Strathspey Players
PAST AND PRESENT.

THE Strathspey is to Scotland what the jig is to Ireland, the contra dance or the hornpipe to England, the Czardas to Hungary, the Tarantelle to Italy, or the Cachucha to Spain—it enshrines the gayest spirit and life of the nation. Fleming of Saltoun gave a very high place to the song writers of a nation; he might at the same time have given a lift to the makers of a nation’s dance tunes, for these can influence human beings when the awe of kings and armies would fail.

If we take a swift glance backwards for 150 years, as if reversing the film of a cinematograph, we pass the greatest of the makers and players of these magic melodies, but that brings us to changed times—we find ourselves in drunken Scotland, coffee and ale-house Scotland; Scotland of the days of Burns, when ladies tripped gleefully down steep stairs into the High Street cellars and feasted off oysters and ale at all hours in the morning; when they could even swear a little and damn a servant as neatly as their husbands. They could also enjoy a feast of stewed eels taken from the Nor’ Loch, in which so many witches had been drowned and never picked out again, and swore that the flavour was excellent. The same primitive taste ruled in the national music. Few composers soared above writing a strathspey and reel or a minuette, arranged for piano or harpsicord in such a way that the top line was suitable for the violin and the bottom line for the violoncello. Sometimes a daring genius, such as Red Rob MacIntosh, would insert a line for a second violin, but in such a case he was looked upon with awe. The band at a ball consisted of violins and basses. Strathspeys and reels were played in two parts only, all the violins joining in the melody and all the violoncellos in the bass, just as they do to this day in the Edinburgh Assembly. I confess that I like that primitive form of this music better than any other, and always feel that to add a second violin part or a viola part is to “paint the lily and adorn the rose.” They were conceived in that simple form and seem to resent being altered. They were simply constructed, but they had soul and spirit and a peculiar sharpness of accent which the dullest ear could not fail to follow, and in the delicious whirl of the dance, nothing more was needed. Indeed, even at the present day when performed in the cold-blooded concert room, some of these strathspeys and reels will thrill any truly Scottish heart as no other music can, for they are natural and true, which is more than can be said of the fevered trash of Wagner, and of his misguided imitators. We could live without Wagner’s music, and the time is not far distant when the most of it will be quietly dropped into the dust bin, but we should be poor indeed without the backbone of Scottish life continued in our national melodies, whether adapted to songs and ballads or like Strathspeys and Reels written for performance. Just as Burns crystallized the national spirit of independence and quenchless patriotism into diamonds of the purest water, so these Scottish composers have immortalised its tenderness, pathos, humour, and spirit. Some of their slow airs will never die.

The lives of the men who created these melodies were usually as simple and natural as the music which they produced. They had a humble home in which they eked out their earnings by teaching or composing, and thence they travelled all over the country to balls and parties as they were needed; and as there were no railways then and coaching was expensive they had to do much of their travelling on foot. Sometimes, as in the case of Niel Gow, these musicians were taken under the wing of a nobleman, and so assured of a small income as a nucleus to their earnings. Social gatherings were numerous in those days as outside entertainments were fewer, and great fiddlers scarce, so that, on the whole, they lived well. To give an exhaustive biography of these men is unnecessary, but Niel Gow may fairly be taken as an outstanding figure, as a composer, a player, and fine specimen of a Scotsman.

