“Were You at the Rock . ....

“Were You at the Rock . . .”

Aine Minogue

Beacon

Irish harpist Minogue has such a feathery touch on her instrument that the lasting impression of this album is one of dance music for leprechauns.

You’d expect such ethereal music-making from a harpist on ballads, and Minogue delivers on such achingly beautiful numbers as “Flower of Magherally” and the title tune.

Minogue--no relation to Aussie pop singer Kylie--also happens to sing as angelically as she plays. The real knockout among several hauntingly lovely vocals is her a cappella work on “Airde Cuan,” the homesick lament of an Irish worker standing on the western shore of Scotland and gazing longingly at his homeland. Her voice, rich with melancholy, is accompanied only by sounds of the waves lapping on the rocks.

What’s perhaps more of a surprise, then, is the heavenly delicacy she also brings to jigs and reels such as “Trippin’ Down the Stairs/Peter Street” and “Miss McCloud’s Hornpipe/Miss McCloud’s Reel.”

She’s joined for the latter by fiddler Seamus Connolly, one of a handful of Irish traditional folk musicians who lend support on seven of the 12 tunes. With its segue from the measured pace of the hornpipe into the buoyant reel, “Miss McCloud” brings the album to an unabashedly joyous close.

Anyone who’s skeptical of the concept of heaven as a place where eternity is spent listening to harp music should hear this. Aine Minogue proves beyond reasonable doubt why the harp is indeed the instrument of angels.

(Available from Beacon Records, P.O. Box 3129, Peabody, Mass. 01961.)