Annotation:Mrs. Forbes Leith

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MRS. FORBES LEITH. Scottish, Reel. B Flat Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (Hardie): AA’BB’ (Perlman). Composed by the great Scottish fiddler, composer and dancing master J. Scott Skinner (1842-1927) in 1868 and published in his collection Thirty New Strathspeys and Reels, a volume dedicated to Mrs Forbes Leith of Whitehaugh House, Aberdeenshire. The family seat was on the river Don, and featured a fine Grecian portico. Skinner also published it in his Miller o’ Hirn Collection (1881). The melody has currency among Cape Breton fiddlers.

Source for notated version: Kenny Chaisson (b. c. 1947, Bear River, North-East Kings County, Prince Edward Island; now resident of Rollo Bay) [Perlman]; Winston Fitzgerald (1914-1987, Cape Breton) [Cranford].

Printed sources: Bain (50 Fiddle Solos), 1989; p. 44 (appears as "Forbes Leith"). Cranford (Winston Fitzgerald), 1997; No. 106, p. 44 (appears as "Mrs. Forbes of Leith"). Hardie (Caledonian Companion), 1992; p. 60. Henderson (Flowers of Scottish Melody), 1935. Perlman (The Fiddle Music of Prince Edward Island), 1996; p. 114. Skinner (Thirty New Strathspeys and Reels), 1868. Skinner (Miller o' Hirn Collection), 1881.

Recorded sources:

See also listing at:
Alan Snyder's Cape Breton Fiddle Recordings Index [1]