He was born at Inver, near Dunkeld, on the 22nd March 1727. He was apprenticed to a plaid weaver, but showed such precocious talent for the fiddle that he was soon able to abandon the shuttle for the bow. He had no teacher till the age of thirteen, when he had some lessons from John Cameron, the greatest player in Perthshire. Before reaching manhood he engaged in a public competition at which the judge was a blind man, who, at the close, in awarding the prize to Gow, declared that he could “tell the stroke of Niel’s bow among those of a hundred players.” It was this powerful bowing which gave Niel Gow ascendency over every other violin player in Scotland in that particular class of music, and as I shall show it is this peculiar wrist stroke, or jerk, which is most conspicuously absent from the style of many modern strathspey players. So far as fingering was concerned, Gow was far behind many players of the present day, to illustrate which I shall relate an incident which I got from the late Mr D. Kippen, of Crieff, who had it from the lips of Cuthbert, a pupil of Gow’s, who was present on the occasion. At a ball at Glamis Castle, a gentleman present produced a strathspey and reel of his own composition, which he had named “Lady Glamis’ Medley,” and asked the band to play it. The band consisted of Niel Gow and Cuthbert, then a young man and a pupil of Niel’s, and Marshall as the bass player. “I dinna ken that piece,” said Niel with a look of dismay. “Oh, but it’s all down in the music,” said the gentleman, and putting down the sheets went off to arrange the dance. Niel looked over the music and noticed that it was written in the key of B flat, and turned to Cuthbert in desperation, “Man, I’m no gude at using my pinkie,” he said to his young assistant, “You had better gang on for a wee yersel while I pit on a new first string.” Cuthbert obeyed and started the strathspey, and by the time he had gone over it twice, Niel had caught the air and was able to chime in a little. When it came to the reel he suddenly took to tuning up his first string, which occupied him till he had heard Cuthbert go through the reel, when he was again able to chime in, and so pulled himself out of an awkward fix. Cuthbert always declared that Niel Gow was not good at reading music “at sight,” and always avoided doing so when he could. In speaking of Marshall’s music, Niel one day said that he did not like “Mony Musk” strathspey so well in the key of G as in the key of A major, and the reason no doubt was that in G the player should use his fourth finger for the leading note, E, a task which Niel found troublesome.

How Niel would have acted had he been playing alongside of Jamie Duncan of Longside it is difficult to guess. Jamie was not only full of tricks, but could play upon almost any key, and it is related of him that once in the middle of a dance a tailor, who was playing along with him, suddenly stopped and putting his fiddle into its green bag, stalked indignantly out of the room. On being asked what was wrong, he wrathfully answered, “I’ve keepit dacent company a’ my days and I’m nae gaun to change my ways noo. At this moment Jamie Duncan’s playing ‘Mony Musk’ in four flats, and I say that the man that wad do that is fit for ony kin’ o’ rascality.” Niel was a big strong man and in a like case would probably have cured Jamie Duncan of ever trying to repeat the trick.

Niel once appeared a perfect genius in reading music at sight. He had gone into Andrew Wood’s Music Shop, in Waterloo Place, Edinburgh, to buy a bow, and having chosen one, at half a guinea, asked for a violin and a piece of music with which to test the bow. These were handed to him, and the sheet of music happened to be one of his own, entitled “Pease and Beans,” just published. The shopman, not knowing who stood before him, and knowing the piece to be a difficult one, said to the simple-looking countryman, “If you play that through without a blunder, I’ll give you the bow for nothing.” “Done!” cried Niel, and of course played it brilliantly. He then said to the shop­man, “Wrap it up in a bit o’ paper.”

“But you must have seen that music before,” said the shopman. “Och, aye, I saw it fifty times when I was makin’ it up,” frankly acknowledged Niel.

“What! Are you the famous Niel Gow?” cried the man holding out his hand. “Then ye’re welcome to the bow, and long may you be able to make such grand music with it,” and so they shook hands and parted the best of friends.

With music that he knew Niel could do more than many of his friends could with the music before them. At a festival given in Edinburgh by the Duke of Atholl, at which Niel had been commanded to lead the orchestra, he and his bass player chanced to arrive late and were joined in the ante-room by a young lady who had been dancing a solo and failed on account of the music being faulty. She was led in by her brother and her lover in a faint and excited state, for her failure was considered disastrous.

“Try it owre again, my lassie, wi’ me and my brother,” kindly suggested Niel, and there and then it was tried, when she succeeded to perfection. “Now I’ll send in the master o’ ceremonies to ask ye in again,” continued Niel, and having explained the matter and asked to be allowed to play alone with his brother, Niel so thrillingly rendered the music, that the young lady was borne up by it to a triumphant success, and retired amid the enthusiastic applause of the assembled guests.

