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[BoldHighlander]

Known as the composer of "Leaving Glenurquhart" (originally known as "Tulloch MacCarrick"), William MacDonald was the brother of Alexander MacDonald, who was the father of John MacDonald of Inverness, and Duncan MacDonald.

He was born in Easgart, in Glenurquhart and taught by Donald Cameron and Duncan MacKay. He was described as a foremost piper of his day and won the Gold Medal at Inverness in 1869. He was piper to MacPherson of Glentruim for two year, and in 1965 was appointed piper to the Prince of Wales at Abergeldie. "Tulloch MacCarrick" was a farm near Balmoral, whose tenant was a lover of pipe music and who frequently hosted notable pipers visiting Balmoral Castle.

Like many of his day, MacDonald played on the right shoulder.

Though he was said to be a quiet, unassuming man, he was seized with religious zeal later in life and reportedly destroyed his pipes and swore off all music.

William MacDonald as the piper to the Prince of Wales in 1867.


William MacDonald as painted by Kenneth MacLeay


http://www.pipetunes.ca/composers.as...composerID=137

[BoldHighlander]

Today, Duncan MacDougall is remembered as perhaps the premier pipemaker of his time. Few realize he was also the best piper of his generation.

He was born in Perth into a pipemaking family, his grandfather Allan having begun a pipemaking firm in 1792, and his father John taking it over around 1834. Duncan took the business over in Perth in 1857 and moved it to Edinburgh around 1861. He became pipe major of the Edinburgh Volunteers and instructor to the Black Watch volunteers. He had already begun making a name for himself as a competitor as early as age 17 when he won a first place for piobaireachd at Montrose games among some of the leading players of the day....

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Pipe Major Duncan MacDougall (left), with sons John and Gavin (right) with the 2nd Perthshire Highland Rifle Volunteers in 1896.

[BoldHighlander]

Little appears to be known about the composer of "The Barren Rocks of Aden."

C. A. Malcolm's 1927 publication, The Piper in Peace and War, says he was Pipe Major of the 78th (Ross-shire Buffs) from 1853-1862, including during the Indian Mutiny (1857).

He is known primarily for the first two parts of one of the most popular pipe tunes ever.





http://www.pipetunes.ca/composers.as...composerID=146

[BoldHighlander]

This larger-than-life piping character was known variously as “Big Donald MacLean” and “Donald MacLean of Lewis,” as recalled in Donald MacLeod’s popular 6/8 march. References in piping books to “Pipe Major Donald MacLean” are generally to him.

Born in 1908, his interest in the pipes began in 1916 when his older brother Murdo took up the instrument to help in the recovery of a lung wound suffered in the Great War. Donald borrowed his brother’s chanter and soon both were being taught by Peter Stewart of Barabhas.

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[BoldHighlander]

D. R. MacLennan was born in Edinburgh in 1901, son of Lieutenant and Edinburgh Police Superintendent John McLennan, well known authority on pipe music and one of the most prominent piping figures of the day.
D. R. was a younger half-brother of G. S. McLennan and a cousin to the almost equally famous Highland dancer and piper William McLennan. Originally taught pipes by his father, he was later a pupil of Willie Ross and John MacDonald of Inverness.

He enlisted in the Scots Guards in 1919, but transferred in 1925 to the Seaforth Highlanders at Fort George, where he was named Pipe Major of the 1st Battalion. He would hold this post for 13 years. He returned to Fort George in 1938 and spent the war years as Regimental Sergeant Major of the Infantry Training Centre until he was commissioned into the Seaforths. He retired as a Captain in 1948.

He won prizes as a piper, dancer and athlete early in his career, though he would not win the premier prizes until 1956, having been talked into returning to the competition platform by friends a few years earlier. He justified their faith in him by achieving the extraordinary feat of winning the Gold Medals at Oban and Inverness in the same year at the age of 55.

He contributed to the 1935 production of The Standard Settings of the Seaforth Highlanders, perhaps the most popular collection of its day until it was eclipsed by the first Scots Guards collection in 1954....

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[BoldHighlander]

Known to pipers as “D.C. Mather,” this prolific composer was born in London, where he attended the London Caledonian School being taught by John MacKenzie (c. 1831-1904), who was a nephew of John Ban MacKenzie and who won the Prize Pipe at Inverness in 1874 and the Gold Medal there in 1876.

Mather was later taught by Robert Meldrum and John MacDougall Gillies. He served at various times as piper to MacDougall of Lunga, Admiral Campbell of Craignish and the Murrays of Lochcarron.

He died in Montana, having moved to the U.S. by way of Canada in 1901 to prospect for gold.

Thought of usually as a composer, he was a successful competitor and all-rounder as well, competing in Highland dancing and athletic events. He won the Gold Medal at Oban in 1891 and at the Prize Pipe at Inverness in 1899. He continued to compete in North America well into his 60s, and the photo shows him at his mining claim in Montana bedecked in awards in 1936.

Among his most popular compositions are the reels Loch Carron, Willie Cummings Rant and The Man from Glengarry, the strathspey Climbing Dunaquaich and the competition march The Stornoway Highland Gathering.

D.C. Mather in Montana, 1936



http://www.pipetunes.ca/composers.as...&composerID=25

[BoldHighlander]

Gather together all those pipers said to be “the best piper of his day,” and G. S. McLennan would probably be the best.

Those who heard him say his fingers were miraculous. His astonishing technical prowess contributed to an important evolution in Highland pipe technique in the early part of the twentieth century. As a composer, the quality and lasting appeal of his tunes are unequalled. As a person he was modest, generous and well-liked by his peers. But on the strength of his light music playing alone his name would almost certainly be included in lists of the top three pipers ever.

