Thirty New Strathspey Reels &c.
by Macintosh, Abraham

Full title: Thirty New Strathspey Reels &c. With a Bass for the Violoncello or Harpsichord Composed by Abrm. Macintosh.

Publisher: Edinburgh: A.Macintosh

Printer: Printed for the Author

Date: [c.1792]

Description:

This collection includes reels, strathspeys, jigs, hornpipes, and a few slow tunes. Macintosh engraved it himself, but his credit was removed from the Watlen edition!
The book includes early examples of strathspey-reel and strathspey-jig pairings.

Notes:

The basslines range from the simplest of repetitive four-beat patterns to a variety of fluent developments of this, with some chromaticism. Confident handling of two-part writing when required, not unlike Robert Mackintosh in places.
Chords are used in some jigs, and he uses the fiddle G string more than most. Tunes with binary tonality tend to have the simplest basses. One 2/4 strathspey has bassline chords in the first strain, and a single line in the second.

RISM: M56

Gore: MC13

Biographical info: Abraham Macintosh was born in Edinburgh in 1769, the son of "Red Rob" Mackintosh or Macintosh. He went to Newcastle upon Tyne in England in 1797. He was a fiddler/composer. (Glen 1, xiv, refers to 'Mackintosh') As a point of interest, he engraved Brysson's Curious Selection of Favourite Tunes c.1791. (Kidson)

Location(s):

GB-A (1st edition)
GB-A (later edition 'Sold by theAuthor & by John Watlen at his Music Ware House No.34 North Bridge Street')
GB-En Glen 303
GB-Lbl ([c.1795])
GB-P Be7

Digitised items

This source has not been digitised.