Niel used a violin by Gasparo da Salo, of Brescia, which from its large tone was particularly suitable for his work, and which according to Mr Kippen came into his possession thus:—

A very musical Scottish lady, the wife of Colonel MacQuarrie, wished to give a party at her Edinburgh house in George Square, and at which only the greatest musicians in the land should assist. She accordingly wrote to the Duke for leave of absence for the great fiddler. The request was at once granted, and Niel and his brother arrived at Edinburgh in good time, but had some difficulty in finding the house. The servant led them into the kitchen, and then told her mistress that a queer-looking pair of country men were asking for her. While the girl was absent, Niel took down an old violin, hanging on the wall, touched the strings, found the tone good and then taking down the bow started to test its tone thoroughly. Never in his life had he heard such a grand tone come out of a violin.

“Save us a’, Donald! Was there ever in the warld sic a fiddle? It sounds like an organ!” he cried, and continued to pour forth his best music from the wonderful violin. The servant returned to take him upstairs, but he saw her not; he was lost to all but the music. The company upstairs began to creep down and stood staring at the absorbed performer. She asked him to stop, but it was only by holding his arm that they got him to obey, and then Niel, wiping the sweat from his brow, said to his hostess, “Lord, mem, what a fiddle! What a fiddle!” All that night Niel continued to use that strange violin instead of his own, and at every pause gazed at it and exclaimed, “Sic a fiddle! sic a fiddle!” His whole soul was wrapped up in it. When about to part with him Colonel MacQuarrie, who as eagerly desired a memento of the great player, jocularly said to Gow. “When ye think sae muckle o’ the fiddle what do ye say to niffering it for your ain?”

Niel said not a word but in eager haste pulled his own fiddle out of its bag and rammed it into the Colonel’s hands, snatched at the Italian instrument, shoved it into the bag, and made for the door, so excitedly as to even forget to thank the donor.

“Come awa, Donald,” he anxiously said to his brother, “Come awa, for fear he may rue it and want his fiddle back.”

Some time later, in the year 1784, Niel was returning from a ball at Dunkeld House on a frosty morning with this violin when he slipped on the ice at Stairdam and fell, the concussion fracturing seriously the breast of the violin. Aberdeen was the nearest town containing a skilled violin repairer, and Niel went straight thither and handed the treasured fiddle to a violin maker named Joseph Ruddiman, who easily made it as sound as it had been before. This great violin, with another, and a violoncello, all Niel’s property, came into the possession of a gentleman in central Perthshire. Seeing that they had been neglected and were out of order, he took the violin with him to Dresden in 1880, and handed it to Moritz Hamming who took off the breast and found written inside, “Broken on the ice at Stairdam in 1784 and mended in Aberdeen—N. Gow.” After careful examination, Hamming pronounced it to be a genuine Gasparo da Salo. The violin has a full rich tone, that of the fourth string being particularly grand.

The measurements of this remarkable violin are :—body length, 14 inches; lower bouts, 8 inches; upper bouts, 6 ⁵/₈ inches; neck, 5 inches; scroll, 4 ⁵/₁₆ inches; ribs, 1 ³/₁₆ inches. The only figures here given of which I have a doubt are the 1 ³/₁₆ inches, given as the depth of the ribs. 1 ¹/₁₆ inches is more common with Gasparo, and this lowness compared with the depth adopted afterwards by Stradivari and Guarneri proves the constructive acumen of Gasparo Bertolotti, for his plates being more bulged than theirs called for low ribs, otherwise the tone would have been tubby. Some of his works are quite large looking—14 ¹/₄ by 8 ¹/₄ by 6 ³/₄—but when closely examined are found to have the plates projecting ³/₁₆ of an inch beyond the ribs, so the air space is really no greater than that in the average Stradivarius or Guarnerius, which has usually ribs 1 ¹/₄ inches deep. I tried several times when in Perthshire to get a look at Niel Gow’s violin, but failed, so I am unable to state definitely that it is a genuine work of the great genius who conceived and made the first violin, but the probability is that it is.

