MMC 491
Location: GB-KETmmc
Reference: 491
Date: 1740 [circa]
Notes:
Bound collection comprising a printed copy of Adam Craig’s A Collection of the Choicest Scots Tunes (Edinburgh: Cooper [1727]), together with manuscript items for German flute or violin. The volume bears the bookplate of John Harvey, and was formerly the property of the antiquarian Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe (1781-1851), later purchased by the Dukes of Buccleuch, and now forming part of the Montagu Music Collection at Boughton House, the Duke’s residence in Kettering, Northamptonshire.
The contents include the primo parts for six sonatas by “McGiven”, possibly Scottish violinist-composer William McGibbon (1690-1755), alongside a few sets of variations on Scottish and Irish tunes. Perhaps most significant are two settings of “The Yellow Haired Laddie”, which seem to show the process of compiling a variation set from different sources. The first setting has been crossed out, but two strains have attributions, one to [Adam] Craig, and another to “Mcferson Senior”, probably John McPherson, a violinist and performer for the Edinburgh Musical Society.
Bibliography:
McGibbon, Complete Sonatas, ed. Ford