Editor's Preface

Romanticised view of Niel Gow from Fraser's Airs & Melodies, 1816

Niel Gow, Perthshire fiddler and patriarch of a Bach-like dynasty of fiddlers, composers, and publishers, was renowned in his day and since for his almost definitive compositional style within the Scots fiddle tradition. Many of his tunes are still very much alive within the contemporary repertoire, and, along with Robert Burns, he is perhaps the most significant traditional music figure of the late C18th in Scotland. Here, we publish a facsimile of a typical Gow family publication from early C19th Edinburgh, trading in the pastoral and the exotic which was the fashion of the day, with tunes composed for and by the Scots gentility, whose musical events were centred on the Assembly Rooms in George Street, which is still a prime venue in the city, not least during the annual reveries of the Edinburgh International Festival.

David Allan, "The Highland Dance" c.1780 (detail)

As with the original publications of many of Burns' songs in James Johnson's epochal Scots Musical Museum, many of the Gows' published scores are arranged for melody instrument (in practice, normally a violin or flute), and basic chordal accompaniment on either 'cello and harpsichord continuo or piano, the keyboard accompanist filling the harmony in from the simple bass line provided. As a result - especially in a continuo realisation - much of Burns and the Gows' work can sound heavily influenced by the Italian Baroque style which was very much in vogue in Enlightenment Edinburgh. Indeed, the Baroque Italian style lasted longer in Scotland than it did in Italy. However, it was also the case that in less affluent settings, traditional performance practice dispensed with expensive keyboard instruments, relying entirely on the 'cello for accompaniment, as can be seen in the detail (right) from a pastoral depiction of Niel Gow on fiddle and his brother, Nathaniel on 'cello. In fact, one might easily imagine that the scores reproduced below were specifically conceived for this more basic instrumental line-up, as one can hear with our MIDI realisation of the title piece, "Niel Gow's Recovery" - click on the score to play the track literally as written, without keyboards.

Steve Sweeney-Turner, Edinburgh, September 2000

This edition © Ogmios Press 2000 (all rights reserved) First published by Gow & Shepherd, Edinburgh 1804.