The famous portrait by Raeburn shows Niel sitting on a common chair, playing the violin, and holding it with his chin at the wrong side of the tail-piece. With the violin held thus great execution was impossible, and from that and what has already been set down it must be clear that Niel Gow would not have held a very high place at the present day as a performer on the violin, though many of his compositions will probably live forever. He would have been known as a “fiddler” not a “violin player.” He has been dubbed “The Scottish Paganini,” but never was a title more stupidly applied. Gow’s range was limited almost entirely to the first position of the violin; Paganini’s embraced not only the whole length of each string and the harmonies arising from them, but even the little bits behind the bridge with which he could imitate the braying of an ass, the grunting of a pig, or the quacking of a duck; indeed this nearly cost him his life on one occasion when he had been hissed in the town of Ferrara by a single auditor when one of his strings broke, but carried them on to an overwhelming burst of applause. “That’s for him that hissed,” he said, and he gave the braying of an ass, not knowing that the people of Ferrara were hooted at as asses by those outside. The whole house rose at him, and he had to fly for his life.

One year after the death of Niel Gow, Paganini, then a lad of fourteen, broke away from the thraldom of a cruel father, and began that touring through the world that was to place him above all violin players, ancient or modern, and if Niel could have heard him play it is possible he would have smashed his fiddle across his knee in despair. The title that is usually given to James S. Skinner, “The Strathspey King,” is one that may worthily be placed like a crown on the head of Niel Gow, and let us never again hear of a “Scottish Paganini.” Frederick the Great said, “There is only one Bach,” and we may as truly say, “There is only one Paganini.”

But though Niel Gow would not have been so highly ranked as a player he would still have held his place as a man. One who knew him said, “He was exemplary, temperate, and straight­forward; equally estimable as a man and a musician; an obliging neighbour, a kind husband and an indulgent father.” Of which of us will as much be said when we are gone?

It is a common idea that to play strathspeys well and in the proper style it is necessary to play nothing else, but that is a delusion, the proof being James S. Skinner, “The Strathspey King,” whom I once heard play one of De Beriot’s “Airs with Variations,” which were then fashionable, with a smooth velvety tone and a brilliance that called forth the most enthusiastic applause from his audience. Skinner, indeed, was properly trained as a violin player by Dr. Mark, and had as a boy to grind away at Spohr and Kreutzer like all other good violinists, so when he was turned over to Peter Milne to be trained to play Strathspeys and Reels, he very speedily eclipsed his master. I can testify to that, as I heard them both, together and apart, and that is saying a good deal, for Peter Milne was considered a master in Strathspey and Reel playing, and received a silver medal from Queen Victoria for his pathetic rendering of “Auld Robin Gray” at Balmoral.

Skinner does not play music of the De Beriot class in public now—he plays “what the people want,” as Paganini did before him. When Spohr twitted Paganini with playing common, tricky music, the great Italian wizard frankly admitted the charge, but pleaded the people would have from him no other kind. He might have fairly added that he could put more into that kind of music than any one had ever done before or has ever done since. What he put into it was Paganini’s soul, and until another such magnetic soul shall be created, the world will never hear such music, but Paganini, like all geniuses, was a modest man. Once, when I was a boy, I asked Arthur Barnes, the champion vaulter of the world, who could turn eighty somersaults in succession, if he could do all the other feats of the circus riders. “Oh, yes,” he answered, “but it is better to do one feat better than everyone else in the world, and get highly paid for it, than to do what thousands can do.” Skinner may be of the same opinion.

Shortly after the repairing of the Gasparo da Salo by Ruddiman, this wonderful violin had a narrow escape, not only from being smashed, but of being lost altogether. Niel being engaged at Edinburgh had accepted an extra engagement at Morton Hall, about a mile distant, and was trudging back to the city in the early morning with his fiddle and bow hanging as usual from his neck in its green bag, when he was suddenly confronted, in passing Powburn, with a weird figure in the shape of a poorly clad man. It was early in March, and dawn was just appearing, so both men could see each other perfectly. “Ye’re early abroad,” said the tramp, eyeing the green bag with interest. “ Nay, sir, I’m late,’’ returned Niel, “for I’ve been fiddling a’ nicht.”

“Man, ye micht gie’s a snuff,” abruptly broke in the stranger.

