About Highland music

The Highlands and the Gaelic culture have produced some of the great melodies of the world. They range from simple yet subtle Scottish dance music, tunes which have survived centuries of change, including the onslaught of technology, to the wonderful and vast Gaelic song repertoire and the highly ornate art music of Highland bagpipe music, one of the wonders (and best kept secrets) of the Western world.

Traditional Scottish tunes danced to hundreds of years ago are still lifting people to their feet today, whether it's at a ceilidh or at a Highland Games. This rich heritage and the powerful landscape have been drawn upon by other cultures and musicians as diverse as Mendelssohn, Aaron Copland and the Beatles.

The persistence of songs of a great age is a remarkable feature of Gaelic Scotland (and Ireland) and it is still possible to hear songs from oral tradition that stretch back to the days of Ossian, the legendary poet of pre-history, thought to have lived in the third century AD. Poetry and song in the Gaelic language of a high order were being composed well into the twentieth century in the area now called Sutherland, birthplace of Catriona and Rhona.

But it was in the eighteenth century that this country gave birth to the poet and songwriter who was to become one of Gaelic Scotland's greatest bards. Rob Donn Mackay was born in Strathmore in the parish of Durness in 1714. Rob Donn was infamous for his innovative satiric verse, exposing hypocris through piercing judgments and wit.

Ceol mor, or piobaireachd, was perfected by the sixteenth century. Regarded as the more serious music for the bagpipes, piobaireachd was taught originally by ear or by mouth, as the tune was sung in a syllabic language called "canntaireachd". It consists of a slow "ground" tune, followed by variations and a repitition of the ground. A piobaireachd can last for up to twenty minutes.

The urlar, or ground tune, of the piobaireachd, Lament for the Children, by Patrick Mor MacCrimmon, has been described as the greatest single line melody in European music.

There was also a family of Mackays, with links to Strathnaver, who were regarded very highly as masters of piobaireachd.

Iain Dall Mackay of Gairloch, known ever since as Iain Dall, "Blind John", was the son of Ruairidh, who was said to be a grandson of the first Lord Reay. Legend has it that he left the Mackay country in disgrace after cutting a man's hand off at the Kyle of Tongue ferry. Iain Dall flourished in the early seventeenth century and lived to be a very old man. He was also a poet of distinction whose surviving masterpiece, Corrinessan's Lament, describes in great detail a journey through the Reay Forest, in the heart of Mackay country.

Another Mackay, Angus of Rassay (1813-59), was a genius of another kind. He published an important collection of piobaireachd and with Hugh Mackay "invented" the "competition" pipe march. One of his compositions, the superb Balmoral Highlanders, is as popular today as it was the day it was written.

Brothers Joseph and Patrick Macdonald, born in Durness when Rob Donn was a young man, are also of outstanding importance in the annals of Highland music.

Joseph was the first musician to commit bagpipe music successfully to staff notation, and his tutor of 1760 is still considered a model of clarity. It is of outstanding historical importance.

Patrick, a gifted violinist, published Joseph's book after the latter's early death in India. He also published a collection of Gaelic airs, collected by Joseph before he left home and which was added to by himself. Again, this was a pioneering work and is said to have been used by Robert Burns as a source of some of his song tunes.

Against this background, it is hardly surprising that the northern Highlands of Scotland should nurture musicians galore. The Gaelic music of the Highlands flourishes through ceilidhs (concerts), feisean (teaching festivals), sessions (informal music gatherings), Highland Games and Gatherings, Mods (competitive festivals), radio, television, and CDs. Now the internet brings Highland dance, music and song daily to the lives of its people and those worldwide who have been captivated by the place and the music's beauty and spirit. This is the natural environment of Catriona and Rhona, who enjoy the informality and friendship of a living culture built on a great tradition.