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• 1 media/ONeill 250 cover.jpeg 2021-06-19T21:22:56-07:00 O'Neill's Irish Music: 250 choice selections arranged for piano and violin (1908) 13 O'Neill's Irish Music: 250 choice selections arranged for piano and violin (1908) plain 1091745 2024-03-22T10:03:39-07:00 O'Neill's "250 Choice Selections" featured arrangements by James O'Neill for parlor performances. O'Neill must have been aiming for a more sophisticated audience: even the nomenclature "violin" elevated the fiddle tunes to a new level, and the piano settings brought a more western classical feeling to the traditional accompaniments. Accompaniment to traditional tunes often varied subtly - as did the melodies themselves (see above) - in traditional settings, and so a static, through-composed arrangement was more characteristic of a parlor environment than would be heard in a dancehall or informal céilí. In addition, as can be heard when comparing these transcribed and arranged tunes to O'Neill's recorded wax cylinders of the time, almost all modality and rhythmic "lift" is ironed into strict key signatures and rigid bar lines.