Annotation:Mrs. Russell of Blackhall

Back to Mrs. Russell of Blackhall

---

MRS. RUSSELL OF BLACKHALL. Scottish, Strathspey. F Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB. Composed by Robert 'Red Rob' Mackintosh, who also composed "Miss Russell of Blackhall's Reel." Edward Bannerman Ramsay, writing in his Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character (1877), remarks:

The Dean's mother was Elizabeth, the daughter of Sir Alexander Bannerman of Elsick, and she and her sister Mary, afterwards Mrs. Russell, were co-heirs of his estates in the pretty valley of the Feugh, including the whole parish of Strachan, of which the southern part, looking over into the How of the Mearns, was Mrs. Burnett's portion; the northern, with the beautiful bank of Dee where Blackhall stands, falling to Mrs. Russell. Both sisters were eminently handsome. I have a tradition of the young ladies, when they first came from their York school to Edinburgh, being followed and gazed at by passengers in the streets, for their beauty...

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Hunter (Fiddle Music of Scotland), 1988; No. 163.

Recorded sources: SMD608, Pete Clark - "Even Now: The Music of Neil Gow" (1998).

---

Back to Mrs. Russell of Blackhall