He was born in Edinburgh in 1883 to a leading and long-standing piping family and would die in his prime at age 46 in 1929 with his only book of music just off the presses.....

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G. S. McLennan in 1906


At age 10, shortly after performing for Queen Victoria.


At age 25, around the time he won his first Clasp at The Northern Meeting.


Piping at the funeral of renowned fidder J. S. Skinner in 1927.


G. S. McLennan in his latter years.

[BoldHighlander]

An excellent player, and winner of the Gold Medal at Oban in 1893, William Robb is best known as the composer of one of the most popular retreat marches ever penned: "When the Battle is Over," commonly known to pipers as "The Battle's O'er."

He was Pipe Major of the 2nd Battalion Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders from 1887-1891, and of the 1st Argylls from 1891-1894. He was also famous in his day for a 'test march' he made with P/M James MacKay, another A & S Highlander, in 1895 when the two marched 35 miles from Aldershot to Hyde Park Corner playing alternately all the way.

The 'Notices of Pipers' reports that "at the Glasgow Exhibition Games in 1901, he was 3rd in the competition for piobaireachd (MacDougall Gillies and J. MacColl being 1st and 2nd respectively), and 2nd for marches and for strathspeys and reels (J. MacColl being placed 1st)."



William Robb, from an Oban Times photo published around 1930



http://www.pipetunes.ca/composers.as...&composerID=94

[BoldHighlander]

Only a handful of pipers command iconic status in the world of piping without having won the major solo prizes; Donald Shaw Ramsay is one of those pipers.

He was born in Torpichen, Scotland, near Bathgate, and taught by Sandy Forrest, a pupil of John MacDougall-Gillies. He competed as an amateur and as a professional with promising success. But he did not pursue solo competition after the outbreak of the Second World War when he joined the Highland Light Infantry. He passed the pipe-majors’ course at the Castle under Willie Ross and subsequently became Pipe Major of the 10th H.L.I. out of Wick. At age 20, he was the youngest Pipe Major ever appointed in the British Army. He saw action on the continent and proved himself a dynamic leader even at a young age.

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Donald Shaw Ramsay, as pictured in The Edcath Collection around 1953.


Ramsay accepts a retirement gift from incoming Edinburgh Police Pipe Major John D. Burgess in 1957.

[BoldHighlander]

There were several prominent piping figures named ‘James Robertson’ during the first half of the 1900s; this one, James (“Robbie”) Robertson of Banff, a Gordon Highlander, was a prolific composer.

Born in Bannffshire on August 23rd, 1886, he began learning pipes at the age of 15 from P/M William Sutherland of Airdrie.

In 1906 he enlisted in the Gordon Highlanders, where he would befriend and come under the influence of the great G. S. McLennan, the greatest Gordon piper of all. G. S. taught Robertson from 1906 to 1913, recommended him for promotion to Lance Corporal in 1912, and oversaw his advancement to Pipe Corporal in 1913.

Just before the Great War, he attended the Military School of Piping at Inverness under John MacDonald of Inverness, where he certainly would have studied piobaireachd, and became the tenth graduate of what would come to be known as the Army School of Piping.

In August 1914 he went with the 1st Battalion of the Gordons to France as part of the British Expeditionary Force. The Gordon Highlanders Pipe Music Collection Volume II (1985) describes his trials and adventures during the war years:

On August 13th there were eighteen pipers in the Battalion, most of whom had been pupils of G. S., but by 27th August only two had escaped capture or death. Robbie was amongst the former being taken with the majority of the Battalion at Bertry on 27th August, and he was to spend virtually the whole War as a prisoner. He was sent to Sennelager near Paderborn in September 1914 and was court martialled by the Germans on three occasions during his time as a POW for ‘refusing to carry out work of a military nature, i.e. building Zeppelin sheds and, as a Non-Commissioned Officer, inciting men to refuse similar work.” For years afterwards, Robbie, in his inimitable, amusing style, would recount his experiences as a prisoner in charge of liquidising human excrement prior to its application as a fertiliser on the surrounding German farmland. This typically efficient German approach was frequently sabotaged by the prisoner in charge, which leaves much to the imagination! Indeed, on 17th December, 1915, so difficult had he become to his captors that he was sentenced to one year’s imprisonment. Actually, a large part of this period was spent in solitary confinement and the sentence took one year, ten months to complete. He would not give in. Indeed, such had been his example to others that in February 1920 he was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal in recognition of his valuable services as a prisoner of war.”

In April of 1918 he was exchanged as a prisoner and the next year he rejoined the 1st Battalion in Limerick. But it was during his incarceration as a POW in 1915 that he composed his best known tune, “Farewell to the Creeks.” It was about the Creeks of Portknockie, where he used to holiday at his uncle's. Many years later he spoke be still being in possession of the piece of yellow blotting paper onto which he first transcribed the tune.

A champion boxer in the regiment as a young man, he was respected as a pipe major, a piper and a soldier, though the war and his foreign service perhaps robbed him of his due as a competitive player.

After serving in Malta and finally at the depot in Aberdeen, he retired in April, 1927 and worked as a janitor at the Banff Academy until 1953. He also served as a Special Constable in Banff, achieving the rank of Sergeant.

During his latter years he taught and judged at games such as Braemar, Aboyne and Lonach in the northeast of Scotland and was a founding member of the Turriff and District Pipe Band.

He died in 1961 and lies in Banff cemetery.

Pipe Major James Robertson around 1920.


Robertson around 1924



http://www.pipetunes.ca/composers.as...&composerID=48