Airs and graces: music from Scotland

This tune appears in Daniel Dow’s publication, A Collection of Ancient Scots Music (1776). It is attributed here to Rorie Dall – 'Blind Rorie', the famed harper composer revered by so many traditional musicians. This is possibly Ruaraidh Dall Ó Catháin, the Irish harper said to have been active in early seventeenth-century Scotland. This seems a strong, formal occasional piece, to be played for the dining of the Lord of Lude, the melody marked by repeated rhythmic melodic cells that appear in many of the pieces attributed to 'Rorie Dall'. [James Ruff]

[James Ruff]

In these two classes we will be learning the eighth port of ten puirt in Maclean-Clephane MS 10615: a sweet and unusual two-part tune that contains equal parts of strong declarative phrases and lightly floating lines. This manuscript is one of many made by the elder two Maclean-Clephane sisters, and most likely copied down by the younger of these, Anna Jane, in 1816. Landed gentry from the Hebridean Isle of Mull, in Scotland, the sisters were fluent in Gaelic. Encouraged by their mother, they took up music, and Gaelic song collecting from an early age, making lyrics translations that they also sent to their close family friend and guardian, the novelist Walter Scott. An annotation in this manuscript indicates that, beginning on page 39, ‘The foregoing airs are all taken from the playing of O'Kain by Mr MacDonald’, referring to the 18th-century Irish harper Echlin Ó Catháin, and the Rev. Patrick MacDonald, who notated music from him. [Tamzin Elliott]

[Tamzin Elliott]

A beautiful Scottish port taken from Daniel Dow’s 1776 publication, it also appears in the 1789 Collection of Strathspey Reels and Country Dances by John Bowie where it is attributed to 'Rory Dall'. Its earliest appearance is in the Balcarres lute manuscript (c. 1700). This haunting tune honors the Dukes of Atholl, and the support they gave to this great centre of early Scottish harping. [James Ruff]

[James Ruff]