Annotation:Countess of Loudoun & Moiras Strathspey (The)

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COUNTESS OF LOUDOUN & MOIRAS STRATHSPEY, THE. Scottish, Strathspey (whole time). B Flat Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). Composed by biography:William Shepherd, an Edinburgh musician and music teacher who partnered with Nathaniel Gow in the music publishing firm of Gow & Shepherd in the 1790's.

The strathspey may be named for Flora Mure-Campbell, Marchioness of Hastings and 6th Countess of Loudoun (1780-1840), 2nd daughter of James Mure-Campbell, 5th Earl of Loudoun and Lady Flora Macleod. She married, in 1804, Francis Rawdon-Hastings, 2nd Earl of Moira (later Marquess of Hastings), and the couple had six children. It was she who commissioned architect Archibald Elliot's designs for Loudoun Castle, Ayrshire, constructed around 1807. The Marquis of Hastings was absent for much of their married life, governing in India and Malta, and died abroad in 1826, on board a ship off of Naples. At his direction his right hand was cut off and buried with his wife when she died; it now rests clasped with hers in the family vault at Loudoun Kirk.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Shepherd (A Second Collection of Strathspey Reels), 1800.

Recorded sources:

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