Ever trustful, Niel felt in his coat tail pocket for his snuff mull, but while his hands were both thus engaged and before he could produce it, the man made a sudden grab at the green bag, a vicious tug at the drawstring, and dashed like lightning from the spot, back towards the city. For a moment, taken aback, Niel nevertheless forgot that he was nearly twice the age of the thief, and rushed off in hot pursuit. The two were about equal in speed, but Niel’s power of endurance beat that of the robber hollow, and he soon began to gain on him. Every moment he was in terror lest the thief should throw away the fiddle and possibly ruin it for ever, but that tragedy did not come, and very soon Neil reached the fugitive and gripped by the back of his coat collar so firmly that the man was nearly strangled, and gurgled out, “Mercy, man, mercy! There’s yer fiddle! I’m no a thief, sir, as sure as death, it was just a sudden temptation. I’m a fiddler mysel, or I wad have thrown it away, but I was feared it wad be broken.”

“Weel, weel; that was fiddler like,” returned Niel, softened at once and slackening his grip somewhat as he clasped his treasure once more under his left arm, “but it’s highway robbery a’ the same, and I can land ye in jile for’t.”

“And I deserve it,” said the man, in apparent contrition, “I hae been in it afore, but never for stealing; but I micht have kent that he that goes a­borrowing goes a-sorrowing.”

“Borrowing, ye ca’ it?” echoed Niel with indignation, “I’ve a different name for it.”

“Sir, I wasna meaning this awful business, but trying some o’ my auld freends for assistance,” said the thief, “That’s what drove me oot sae early.”

“Drove ye oot. What drove ye oot?” inquired Niel.

“An ailing wife and a bairn peenging wi’ hunger,” said the man, with something like a catch in his voice, “the man that has that is aye waukrife, but I’m no blaming onybody but mysel. I’m a luckless deil.”

“If ye’re a fiddler, where’s yer fiddle?” said Niel doubtfully.

“In the pawnshop,” sighed the man, "I haena seen it for months, just at the time, too, when I micht a been makin’ a few bawbees.”

“Could ye no have borrowed ane?” was Niel’s suspicious reply.

“Na, na, them that hae them ken Pate Baillie ower weel to trust him. I’m gude for naething but the gallows tree,” and he sobbed unrestrainedly.

“Weel, weel, man, dinna greet,” said Niel, with tears creeping into his own eyes, “I’m no—no jist gaun to land ye on the gallows tree, though richly ye deserve it, but here”—and he hurriedly thrust some silver into the man’s hand. “Tak’ that, and whatever ye dae, dinna try to steal a man’s fiddle; ye micht as weel steal his bairn.”

Baillie made no reply, but took Niel’s hand and as he bent down over it, Niel felt the tears dropping on it, and said, “Whisht, laddie, whisht! Just you tell me whaur ye live and I’ll maybe be able to help ye.”

“Morocco Close, first stair on the richt hand,” quickly answered Baillie. “Man, I used to play in the theatre, ower by at Shakespeare Square. It’s my ain faut that I’m no there still.”

“What! Are ye as gude as that?” exclaimed Niel. “What can ye play?” “Ony mortal thing that ye like to set afore me,” confidently returned Baillie, and Niel believed him implicitly.

When they reached the Tron Church, Niel said, “I wish ye gude morning, but mind this—if ye hae deceived me, ye’ll never prosper.”

“I wad deserve that,” heartily answered Baillie, “but God is my witness.”

“Whisht, whisht! “ interposed Niel, “Dinna bring God’s name intilt. I’m thinking He and you are no very thick.”

Thus they parted, but in the afternoon, Niel, before taking the coach from the High Street to Queensferry, visited Baillie at his house in Morocco Close, and on lending him the Gasparo violin, found that Baillie was a marvellous player, and indeed that in some of his effects he excelled Niel himself. He was also pleased to see on the table of the wretched abode, bread, cheese, and butter, thus proving that his help had not been abused. Nor did his efforts end there, for with the help of the Duke of Atholl’s interest, Baillie was restored to his place in the Theatre Royal Orchestra, and continued to be the friend and admirer of Niel for the rest of his life.

