Edinburgh based Fiddler-Composers
by Charlie Gore
Adam Craig, Edinburgh (c1695 – 1756)
James Oswald, Dunfermline, Edinburgh & London (c1710 – 17??)
Neil Stewart, Edinburgh (c1730 – before 1816)
Robert Bremner, Edinburgh & London (c1713 – 1789)
James Aird, Glasgow (c1750 – 1795)
Up until now, I have been unable to study the great music collections of the early 18th Century in the depth I would have liked. There is only one reason for this: I can’t afford the current prices charged by the central libraries for copies taken from microfilm. Acquiring full sets of copies of these collections, some of which are very large, would involve an investment of £hundreds. This is a very real regret. Maybe some day the authorities will awake to the realization that fiddlers and enthusiasts in general are not paid huge salaries or supported by sponsorship and that the guardianship of the nation’s property could be spiced with a little generosity towards those members of society who might make best use of it. Bear in mind that all the notable collections of fiddle music were donated to the nation on the clear understanding that they would remain available for study; then consider that perhaps 85% of fiddle players live out of reach of any of our national libraries and probably wouldn’t be seen dead in one! This should surprise no-one and is certainly not a criticism of the players, but it is something the library service should think positively about. It would be such a very simple matter to make a one-off gesture and transfer a set of photocopies of the whole of the 18th century printed repertoire to a central photocopy archive from which inexpensive photocopies could then be made for evermore without further handling of either the film or the originals. Better still and equally practical, these copies could go onto CD-ROM or on-line and be available worldwide in audio-visual form. All I personally want is a set of music copies that I can study in depth with a fiddle in my hand (and maybe a dram nearby!) I believe most fiddlers would settle for that. Working from the originals was never easy; now, unless the would-be researcher lives on top of a central library, it is hardly an option at all.
A relatively small but important proportion of the old music is available from other sources much more easily accessed. In Kerr’s Collections, for example, as well as in the likes of the Athole or Skye Collections, dance music abounds. The drawback to it is that it is 99% anonymous – no authorship, no date, no source, no comment. Music loses its history and much of its character in this way. Yet these well-known books have been the principal source for the Scottish repertoire for the past hundred years. Small wonder that Scotland’s fiddlers have little to say on the subject! The most immediate source for recognizable music from the older collections would be John Glen’s ‘Dance Music of Scotland’ (the reader will be gratified to hear that this has been republished in 2001!) Glen was one of the few 19th Century collectors who made it his business to provide a fully identifiable source referenced for each piece he published. Some publishers in the 20th Century followed his example. The earliest music collections printed in Scotland were modeled on the work of London publishers such as Playford, father and son, who had been producing dance manuals and tune books (some with a strong Scots flavour) since the 1650s. The first with a full Scots pedigree was ‘A Collection of the Choicest Scots Tunes…within the Compass of the Voice, Violin or German Flute….’. It bears the name of Adam Craig (Edinburgh, 1727). James Oswald and William McGibbon were publishing work of a roughly similar kind in the 1740s. By the 1760s, professional musicians and publishers like Robert Bremner and Neil Stewart were flourishing in Edinburgh and producing Scottish Dance music collections of the type that was to follow in a positive flood from then until the turn of the century and a decade or two beyond. To quote (with his approval I hope) from David Johnson’s admirable account in ‘Scottish Fiddle Music in the 18th Century’ (1984 and 1997) :
“The first (dance music) collections to be produced specifically for the Scottish market…..were Neil Stewart’s Newest and Best Reels or Country Dances (c1761 – 65) and Robert Bremner’s Scots Reels or Country Dances (c1765) These books had similar contents as well as similar titles. Both contained large numbers of ancient tunes appearing in print for the first time, showing that half-forgotten reels and jigs had been dug out of people’s memories and written down, to meet sharply increased demand. Many old tunes were also written down in manuscripts at this time”.
In this way much of the very old dance music of Scotland came to be remembered as a valued part of the developing tradition. All through that Golden Age of dance and dance music (say 1760 to 1830), publishers were careful to note such details as ‘Old Highland Air’, ‘Very Old’, ‘Irish’, alongside notes of authorship, style of dance and indications of tempo, like ‘Slow’ or ‘Slowish’, ‘Slow when not danced’ and so on. The Gows and William Marshall began to see their music in print in the 1780s and were to set the pattern for many of the collections of their time. One Glasgow published who bucked the trend was James Aird. He produced a work of six small volumes (containing over 1,000 titles!) which is much more in the style of some of the older collections (i.e. pre-Bremner & Stewart), less specifically dance orientated, with many old tunes and song airs. Of course these were overlooked by the dance music selectors of a century later. As a result, much of the material has never again seen the light of day. Those later publishers, looking to satisfy a specific demand, tended to be interested only in dance tunes, especially reels and strathspeys. Much excellent material still remains to be re-discovered but, thanks to the early publishers, it was not irretrievably lost.
The music reproduced here was first published by Robert Bremner. His ‘Colonel Crawford’s Reel’ (c1757) became ‘The Earl of Dalkeith’s Reel’ (1792) and was finally chosen as the original tune for ‘Dalkeith’s Strathspey’ (RSCDS Book 9, 1934). It plays as a strathspey in all its guises. ‘The Parks of Fochabers, a Reel’ (Gow Repository, Book 3) was Bremner’s ‘The Parks of Kilbirnie’ (c1757) and also seems more comfortable as a strathspey.
All these collections are accessible at various libraries around Scotland and beyond. For further info contact Charlie Gore.
