The Captain's Collection by Hamish MacDonald 1999 & 2000
“An engrossing treat…fascinating and provocative music theatre pulling together history, storytelling, cultural politics…and some hilarious madcap humour.” Sue Wilson, The Scotsman
“Humorous, dark, emotional, historically factual and musically exhilarating…the performances…accompanied by the eerie music played by Old Blind Dogs Fiddler Jonnie Hardie, Rory Campbell and Brian MacAlpine meant that the effect was quite stunning…” Donald Fraser, Press and Journal
Directed by Alison Peebles
Performed by Alyth McCormack and Hamish MacDonald
With live music by
Jonny Hardie - Fiddle
Brian MacAlpine - Keyboards
Alyth McCormack - Song
Rory Campbell/Iain MacFarlane - Whistle & Pipes
Musical Direction by Jonny Hardie
Production Management by Alan MacKinnon
Set Design by Iain Campbell
Backdrop by Jackie MacKenzie
Publicity design by Ian Gibson
Produced by Hamish MacDonald
He saw it was the Fraser Yew of old
The one wherefrom the Stratherrick men
would fashion their warriors bows
The three men took forth their dirks
And stripped its branches with their blows
But from its ancient limbs was made
A fiddle, pipe and harp instead
The Captain’s Collection is a play visiting the death sleep and final dream of Captain Simon Fraser of Knockie; fiddler, composer, publisher, dispossessed laird and Empire soldier. Published in 1816, Captain Fraser’s Airs and Melodies Peculiar to the Highlands of Scotland and the Isles was originally suggested by Blazin Fiddler Bruce MacGregor as the basis for a musical play as part of Highland Festival 1999. Bruce played a tune or two from the pages, and although the music felt rich and vibrant, the prospect of developing anything dramatic or even slightly profound, derived from Fraser’s stilted prose at either end of the book, seemed remote.
At first glance, Captain Fraser’s musical publication of 1816 presents a fairly innocuous and romantic view of the Highland milieu. His introduction seeks the patronage and approval of the influential Highland Society, a necessary stamp of authenticity to promote his work. In this Prospectus, it is claimed by Fraser that the majority of his tunes have been derived from two main sources, the Gaelic singing of his paternal grandfather, a cattle dealer who moved among the Jacobite strongholds of the west, and his father, a Highland officer who scaled the Heights of Abraham in the company of General Wolfe. In fact, Fraser’s grandfather was a government spy who was the first to inform General Cope of the Jacobite positions, and Captain Simon himself - by the time of his publication in 1816 – had been defrauded in his early attempts at musical publication, had deserted from the British Army in Ireland, had fathered an illegitimate son, had cleared vast tracts of land for Cheviot grazing in Stratherrick, had amassed then lost a fortune, and just prior to his 1816 publication, had been denounced Rebel and thrown into Inverness jail for debt. A musical genius beset by ill judgement and poor luck, he would be plagued by misfortune for the rest of his life.
As with Captain Fraser’s Loyalist and genteel outward appearance, the tunes within the collection conceal an inner truth. Fraser set out to adorn his music with decorative European influences to suit the upper class tastes of Regency society. He saw fit to remove song lyrics, apparently uneasy that any Jacobite sentiment (in truth a dead letter and now greatly exploited by one of his main correspondents – Walter Scott) might yet cause offence. Although many of the original songs were apolitical, Fraser presented his music with caution, sometimes resorting to the most cringing of practises to seek the approbation of his peers.
