A Scottish Autumn
St Cecilia’s Hall, 30/9/25
Tim Macdonald (violins) Claire Garabedian (cellos)
“There is an inherent feeling for wild music in Scottish nature, and there is a definite relationship between the rhythms of the reels and the Highland Fling and the music I play.” Duke Ellington’s words which head the printed programme seem apt as I finish a review about jazz played and written by Scots, and start one about Scottish music played by two Americans.
Tonight two US baroque string experts now living in Scotland provide entertainment suitable for a Scottish autumn at a St Cecilia’s Hall concert for “Friends and friends of Friends”. Both have taken the opportunity of their visit to seek out, with the help of the Museum staff, an array of violins and cellos suitable for playing this 18th and 19th century music. Tim Macdonald has played baroque violin in a variety of settings from New York City’s Frick Collection to BBC Scotland’s Take the Floor. He teaches violin and Scottish country dance, is a scholar of the violin in the Scottish Enlightenment, and recently started a degree on the music of the Gow Family. Claire Garabedian is a baroque cellist who’s played with orchestras round the world and in Scotland with the Dunedin Consort. She’s also a music therapist, specialising in music in palliative care.
Both are expert players and lively commentators on their choice of music. A recurring theme tonight is the link between Scottish and Italian music in the eighteenth century. Fifer, James Oswald, worked in Edinburgh and then London, and used the Italian form , the sonata, to write a collection of pieces called after flowers. The three movements of ‘Amaranthus’ played on a violin and a cello made by Aberdeen fiddle-maker James Ruddiman around 1770 are sprightly miniatures. Tim points out that these baroque instruments were designed for small concert halls like this one, influenced on an Italian model, and would be lost in a larger acoustic. The following set of dances by Niel and Nathaniel Gow certainly fill this space. Tim’s 1805 violin is by Edinburgh maker Matthew Hardie, and, with Claire providing accompaniment, he contrasts the rhythms and speeds of reels and Strathspeys, called after the wives of his sponsors, the Sinclairs, the Nisbets and the Drummonds, and indicating the change of tempo with a “hooch.” The possibly less sedate Jenny Nettles inspired the high-spirited reel which has toes tapping and which is greeted by an appreciative cheer.
Claire’s beautiful solo is the Gaelic tune, translated as ‘My Love Today as Heretofore’ which inspired Burns to write ‘Ae Fond Kiss ‘and which originated in Strathtay near where Niel Gow lived. A change of playing technique is required for Andrew Shirreth’s ‘The Kind Goodwife of Kettich’s Mill’. A polymath who excelled in maths, worked as a stationer and bookbinder, a poet and a composer, he was also much bullied for his deformed leg. This work from the 1780s uses an earlier form where string players played improvised variations on top of a harmony, both players accomplishing an elaborate duet. They also use an earlier playing style, suited to court musicians who weren’t allowed to sit in the presence of their “betters”. Tim’s fiddle is held on his arm and Claire’s cello is balanced on a stool (see photo) This also allowed them more freedom with the bowing arm.
Works by Scotland’s most famous composers of the period follow, another, less Italianate sonata by James Oswald, and then William McGibbon’s arrangement of a well-known Border Ballad ‘Mary Scot’ with the refrain “the flower of Yarrow”. The poignant tune is first set out by the cello before both instruments join in a two part harmony.
William Marshall’s ‘The Marquis of Huntly’s Farewell” and ‘Miss Admiral Gordon’s Strathspey’, are both examples of the “slow strathspey” for drawing room listening and sometimes marked “not for dancing”. The long lived William Marshall (1748-1833) was from Fochabers and entered service with the Duke of Gordon when he was 12, later becoming a friend of the fourth Duke – as far as class differences permitted. These are lovely airs, Tim’s decorated notes fitting in well with the stately dance rhythm. The fiddle is special too, possibly Williams Marshall’s own, passed on by a descendent to the Museum’s collection, and possibly a gift from the Duke – Tim has tracked down an advert from a 1781 Aberdeen Press and Journal.
The travelling dance master and musician requires a “pochette” or “kit”, a tiny fiddle which could fit in the pocket. Tim plays two, the second his own, looking more like a modern fiddle. The sound is tinny and small, but big enough for a room in a house. More strange tales follow, this time of the Edinburgh Equestrian Circus which ran from 1790 to 1800 with an international team of horse tricks, comic songs, and fiddlers dancing on the “slack wire”! Neil Stewart (circa 1730-1816) had a music shop in Parliament Square and wrote a ‘Fandango’ for a circus pantomime performance.
After such exotica, two contrasting works by the latest of the famous Scots composers. James Scott Skinner’s most famous song is ‘The Bonnie Lass of Bon Accord’, which receives a delightfully slow setting here with delicate grace-notes in the repeats. Skinner called ‘The Devil and the Dirk’ a concert reel, his version including increasingly varied and faster variations. William Marshall retired from his post with the Duke of Gordon when he was 73, an occasion marked with a poignant melody ‘The Farewell’, whose score with Scotch snaps aplenty you can find online. The encore is James Oswald’s tribute to “The Night Shade, a nicely syncopated tune, perhaps returns us to thoughts of Duke Ellington.
This has been a splendid concert, played with vigour and virtuosity, and increasing, as ever in St Cecilia’s Hall, our knowledge of the composers and instruments of the past. You can find out more about the Friends of St Cecilia’s Hall at Friends of St Cecilia's Hall & Museum – Supporting Scotlands oldest purpose-built concert hall. Membership costs £15.