Box and Fiddle
May 2002
James Oswald, Dunfermline, Edinburgh & London (c1710 – 17??)
Neil Stewart, Edinburgh (c1730 – before 1816)
Robert Bremner, Edinburgh & London (c1713 – 1789)
James Aird, Glasgow (c1750 – 1795)
Up until now, I have been unable to study the great music collections of the early 18th Century in the depth I would have liked. There is only one reason for this: I can’t afford the current prices charged by the central libraries for copies taken from microfilm. Acquiring full sets of copies of these collections, some of which are very large, would involve an investment of £hundreds. This is a very real regret. Maybe some day the authorities will awake to the realization that fiddlers and enthusiasts in general are not paid huge salaries or supported by sponsorship and that the guardianship of the nation’s property could be spiced with a little generosity towards those members of society who might make best use of it. Bear in mind that all the notable collections of fiddle music were donated to the nation on the clear understanding that they would remain available for study; then consider that perhaps 85% of fiddle players live out of reach of any of our national libraries and probably wouldn’t be seen dead in one! This should surprise no-one and is certainly not a criticism of the players, but it is something the library service should think positively about. It would be such a very simple matter to make a one-off gesture and transfer a set of photocopies of the whole of the 18th century printed repertoire to a central photocopy archive from which inexpensive photocopies could then be made for evermore without further handling of either the film or the originals. Better still and equally practical, these copies could go onto CD-ROM or on-line and be available worldwide in audio-visual form. All I personally want is a set of music copies that I can study in depth with a fiddle in my hand (and maybe a dram nearby!) I believe most fiddlers would settle for that. Working from the originals was never easy; now, unless the would-be researcher lives on top of a central library, it is hardly an option at all.
A relatively small but important proportion of the old music is available from other sources much more easily accessed. In Kerr’s Collections, for example, as well as in the likes of the Athole or Skye Collections, dance music abounds. The drawback to it is that it is 99% anonymous – no authorship, no date, no source, no comment. Music loses its history and much of its character in this way. Yet these well-known books have been the principal source for the Scottish repertoire for the past hundred years. Small wonder that Scotland’s fiddlers have little to say on the subject! The most immediate source for recognizable music from the older collections would be John Glen’s ‘Dance Music of Scotland’ (the reader will be gratified to hear that this has been republished in 2001!) Glen was one of the few 19th Century collectors who made it his business to provide a fully identifiable source referenced for each piece he published. Some publishers in the 20th Century followed his example. The earliest music collections printed in Scotland were modeled on the work of London publishers such as Playford, father and son, who had been producing dance manuals and tune books (some with a strong Scots flavour) since the 1650s. The first with a full Scots pedigree was ‘A Collection of the Choicest Scots Tunes…within the Compass of the Voice, Violin or German Flute….’. It bears the name of Adam Craig (Edinburgh, 1727). James Oswald and William McGibbon were publishing work of a roughly similar kind in the 1740s. By the 1760s, professional musicians and publishers like Robert Bremner and Neil Stewart were flourishing in Edinburgh and producing Scottish Dance music collections of the type that was to follow in a positive flood from then until the turn of the century and a decade or two beyond. To quote (with his approval I hope) from David Johnson’s admirable account in ‘Scottish Fiddle Music in the 18th Century’ (1984 and 1997) :
“The first (dance music) collections to be produced specifically for the Scottish market…..were Neil Stewart’s Newest and Best Reels or Country Dances (c1761 – 65) and Robert Bremner’s Scots Reels or Country Dances (c1765) These books had similar contents as well as similar titles. Both contained large numbers of ancient tunes appearing in print for the first time, showing that half-forgotten reels and jigs had been dug out of people’s memories and written down, to meet sharply increased demand. Many old tunes were also written down in manuscripts at this time”.
In this way much of the very old dance music of Scotland came to be remembered as a valued part of the developing tradition. All through that Golden Age of dance and dance music (say 1760 to 1830), publishers were careful to note such details as ‘Old Highland Air’, ‘Very Old’, ‘Irish’, alongside notes of authorship, style of dance and indications of tempo, like ‘Slow’ or ‘Slowish’, ‘Slow when not danced’ and so on. The Gows and William Marshall began to see their music in print in the 1780s and were to set the pattern for many of the collections of their time. One Glasgow published who bucked the trend was James Aird. He produced a work of six small volumes (containing over 1,000 titles!) which is much more in the style of some of the older collections (i.e. pre-Bremner & Stewart), less specifically dance orientated, with many old tunes and song airs. Of course these were overlooked by the dance music selectors of a century later. As a result, much of the material has never again seen the light of day. Those later publishers, looking to satisfy a specific demand, tended to be interested only in dance tunes, especially reels and strathspeys. Much excellent material still remains to be re-discovered but, thanks to the early publishers, it was not irretrievably lost.
The music reproduced here was first published by Robert Bremner. His ‘Colonel Crawford’s Reel’ (c1757) became ‘The Earl of Dalkeith’s Reel’ (1792) and was finally chosen as the original tune for ‘Dalkeith’s Strathspey’ (RSCDS Book 9, 1934). It plays as a strathspey in all its guises. ‘The Parks of Fochabers, a Reel’ (Gow Repository, Book 3) was Bremner’s ‘The Parks of Kilbirnie’ (c1757) and also seems more comfortable as a strathspey.
All these collections are accessible at various libraries around Scotland and beyond. For further info contact Charlie Gore.
Box and Fiddle
May 2002