The Laird o' Drumblair

Parts

(PDF) Violin

(PDF) Violin duet

Audio

(MIDI) The Laird o' Drumblair

Source

(Sibelius) The Laird o' Drumblair - Scorch

Comments

The University of Aberdeen has a large site devoted to James Scott Skinner. It contains a handwritten score of The Laird o' Drumblair. His notes on the piece say:

Several players have won medals with his tune.

By tuning the 3rd string to E and the 4th to A - the above tune may be played 'Scordatura' fashion - an old style of tuning the violin.

From The Fiddler's Companion:

The tune was composed by J. Scott Skinner for his friend and benefactor William F. McHardy of Drumblair, who gave Skinner use of a rent-free cottage for many years to support his art. In his autobiography Skinner wrote that McHardy, the Laird, was so impressed with the composition that for the remaining 15 years of his life he sent Skinner a thank-you check at Christmas-time. McHardy could apparently well afford to be magnanimous, for he had made a fortune of over 100,000 pounds in South America with engineering enterprises before returning to live at Forgue near Huntly. The tune is considered one of the finest and most famous of Skinner's 600 compositions, and appears in his Harp and Claymore collection. It was one of the tunes included by him later in his career in the romantically entitled 1921 concert set "Warblings From the Hills." Skinner, writing in his autobiography My Life and Adventures (first serialized in The People's Journal, 1923), described his inspiration for the tune:

"Suddenly [one night] a tune, 'pat' and complete, flashed into my head in his honour. I jumped out of bed [looking for music manuscript paper]...but a search produced nothing better than a piece of soap paper, and on this I promptly dashed off 'The Laird o' Drumblair.' And the tune was dispatched as it had been written."

"Ye're no' gaun tae send that awfy-like paper tae the Laird," protested his wife, "He'll jist licht his pipe wi' it!" It was sent anyway. Skinner also rendered the same melodic motif as a reel called "Angus Campbell."

James Scott Skinner also dedicated another strathspey, The Iron Man, to William McHardy.

This tune is also listed at The Session.