Ruckus and Keir GoGwilt kick up their heels on their inviting, invigorating and fittingly titled new album The Edinburgh Rollick — showcasing today on Tinnitist.
In this ebullient followup to their acclaimed debut Fly the Coop (with Emi Ferguson), New York City’s Ruckus — a shapeshifting, collaborative baroque ensemble with a visceral and playful approach to classical music — join with formidable Scottish violinist GoGwilt to revel in the music of Niel Gow (1727-1807), Scotland’s most celebrated fiddler. The Edinburgh Rollick is a dynamic folk-Baroque feast of Celtic dance music, weaving jubilant, foot-stomping and nostalgic 18th-century tunes into large-scale dramatic forms.
Along with Edinburgh-born GoGwilt — a founding member of American Modern Opera Company whose cutting-edge approach to the folk-Baroque genre matches Ruckus’s improvisatory ethos and contemporary sound — this gorgeous new recording features vocalist Fiona Gillespie and the baroque equivalent of a jazz rhythm section: Guitar/theorbo (Paul Holmes Morton), harpsichord/organ (Elliott Figg), bassoon/spoons (Clay Zeller-Townson), percussion (Rami El-Aasser), and bass/viola da gamba (Douglas Balliett).
Gow is often credited with helping define and shape the distinct identity of Scottish fiddle music. The Edinburgh Rollick finds a stellar band exploring and arranging dozens of his masterpieces and lesser-known works. The 80-minute album brings to life dance tunes from the Gow Collections of Strathspey Reels Books 1 and 2 (1784 and 1788) that are full of the signature “Scotch snap” and rhythmic drive, along with a refined lyricism.
“Gow’s reputation as a genius fiddler was noted by several writers including Robert Burns,” GoGwilt writes in the album’s liner notes. “His reputation as an authentic Scottish musician gave his name a certain cache amongst English, French, and German audiences captivated by literary depictions of an ancient Celtic world, popularized in James MacPherson’s purported collections and translations of epic poetry by the Gaelic bard Ossian.
“The Gow collections include a continuo bass line and classical instruments like the harpsichord and cello. And the fact that the tunes were notated indicates their use for a musically literate audience, even as audiences for the music encompassed a range of social classes. These collections represent the canonization, monetization, and professionalization of folk music through print culture. They preserve a snapshot of an already centuries-long process of musical hybridity and exchange.
“It is possible to trace the transformation of certain tunes in the collection across printed and recorded sources,” GoGwilt explains. “For example, The Broom of Coudenknowes, which appears in Nathaniel Gow’s collection, The Vocal Melodies of Scotland (1816), also appears in John Playford’s dance manual of 1650, simply called Broome. The tune appears again in Richard Brome’s comic opera, The Northern Lasse (1632), in the Italian violinist Francesco Geminiani’s arrangements of Scottish melodies (1749), and in a recording by Silly Wizard (1978).
“Another song in the 1816 collection, Lord Gregory, also known as The Lass of Roch Royal or The Lass of Augrim, appears in many recordings, including one by Peggy Seeger. The song portrays the anonymous lass as the ill-fated mother of Gregory’s illegitimate child. In the instrumental version provided in the Gow collection, only the basic meter and contours of the melody remain. Contemporary recordings of Galla Water, such as the one by Old Blind Dogs (1992), more closely resemble the melody written down in the Gow collection.
“It is harder to track down recorded versions of the instrumental jigs, reels, strathspeys, and airs,” GoGwilt continues. “Lady Charlotte Murray’s Jig has a number of different names and has been recorded by contemporary folk musicians including The Chieftans (O’Mahoney’s Frolics, 1989) and Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill (The Cat in the Corner, 1997). Jordi Savall’s two-volume release, The Celtic Viol (2009, 2010), includes selections from Gow’s collections, perhaps conjuring the mythologized Scottish past through the viol’s unique timbres and tunings. Jenny Nettle’s appears on Bonnie Rideout’s album, Scottish Reflections, recorded with the early music ensemble, Hesperus, and instruments including gamba, Gothic harp, dulcimer, and theorbo.
“Laura Risk’s recent performances of Neil Gow’s Lament also bridges baroque conventions, ethnographic and archival knowledge, and a living practice of Scottish and Québécois fiddling. A video from 1964 shows John Doherty playing Lord Macdonalds along with Pete Seeger accompanying him on banjo. And the tune called The Flaggon by Gow goes by the name The Flogging Reel, appearing in several videos and recordings by Cape Breton fiddlers. These examples attest to the ways in which the Gow collections continue to keep alive a vibrant hybridity between folk, popular, and baroque music-making.
“Given that Ruckus is a baroque continuo band, some of the 18th-century Italianate influences visible in Gow’s collections are baked into our sound: Gut strings, short bows, and instruments like the harpsichord, baroque bassoon, and viola da gamba. Rather than accepting the notated versions in Gow’s collection as authoritative texts, we play these melodies with an ear to their cumulative historical and contemporary soundings, and we have performed these tunes in both concert and dance hall settings. Precisely because these books played a significant role in the selective canonization of Scottish folk music, it has been a gratifying journey to work our way through and beyond these texts, and to find a sound unique to our own hybrid paths through these musical traditions.”
Listen to The Edinburgh Rollick below, watch a video trailer for the album and listen to the musicians discuss the the project above, and find more on the Ruckus website.
