Box and Fiddle
Year 21 No 03
November 1997
Niel Gow – was born at Inver, a hamlet near Dunkeld, on 22nd March, 1727. Son of a plaid weaver, Niel (he always spelt his name in the Gaelic fashion) started the violin at the age of 9 and was virtually self-taught, apart from some instruction when he was 13 from John Cameron, a servant of the Stewarts of Grantully. In 1745, as Bonnie Price Sharlie was raising his standard at Glenfinnan to begin his ill-fated campaign, Niel won a competition in Perth open to all Scotland. He won, a contemporary report said, “with the cheerful consent of the other competitors”. The judge, a blind man named John McCraw, declared that “he could distinguish Niel’s bow amang a hunder players”. A powerful upstroke and his ability ‘to life the bow smartly off the string with a particular jerk of the wrist’ made Niel famous throughout Scotland. He was a man of ‘open, honest and pleasing countenance, and a homely, easy and unaffected manner, accompanied by a perfect honesty and integrity of thought and action, placing him on a footing of familiarity and independence in the presence of the proudest of the land’. Niel was patronized by three Duke’s of Atholl during his long life. A professional musician – ‘the best fiddler that ever kittled thairm with horse hair’ – he was much in demand to play at important balls and parties, and could command a considerable fee. Records show that the fee of a normal fiddler of the time was about 2/6 to 5/- (plus 1/- of ale money). Niel’s fee was 15/-, sometimes higher, depending on the importance of the occasion. Stories and anecdotes, mainly apocryphal, abounded about him. He was, and is, a legend. Gow the composer wrote about 87 tunes. It is difficult to be certain of the exact number, because Niel was guilty on occasion of blatant plagiarism. However, besides strathspeys, and reels, jigs, etc., he wrote some of the best elegiac pieces in the repertoire, for example, his Lamentation for James Moray of Abercairney and Lament for the Death of his Second Wife.
He died on 1st March, 1807 at Inver, his home during most of his 80 years.
He died on 1st March, 1807 at Inver, his home during most of his 80 years.