The play visits the undying fire that burns within Celtic music and consciousness, as Captain Fraser is confronted by the ghosts dwelling inside the pages of his collection. Introduced musically through Jonny Hardie’s playing of the strathspey Lovat’s Restoration, hurling into the almost anarchic pipe arrangement of Kilchattan Wedding, the music eases as Fraser’s death dream is manifested through Alyth McCormack’s singing of Braighe Lochiall, seeing the apparitions of his father and grandfather adrift on the songs that now possess him. Playing a multiple of character roles, from Simon’s housekeeper to an adversary who condemns him for compromising the spirit of his music, Alyth also performs a number of the songs such as Mhairi Bhan Og and Luinneag Mhic Leoid. The haunting Mo run an diugh mar an de thu is sung by a widow who first appears holding the blood-stained shirts of her husband and son who died as Highland soldiers, and who reminds Fraser of the atrocities he has committed as a British officer against the Celts in Ireland, some of whose music he has now taken into his possession.
Performed on Iain Campbell’s atmospheric set, with Alan MacKinnon’s lighting ranging from lambent fireglow reds to stark white, Alison Peebles dynamic, sensitive and inventive direction allowed the action to move from end to end. Regency dance scenes, a clan battle fought out by toys, an encounter with subterranean fairies and Captain Fraser’s remonstrations are traversed along the audience on three sides, the set ending against a large moorland boulder and Jackie MacKenzie’s backdrop of a tree constructed of rags, echoing the Highland traditions of cloutie wells and clothes discarded in battle, never to be redeemed. As the raw power of Hardie’s fiddle and Campbell’s pipes are juxtaposed by MacAlpine’s delicate harpsichord fingering, the Captain entreats that he must compromise his music in order for it to be published and survive, until the stories move towards a final folktale and song with Faustian overtones - The Cave of Gold.
Originally commissioned by Highland Festival in 1999, the production opened in Captain Fraser’s homeland in Errogie, on a memorable night when a thick, ghostly fog drifted down from the Monadhliath and almost two hundred people packed into tiny Stratherrick Hall. There followed a short tour and the production was revived for a more extensive tour in April 2000. Developed into an award winning series for BBC Radio Scotland, produced by Bruce MacGregor, The Captain’s Collection CD featuring the musical repertoire of the playwas produced by Jonny Hardie for the Greentrax label, becoming one of the most highly acclaimed and cherished CDs of Celtic music in 1999.
“…they’ll have a hard time topping this for entertainment, value, home-grown talent and ingenuity…” Margaret Chrystall, Highland News
“Humorous, dark, emotional, historically factual and musically exhilarating…the performances…accompanied by the eerie music played by Old Blind Dogs Fiddler Jonnie Hardie, Rory Campbell and Brian MacAlpine meant that the effect was quite stunning…” Donald Fraser, Press and Journal
Directed by Alison Peebles
Performed by Alyth McCormack and Hamish MacDonald
With live music by
Jonny Hardie - Fiddle
Brian MacAlpine - Keyboards
Alyth McCormack - Song
Rory Campbell/Iain MacFarlane - Whistle & Pipes
Musical Direction by Jonny Hardie
Production Management by Alan MacKinnon
Set Design by Iain Campbell
Backdrop by Jackie MacKenzie
Publicity design by Ian Gibson
Produced by Hamish MacDonald
He saw it was the Fraser Yew of old
The one wherefrom the Stratherrick men
would fashion their warriors bows
The three men took forth their dirks
And stripped its branches with their blows
But from its ancient limbs was made
A fiddle, pipe and harp instead
The Captain’s Collection is a play visiting the death sleep and final dream of Captain Simon Fraser of Knockie; fiddler, composer, publisher, dispossessed laird and Empire soldier. Published in 1816, Captain Fraser’s Airs and Melodies Peculiar to the Highlands of Scotland and the Isles was originally suggested by Blazin Fiddler Bruce MacGregor as the basis for a musical play as part of Highland Festival 1999. Bruce played a tune or two from the pages, and although the music felt rich and vibrant, the prospect of developing anything dramatic or even slightly profound, derived from Fraser’s stilted prose at either end of the book, seemed remote.
