The Highland bagpipe : $b its history, literature, and music: with some account of the traditions, superstitions, and anecdotes relating to the instrument and its tunesManson, W. L. (William Laird)
History
The Highland bagpipe : $b its history, literature, and music: with some account of the traditions, superstitions, and anecdotes relating to the instrument and its tunes
Manson, W. L. (William Laird)
Bagpipe
Of a later date, we have the book published in 1838 by Angus Mac Kay,
piper to the Queen. It was a pretentious volume, containing sixty
pibrochs, with histories of the tunes, the lives of the hereditary
pipers, and other interesting matter. It will always be a puzzle to
students of pipe music why Mac Donald and Mac Kay included in their
books so many poor pieces and left out some of the best. Ross’s
collection, which appeared long after, contained some which one would
have thought Mac Kay or Mac Donald might have had. Messrs. Glen,
Edinburgh, published a collection dated 1854, and there are besides the
publications of Mac Phee, Mac Lachlan, Gunn, Henderson, Mac Kinnon,
Bett, and others, all issued later. Most of these, however, appear to
have been based largely on Mac Donald’s and Mac Kay’s books. Mr. David
Glen of Edinburgh has, it may be added, published recently the old pipe
music of the Clan Mac Lean, compiled under the supervision of the Clan
Mac Lean Society of Glasgow.
The Gesto collection of Highland music, edited by Dr. Keith Norman Mac
Donald, and dedicated to the Mac Leods of Gesto, is perhaps the most
outstanding publication in which the music of the pipes has been adapted
for the piano. It was published in 1895. Dr. Mac Donald’s avowed object
was to supply a collection free from all adulteration, and to preserve
the music as it was sung and played by the Highlanders themselves. The
book, while not containing everything that is good in pipe music,
undoubtedly contains a larger selection of the best than any other.
There are songs, pibrochs, and laments; marches, quicksteps, and general
martial music; and also reels and strathspeys, numbering in the
aggregate about three hundred and forty tunes; and all over, the book is
perhaps more interesting and comprehensive than any that has been
issued. A second edition was published in 1898.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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