The exchange of Colonel MacQuarrie’s Gasparo da Salo for Niel’s old fiddle took place in the year 1783, but the adventures of the latter were not yet over, indeed they might be said to have been only begun, for Colonel MacQuarrie took the violin with him when he went abroad on active service, and had it with him at the taking of the Balearic Isles in Egypt in 1801, and at the siege and capture of Burgos at Orthes, Toulouse, Salamanca, and Vittoria, at the siege and capture of Badajos (where the Colonel was wounded), at the battle of Corunna, whence it retreated with the army, being carried on the Colonel’s back under his military cloak in defiance of General Sir John Moore’s order to abandon everything that could impede the flight. At last it reached its native Scottish hills, again in perfect safety, and has been so well cared for by the Colonel’s descendants that it was played upon by his grandson at a concert given on the 12th of January 1893, at Tobermory. The special providence which is said to watch over bairns and drunk men must surely have been hanging over that fiddle.

Neil was once tramping homewards from an engagement when he was overtaken by night fall in the wilds of Badenoch, and hearing the sounds of music issuing from a farmhouse, stopped and knocked at the door, and asked to be allowed to stay over the night. The answer was a joyous request to enter, the very sight of the green bag under his arm being a passport to their good will.

“Ye’ll get a treat,” said the farmer as he led Niel into the great kitchen, “for the best fiddler in Strathspey is here, and he’s grand fettle.”

A number of farm hands were gathered, and Niel quietly took his place outside of these and listened to the performance. The company was in raptures, and at the end the farmer turned to Niel, and said, “Heard ye ever onything equal to that?”

“Oh, it’s fell gude,” said Niel guardedly.

“Fell gude? Man, there’s no the like o’t to be heard in a’ Scotland,” cried the farmer. “Even Niel Gow couldna play it as well.”

“Hout, tout! “ said Niel, “I think I could play it as weel mysel’.”

A derisive burst came from the crowd, including the performer, and then the farmer insisted on the strange fiddler producing his fiddle and verifying his words on the spot. Always good natured, Niel complied and started off with his masterpiece, “Atholl Brose,” from the very first note of which the listeners were breathless with surprise and interest. Then Niel followed with Strathspeys known to every Scotsman, and a slow air which fairly brought tears to the eyes of every one present. When the last whisper of the violin died away there was a dead silence for a few moments, and then the defeated fiddler sprang up and seizing Niel’s hand, shook it warmly, and exclaimed, “I never heard onything as gude as that before, Sir, ye maun either be the deil himsel or Niel Gow.”

“Hout, ay; that’s what they ca’ me,” quietly and modestly responded Niel, heartily returning the hand shake. “Gie’s a haud o’ yer mull” (snuffbox). Then all was joy and harmony, and they continued their concert far into the night.

The following incident has been passed as true but it seems to have a flavour of antiquity about it which takes it back to the days of Sancho Panza or of Romulus and Remus, or even of Ramasis II. of Egypt, but by making a tremendous gulp and trying to forget its age one may manage to swallow it :—

Niel’s patron, The Duke of Atholl, was fishing at Inver one day when Niel chanced to appear. The Duke looked elated, and said, “Good morning, Niel; man, I’ve taen four salmon! What would you have said if ye had caught as many ?”

“Please, your Grace,” swiftly answered Niel, “I wad say, ‘Tak ane o’ these fine fish up to his Grace, the Duke of Atholl, with my compliments.’”

“Eh, Niel—ye’re a cunning chiel—ye’d shame the Deil!” laughingly responded the Duke, “I ken yer meaning by yer mumping; but ye shall hae the fish.”

Three Fife fiddlers, who were rather sore over hearing so much of Niel’s extraordinary power with the violin, made an expedition to his home to hear him play, and decide whether he really excelled them, and Niel, ever willing to oblige, got out his violin and played a number of Strathspeys and Reels, including “Atholl Brose” and “Bonnie Annie,” and so electrified them with his power that they could hardly keep still during the performance. Then he changed to the pathetic tune of “Auld Robin Gray,” which he rendered with such thrilling effect that when he came to the last note all three were in tears. Then Niel put away his fiddle, saying simply, “Nae man’s a rale fiddle player till he can mak’ folk greet.” James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, improved upon that by saying “Nae fiddler’s worth a docken blade till he can mak’ himsel’ greet wi’ his ain fiddle.”

