythology. As is often the case with the multiply talented, it's in the space between the words and notes that their essence is best discerned. A collector's dream. www.gaellinn.com Siobhán Long