Son's suite tribute to the piper's piper, the late Duncan Johnstone

SOME tunes carry a certain amount of baggage.

Take The Lament for Alan My Son, a piobaireachd composed in 1980 by the late Duncan Johnstone, a renowned Glasgow piper and composer of pipe tunes, which forms the basis of a suite for pipes and strings being given its public premiere during next week's Piping Live! Festival in Glasgow.

The piobaireachd's title is self-explanatory, the circumstances heartbreaking. One of Johnstone's sons, Alan, died in 1980 of leukaemia, aged just 20, and the first two notes of the eloquently keening theme reflect the laboured breaths of his final days. Even a listener scarcely acquainted with the genre might understand the anguish of this music - so much so that it was piped at the memorial service for the murdered children of Dunblane in 1996.

Next Thursday it forms the basis of The Suite for Alan, composed by another son, cellist Neil Johnstone, to celebrate the life and music of Duncan Johnstone himself, who passed away in 1999.

Neil was reluctant to dwell upon the grimmer aspects, intent on writing music that reflects his father's life as a "piper's piper" and tunesmith. While the lament runs through it, the suite incorporates many of Duncan's other compositions which have lodged in the repertoire, such as the Isle of Barra March, The Streaker and, perhaps his most widely played tune, Farewell to Nigg.

Four renowned soloists, Allan and Iain MacDonald of Glenuig, with Mike Katz and Finlay MacDonald, will play small pipes with a string orchestra. Neil will conduct, while another brother, violinist Duncan Jnr, will lead the strings.

"The lament and the meaning of these first two notes is undoubtedly sad, but I wanted to balance it, because my father wrote a lot of fantastic music," says Neil, who lives and teaches on Lewis, having spent many years as a cellist with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, while remaining close to the traditional music with which he grew up, playing and recording his father's music, among much else. "So I have the lament playing over marches and jigs, taking on a completely different feeling."

The suite was first performed in March, to a restricted audience, at Glasgow's National Piping Centre, following the annual Duncan Johnstone Memorial Competition.

Back in 1980, The Lament for Alan met with disapproval in certain quarters, in whose book any piobaireachd worth its salt had to boast a pedigree of centuries. However, it was championed by players such as Robert Wallace, and these days features among the set tunes for competitions. In fact Roddy MacLeod MBE, principal of the National Piping Centre and a former pupil of Duncan's, played it to win the senior piobaireachd prize at the Argyllshire Gathering two years ago, and will prelude next Thursday's performance by playing it again.

Pipes and Strings is just one of many events during Piping Live!, which culminates with the World Pipe Band Championships on Glasgow Green on Saturday 14 August. Other concerts feature such eminent folk names as Capercaillie, Battlefield Band and Julie Fowlis, with guests from other piping cultures including the Italian band Ecletnica Pagus and Breton virtuoso Patrick Molard.

Piping takes to the streets, with performances in George Square, while a film programme includes Follow Me, I'm Right Behind You, a wry documentary about a scratch band assembled to compete in the world championships.

Duncan Johnstone was not an avid competition player. Instead he forged his reputation as a master piper and composer, steeped particularly in the culture of his father's island of Barra, prompting Robert Wallace, principal of Glasgow's College of Piping, to describe his style as "so west coast you could almost hear the Atlantic swell crashing on to the machair strand with every off beat".

l Piping Live! runs from 9-15 August. For further details, see www.pipinglive.co.uk and www.willowcroftmusic.co.uk