A great lover and player of the violin, Sir John Mackenzie of Delvine once heard Giornovichi, the Italian, play at a concert in Edinburgh, and was so astonished that he invited the soloist to Delvine, and sent for Niel to hear the great Italian. When the soloist had finished Niel was asked for his opinion of the music, when he answered, “It’s vera pretty, but it wadna tell at a penny wedding.”

At a party, with his band of favourite players, Niel was asked by one of the guests, who thought himself a violin player, to lend him his violin, and being obliged, gave a long operatic solo, for which he was politely applauded, and after which he handed back the violin to Niel, saying, “Do you know what that is out off?” “Oh, aye,” answered Niel, “It’s out of tune.” Thirty years later, when Paganini reached Paris and was rehearsing with the famous orchestra of the Conservatoire, the violin players, before starting, tried to impress him with their cleverness by playing a number of pieces pizzicato, as they had heard that he did, but the great Italian wizard only smiled sweetly and said, in perfect French, “Gentlemen, you should not try these things. You do not play in tune; you should practise scales.”

The Real Strathspey Style.

ABOUT the real style in which Strathspeys should be played there are several peculiarities, but they are not so difficult but that any good violinist might master them with a little patient study and practice, but where is the violinist who will do that? Even a good player in a theatre or music hall orchestra does not allow the subject to trouble him. He is seldom asked to play a Strathspey, and when he is he goes through it in the easiest way known to him. It is quite up to time and the dancers seem satisfied, though the music has not the stirring, uplifting tang of the real Scottish snap. The audience also appear satisfied, but here and there a grim old Scot will be muttering—“Humph! He thinks he is playing a Strathspey. Puir cratur!”

If you were to hint, never so gently, to such a player that he is not playing the tune correctly, he would be astonished, and probably protest that he was playing every note that was on the music before him, innocently ignorant of the fact that the printed notes give only the bones of a Strathspey; the flesh and blood and nerves and life have all to be supplied by the player.

The initial mistake of such a player is the slurring of the driven note on to the longer note which follows it, instead of giving it a separate bow and cutting the note out clean and sharp with a jerk of the wrist. It was in this sharp cutting out of the driven note that Niel Gow excelled all players before and after him, though he could no more have played one of De Beriot’s airs with variations than he could have flown in the air. To switch the driven note on to the next with a slur is not to play it, but to disguise it, and in some Strathspeys, such as “Tullochgorum,” it completely alters the character of the music. “Tullochgorum” is the bête noir of many a Strathspey player, and it was by observing a Perthshire player when I was very young that I discovered the trick of it. When he had finished playing I said to him, “Why did you play the leading note with a down bow ? In all other music the rule is to play the leading note with an up bow.” He looked puzzled, and said, “Did I?” “Yes, you did; play it again, please.” He played it again and then nodded, and said, “Ay, it is a down bow; it seems to come better that way.” Then I said, “You cannot explain it, but I can—you do that, that you may catch up the driven note in the next bar with a jerk of the wrist—in the same direction, and so on with the other driven notes which follow. The whole character of the tune seems to depend upon that.”

Many years after that, Skinner played the same tune in my house, and I put the same question to him, and he made much the same answer, but when I had explained the cause he smiled and said, “Well, Mr Honeyman, I have played that in public for more than forty years and yet I never knew the reason for it till now.”