At first glance, Captain Fraser’s musical publication of 1816 presents a fairly innocuous and romantic view of the Highland milieu. His introduction seeks the patronage and approval of the influential Highland Society, a necessary stamp of authenticity to promote his work. In this Prospectus, it is claimed by Fraser that the majority of his tunes have been derived from two main sources, the Gaelic singing of his paternal grandfather, a cattle dealer who moved among the Jacobite strongholds of the west, and his father, a Highland officer who scaled the Heights of Abraham in the company of General Wolfe. In fact, Fraser’s grandfather was a government spy who was the first to inform General Cope of the Jacobite positions, and Captain Simon himself - by the time of his publication in 1816 – had been defrauded in his early attempts at musical publication, had deserted from the British Army in Ireland, had fathered an illegitimate son, had cleared vast tracts of land for Cheviot grazing in Stratherrick, had amassed then lost a fortune, and just prior to his 1816 publication, had been denounced Rebel and thrown into Inverness jail for debt. A musical genius beset by ill judgement and poor luck, he would be plagued by misfortune for the rest of his life.
As with Captain Fraser’s Loyalist and genteel outward appearance, the tunes within the collection conceal an inner truth. Fraser set out to adorn his music with decorative European influences to suit the upper class tastes of Regency society. He saw fit to remove song lyrics, apparently uneasy that any Jacobite sentiment (in truth a dead letter and now greatly exploited by one of his main correspondents – Walter Scott) might yet cause offence. Although many of the original songs were apolitical, Fraser presented his music with caution, sometimes resorting to the most cringing of practises to seek the approbation of his peers.
The play visits the undying fire that burns within Celtic music and consciousness, as Captain Fraser is confronted by the ghosts dwelling inside the pages of his collection. Introduced musically through Jonny Hardie’s playing of the strathspey Lovat’s Restoration, hurling into the almost anarchic pipe arrangement of Kilchattan Wedding, the music eases as Fraser’s death dream is manifested through Alyth McCormack’s singing of Braighe Lochiall, seeing the apparitions of his father and grandfather adrift on the songs that now possess him. Playing a multiple of character roles, from Simon’s housekeeper to an adversary who condemns him for compromising the spirit of his music, Alyth also performs a number of the songs such as Mhairi Bhan Og and Luinneag Mhic Leoid. The haunting Mo run an diugh mar an de thu is sung by a widow who first appears holding the blood-stained shirts of her husband and son who died as Highland soldiers, and who reminds Fraser of the atrocities he has committed as a British officer against the Celts in Ireland, some of whose music he has now taken into his possession.
Performed on Iain Campbell’s atmospheric set, with Alan MacKinnon’s lighting ranging from lambent fireglow reds to stark white, Alison Peebles dynamic, sensitive and inventive direction allowed the action to move from end to end. Regency dance scenes, a clan battle fought out by toys, an encounter with subterranean fairies and Captain Fraser’s remonstrations are traversed along the audience on three sides, the set ending against a large moorland boulder and Jackie MacKenzie’s backdrop of a tree constructed of rags, echoing the Highland traditions of cloutie wells and clothes discarded in battle, never to be redeemed. As the raw power of Hardie’s fiddle and Campbell’s pipes are juxtaposed by MacAlpine’s delicate harpsichord fingering, the Captain entreats that he must compromise his music in order for it to be published and survive, until the stories move towards a final folktale and song with Faustian overtones - The Cave of Gold.
Originally commissioned by Highland Festival in 1999, the production opened in Captain Fraser’s homeland in Errogie, on a memorable night when a thick, ghostly fog drifted down from the Monadhliath and almost two hundred people packed into tiny Stratherrick Hall. There followed a short tour and the production was revived for a more extensive tour in April 2000. Developed into an award winning series for BBC Radio Scotland, produced by Bruce MacGregor, The Captain’s Collection CD featuring the musical repertoire of the playwas produced by Jonny Hardie for the Greentrax label, becoming one of the most highly acclaimed and cherished CDs of Celtic music in 1999.
“…they’ll have a hard time topping this for entertainment, value, home-grown talent and ingenuity…” Margaret Chrystall, Highland News
