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THE VIOLIN IN SCOTLAND

Meeting organised by the Edinburgh University Collection of Historic Musical Instruments
with the British Violin Making Association

St Cecilia's Hall, Edinburgh, 26 August 2006

The Edinburgh University Collection of Historic Musical Instruments with the British Violin Making Association, is organising a colloquium on the Violin in Scotland, to be held in Edinburgh, Saturday 26 August 2006.

The Colloquium will present recent research on topics related to the making of violin family instruments in Scotland (all periods) and related aspects of repertoire and the social milieu of violin playing in Scotland.

See Full details of the Colloquium and booking information

The Colloquium will be followed by a concert given by the Edinburgh Quartet using instruments by Matthew Hardie

These events are organised in conjunction with the exhibition Violin Making in Scotland 1750-1950.

 Violins

Abstracts of Papers

 

The "Fydill in Fist"

Mary Anne Alburger,
Aberdeen

The fiddle, a name primarily used in Scotland and other English-speaking countries for the present-day violin in a traditional context, is derived from the Scots and Old English fidhle, a cognate related to the viol, which preceded it, and no doubt had a similar function. The fiddle has long been the instrument of choice for traditional and classical musicians in Scotland. In the seventeenth century it was played by travelling jongleurs, whose instruments are strikingly similar to those found on the Mary Rose, Henry VIII's ship which sank a century earlier. By the eighteenth century, the fiddle was the most important instrument in Scottish classical and traditional music. Scottish fiddler, composer, and publisher James Oswald produced a vast amount of collected fiddle music and song in London, much of which became popular in the American colonies. In Scotland, the best-known players were Scottish composer Thomas Erskine, the Earl of Kelly ("Fiddler Tam"), and Niel Gow, fiddler to the Duke of Atholl. Gow's son Nathaniel published many collections of fiddle music, including Gaelic music and song, well into the nineteenth century, when the fiddle became an increasingly visible tool for the poor and the rootless, who sought to maintain some self-respect as they begged in the streets (for which information I am indebted to Dr Katherine Campbell). James Scott Skinner, the first Scottish traditional fiddler to have an international profile, and to be recorded (in 1895), spearheaded the changes which produced, by the middle of the 20th century, a rising awareness of the importance of traditional fiddle music, and its exponents. Behind these changes were of course the Scottish violin makers, many of them amateurs, who made it possible.

 

Electric Violins: A Study of Two Scottish Makers

Katherine Campbell,
Celtic and Scottish Studies, University of Edinburgh

This paper discusses two makers of electric violins - Starfish Designs at Ballachulish, and Skyinbow at Vidlin in Shetland, and examines how the instruments are constructed and the materials used. It looks at the instrument from the viewpoint of performers in an attempt to find out when it is used, what kind of repertoire is played on it, and what kind of instrumental combinations it can be found in. The place of the electric violin within the Scottish fiddle tradition will be considered.

 

The Scottish Fiddler's Music

Charles Gore,
Doune, Perthshire

The subject is introduced through discoveries made during the research period for the The Scottish Fiddle Music Index and since; how fashions in dance in some circles changed the fiddlers' world; the first round of publishing (c 1760-1830) leads to a second round (c 1870-1900) in which the character and range of the repertory is deeply and permanently affected. In making their selections, the second-phase compilers bring forward old reels and strathspeys from the first phase, but other forms of music from earlier collections are left behind and never reprinted until very recent times. Within the main story, some allusions to patronage, patrons who played and composed and fiddle-makers who were also performers (peripheral to the presenter's core subject).

 

The Hardie Family and their contribution to the Scots Fiddle Tradition as players, arrangers, composers and publishers (c 1775 - 2006)

Alastair Hardie,
Edinburgh

This presentation will feature a few recordings and many live performances of relevant material.

 

Thomas Erskine, Earl of Kelly, Violinist and Composer

David Johnson,
Edinburgh

The Earl of Kelly (1732-81) was Scotland's major composer in the early Classical period. This paper is about his prowess as a violinist - he owned an instrument by Jakob Stainer, and almost certainly received training in the Mannheim court orchestra in his early 20s - and how it affected his compositions. The speaker will introduce Kelly's Quartet in C minor, composed c 1767 and published for the first time in 2006.

 

Strings in Disguise

John Purser,
Glasgow

There is a tradition of imitation of other instruments in Scottish string music, first manifest in the virtuosic works of Tobias Hume for solo viol, and later present in the amazing fiddle piobaireachd from the first half of the 18th century, extending to light-hearted imitations of creatures. These crossings of boundaries led to technical and musical innovations which are rarely exploited. The paper will illustrate just how much there is to be found in them.

 

The working methods of Matthew and Thomas Hardie and their influence on the Scottish Violin Making School between 1780 and 1860

David Rattray,
The Royal Academy of Music, London

[abstract to follow]

Further information

E-mail euchmi@ed.ac.uk

Write to: Arnold Myers
Collection of Historic Musical Instruments,
University of Edinburgh,
Reid Concert Hall,
Bristo Square,
EDINBURGH EH8 9AG, U.K.

This page updated: 17.7.06; re-published 13.2.13