If professional violinists, then, in theatres and music halls, get through these wonderfully inspiriting dance tunes by slurring notes which should be bowed — a slovenly make-shift — there are still more of amateurs doing so and therefore of the real style being lost. Those who have heard a band of Hungarian violinists play some of their weird Czardasen in their own country, as I have, and compared the effect with that when the same Czardas is played by an English orchestra will understand me when I say that there is just as great a difference in the effect when a Strathspey is played by a few choice spirits who know the real style and the same tune played by those who do not. The one is brimful of the Scottish spirit; the other is “neither fish, flesh, nor gude saut herrin’.” Those who have heard Skinner play must have noticed that there is as much in the spirit that he puts into a Strathspey as in its rendering; and when I have acted as judge at Strathspey Competitions in Aberdeen, Fraserburgh, Dundee, Blairgowrie, and Edinburgh, I have always made it possible for a competitor to earn as many as twenty marks out of a hundred for “Strathspey spirit” alone. A dozen men may play the same tune, but with some of these the effect would be rousing, with others depressing. It is the same with all classes of music; you may get dozens of clever violin students straight from college who can go through the Mendelssohn concerto with a nimbleness that will almost take your breath away, but they do not produce the same effect as would a great artist. The andante with them becomes a kind of waltz, and the last movement a ballroom galop; with the great artist the andante becomes an “angel’s song” and the finale something like a rush up to the gates of heaven. The great artist gives us something more than notes; he puts in what we call spirit or soul, and makes even the notes seem different. I once heard Paderewski play Mendelssohn’s “Spring Song” as an encore, and I was so charmed and electrified that I said to my neighbour, “That is surely not the ordinary copy.” “Oh, yes, it is,” was the confident reply, “every note is the same, but the playing. Ah!”

A good many years ago I was sent to write a notice of a concert given by a leading Scottish Musical Society numbering forty performers, and at the interval I went behind to speak to some of the performers, where I button-holed the leader and said, “Look here, now, there are only two in the whole of this orchestra who are bowing these Strathspeys correctly.” The leader shook his head helplessly and said, “Well, I don’t know anything about it.” “Neither do I,” said another, and another, and another. “Well, you learn it,” I persisted, “for if you, who are supposed to uphold it, don’t, the real style will soon be lost.” The conductor, who was standing by, made a grimace and coolly said, “The sooner it is lost the better.” Now for a pleasing contrast:—Years after, an Englishman, a capable violinist and musician, was appointed conductor of that same society, but far from despising the real Strathspey style he was no sooner appointed than he took lessons from “The Strathspey King,” Skinner, so that he might be able to drill the orchestra in playing them correctly. An Englishman, hats off, gentlemen! That man should have been born a Scot.

Some years after the first incident, I was playing two solos in the Music Hall, Edinburgh, for the benefit of a disabled musician, when Mr Robert Watson, leader of the Edinburgh Society of Strathspey Players, numbering above a hundred performers, came to the side room and introduced himself. He was a Strathspey player pure and simple, and had taken as many medals as would have covered every inch of his coat front had he been disposed to wear them. His lament was that though their society had over a hundred members, only a few played Strathspeys in the real style, and his object was to ask me to come to the Society’s rooms on a practice night and explain to the younger members how the Strathspey should be bowed. “They will slur them,” he pathetically said, “instead of bowing them. They will believe you but they won’t listen to me.”

I promised to do so at some future time, as we might arrange, but this eager enthusiast died two months later, so the explanation has never been given.

It was through thinking over these points that I was induced to produce the work which I have entitled “The Strathspey, Reel, and Hornpipe Tutor,” in which every peculiarity of these Scottish dances is analysed. This book has been adopted by “The Edinburgh Society of Highland Strathspey Players” as their text book, so that in the end the result should be something like uniformity of method and style. To hear some of these wonderful dance tunes played by a hundred performers, with every note cut out, clean and sharp, with the same stroke of the bow, should make every listener feel proud of Scotland.

We are all human, but it is said that Scotsmen, where their affections are concerned, manage to conceal them better than Englishmen. Niel Gow was not a Scot of that kind. One of his sons, Andrew, went to London and succeeded well as a musician, but fell into bad health, and Niel, on learning of that, wrote thus:— “If the spring were a little more advanced and warmer I would have Andrew come down by sea for his native air, and I will come to Edinburgh or Dundee to conduct him home. He will have milk, which he can get warm from the cow, or fresh butter or whey or chickens; he shall not want for anything.”

Andrew’s eyes were closed by his father under the roof where he was born. A man may not be the greatest fiddler in the world, but so long as he has a heart like Niel Gow’s he must be looked up to as a king among men.

	This edition © Ogmios Press 2002 (all rights reserved) Original copy: William C. Honeyman, Strathspey Players Past and Present (Larg & Sons, 1922).
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