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Reviews

window on ruined church with sky and clouds

Review: Window to the West: Culture and Environment in the Scottish Gàidhealtachd

23 August 202321 August 2023 by Jane Pettegree

Image: cover art from Window to the West This book, jointly authored by Meg Bateman and John Purser, is an … Read more

Categories Reviews Tags Bagpipe, Clarsach, Fiddle, Gaelic, Song Leave a comment
A folk band of 5 players, 4 seated (dulcimer, banjo and fiddles) and one standing up (guitar)

Review: Wayfaring Strangers: The Musical Voyage from Scotland and Ulster to Appalachia

7 August 2023 by Jane Pettegree

Image: The Bog Trotters Band, in Galax, Virginia, 1937.  Autoharp, fiddlers, guitar. Geologically, the Appalachians are a continuation of the … Read more

Categories Reviews Tags Appalachia, ScotsIrish Leave a comment
Title page of the Gude and Godlie Ballatis edition of 1600 with blackletter font type and ornamental foliage framing this

Review: Ross W Dufflin (ed.), Gude & Godlie Ballatis Noted

28 July 202324 July 2023 by Jane Pettegree

Image: cover of a 1600 edition of the Gude and Godle Ballatis, from Wikipedia / Project Gutenberg Soundyngs has posted … Read more

Categories Reviews Tags 16thCentury, Ballad, Psalms, Reformation, Renaissance Leave a comment
A stone gargoyle covering its ears with its hands, and making a grotesque face

Older Scots Flyting and Hip Hop

17 July 2023 by Jane Pettegree

Image: ‘hear no evil’ gargoyle on Paisley Abbey. Creative Commons Licence CC BY-SA 3.0 Recent posts from Soundyngs have been … Read more

Categories Reviews Tags flyting, hiphop, Medieval, Poetry, Renaissance, Scots Leave a comment
book cover title 'Hungry Beat' with a foreward by Ian Rankin. A male punk rock musician singing into a microphone, with his eyes shut and clearly singing loudly.

Review: Hungry Beat: The Scottish Independent Pop Underground Movement (1977-1984)

26 June 2023 by Jane Pettegree

Douglas Macintyre, Grant McPhee, with Neil Cooper, and a forward by Ian Rankin, Hungry Beat: The Scottish Independent Pop Underground … Read more

Categories Reviews Tags 20thCentury, Bands, Edinburgh, Popular Music, PopularMusic, Postpunk Leave a comment
4 female singers flanking a seated male harpist holding a medieval harp, photographed in York Minster

Chant from Pre-Reformation Scotland: Recordings from Canty and Cappella Nova

13 June 202312 June 2023 by Jane Pettegree

Glasgow-based choir Cappella Nova, and their off-shoot all-female group Canty, has for over 40 years (!) pioneered performances and recordings … Read more

Categories Reviews Tags Medieval, Renaissance, Sacred, SacredMusic Leave a comment
Black and white engraving from a 19th century biography of Lady Nairne as a young woman, her head covered by a veil, lace around her neck, and placed within an oval frame

Review: Freeland Barbour, “The White Rose of Gask: The Life of Carolina Oliphant, Lady Nairne” (2019)

2 March 2023 by Jane Pettegree

Freeland Barbour, accordionist, composer, radio and record producer, is a descendent of Lady Nairne’s sister, and this alongside his own … Read more

Categories Reviews Tags 18thCentury, 19thCentury, Carolina Oliphant, Jacobite, LadyNairne, Song Leave a comment
A folk-rock band from the 1960s The Clutha

Review: Eleanor Bell and Linda Gunn (eds.), The Scottish Sixties: Reading, Rebellion, Revolution?

1 February 2023 by Jane Pettegree

Image source: Scottish Traditional Music Hall of Fame (Hands up for Trad) – on The Clutha.   This year marks … Read more

Categories Reviews Tags Edinburgh, Festival, FolkMusic, FolksongRevival, Glasgow, Jazz, Pop, Rock Leave a comment
Early music ensemble with a bass viol, lute, recorder and singer, with a tapestry behind them

The Spinacino Consort: The Music of Elizabeth Melville

23 January 202323 January 2023 by Eric Thomas

Editor: The Spinacino Consort is based in Scotland, and its performances draw on careful research about the early modern song … Read more

Categories Articles, Reviews Tags AaronMcGregor, Calvinist, ElizabethMelville, EricThomas, Lute, Recorder, Renaissance, Song, Viol, Violin Leave a comment
James Hogg painted as the Ettrick Shepherd by Sir John Waton Gordon

Review: “James Hogg, Contributions to Musical Collections and Miscellaneous Songs”, ed. Kirsteen McCue

9 January 2023 by Jane Pettegree

Image: “James Hogg, Poet, ‘The Ettrick Shepherd’”, painted by Sir John Watson Gordon in 1830.  CC Wikimedia Commons, courtesy of … Read more

Categories Articles, Reviews Tags 19thCentury, JamesHogg, KirsteenMcCue, Romantic, Scots, Song, Songs, WalterScott Leave a comment
map of Scotland using a collage of old sheet music

Review: The “St Andrews Scottish Songbook”: A New Chapter in a Scots Drawing Room Singing

14 December 202213 December 2022 by Jane Pettegree

While some songs from this new anthology were performed by Seamus Begg in October during the 2022 St Andrews Voices … Read more

Categories Articles, Reviews Tags Gaelic, Scots, Song, Songs Leave a comment
Early music ensemble playing fiddle, cello, harpsichord, and recorder

Review: ‘Full of the Highland Humours’, recording by Ensemble Hesperi

24 November 202223 November 2022 by Jane Pettegree

(featured in image): Ensemble Hesperi performers Mary-Jannet Leith – recorders Magdalena Loth-Hill – baroque violin Florence Petit – baroque cello … Read more

Categories Reviews Tags 17thCentury, 18thCentury, EnsembleHesperi, Fiddle, Flute, JamesOswald, Recorder, RobertBremner, ThomasErskine Leave a comment
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