- 1. Glen Tilt/Frank’s Reel ((unknown Scottish/John McCusker; arranged Pria Schwall-Kearney)
- The first tune (author unknown, but appears as the "Duke of Athol's Forest Lodge, Glen Tilt" in Alexander McGlashan's A Collection of Reels of 1786) was taught to us by Colin McLeod, formerly of Aberdeen now Melbourne. Colin came a long way from home to join us and has greatly enlivened the fiddling scene in Melbourne. The second feels like it's always been there, one of his best by John McCusker, one of the great fiddlers of our time, whose recording on his debut CD "John McCusker" is the seminal version. Soloists are Jean and Gus (Glen Tilt) and Sarah and Pria (Frank's).
- 2. From St Kilda to King’s Cross/Flying Home to Shelley (Paul Kelly/ Paul Gitlitz;arranged by MSFC creative team)
- Well, why not? Neil sings our tribute to Melbourne's best loved song-writer, Paul Kelly, the master of economical lyrics, who makes a case here for Melbourne over Sydney. Featuring also a tune taught to Judy & Pria at the Valley of the Moon fiddle camp in 2004, by Rodney Miller, the fabulous New England fiddler, and written by Paul Gitlitz, who's from New York but lives in British Columbia. Our reading led us to how the seaside suburb of St Kilda got its name - in brief, a boat called the Spirit of St Kilda brought a load of assisted migrants a long way from home, some time in the 1850s, and their happy picnic on the sands of St Kilda Beach led to the choice = you can get the full story on our web-site.
- 3. The Quiet Man/Miss Isabella Robertson’s Reel/Ally Croker (Jim Sutherland, Robert Macintosh/unknown; arranged Chris Duncan)
- Chris taught this set at our 2005 fiddling camp – every 2nd year the Club travels to the Benalla/ Mansfield area for a gathering with players from NESSIE (North East Scottish Strings including Elbowpipes) and the Canberra and Adelaide Scottish Fiddlers. It's a great time away, and we learn lots of new tunes. We loved the set and polished it on our NZ tour – we reckon this strathspey is as close as we have got yet, the jig is cool, and the reel Chris plays with the kids is fun. Even though it has no discernible link with our theme, it appears here anyway, for your enjoyment!
- 4. Last Farewell to Stirling (trad collected by Gavin Greig; arranged Jenny Thomas)
- Fiddle diva, Jenny Thomas arranged and sings a feisty version of this traditional song collected 100 years ago by Gavin Greig, featuring (unusually) a Scottish convict on his way into exile. Scottish Australians are often heard to boast that whereas the Irish provided about 25 out of 100 of all transportees, the Scots provided less than 8. Of course a brief reading of history will show that the Scottish penal system in the late 18th and early 19th centuries was far less brutal than the English, and that transportation in Scotland was the fate of repeat burglars and murderers rather than petty thieves and forgers! Whatever the reason, the Scots were far more likely to come to Australia as free settlers or with assisted passage following the Highland clearances and famines, than as convicts. As one observer noted "A man is vanished from Scotland for a great crime, from England for a small one, and from Ireland, for hardly no crime at all."
- 5. The Virtuosi Set Sir George Clark of Pennycuik/Miss Baird of Saughton Hall's Hornpipe/Fleur de Mandragore (Nath.Gow/Nath.Gow/Michel Bordeleau; arranged C. Duncan & P.Schwall-Kearney)
- Put together Chris Duncan, one of Australia's master fiddlers with Pria Schwall-Kearney, one of the country's most exciting young players, add a top guitarist, Neil Adam, and this is the result. The set was performed to great acclaim on our two-week tour of New Zealand in September 2005. Says Pria "Sir George Clark and Miss Baird are tunes that Nathaniel Gow (1766-1831) named for rich people who could afford to commission them, while Fleur de Mandragore is by Michel Bordeleau, the awesome Quebecois guitar/mandolin player from La Bottine Soutiante. "
- 6. What a Day It's Been (Alex Legg; arranged Judy Turner)
- We first met Scottish singer Alex Legg late in 2003, when one of our fiddlers, Rodney Smith, brought his brother in law, recently arrived from the UK, along to the club one Sunday afternoon to say hello. We immediately started to think of ways we could work together, and after a couple of forays into his traditional repertoire asked if we could do one of his songs. Alex generously let us arrange this beautiful song however we wanted.
- 7. Fiddles and Feet
 Sheepskin & Beeswax/Maggie's Pancakes
(Trad French Canadian/Stuart Morison; arranged Pria Schwall-Kearney)
- Two tunes melded together by the foot percussion of Pria Schwall-Kearney and Sarah Davies. The first was learned from La Bottine Souriante, the second from some campers at the Whare Flat Festival in the South Island of New Zealand. Sheepskin and Beeswax is a traditional French Canadian tune from NW Quebec, where apparently they used to put words to it: "Sheepskin and beeswax, it makes a mighty plaster. the more you try and get it off the more it sticks to faster". Maggie's Pancakes is a Scottish reel. Not sure how the set fits our theme, but it sure is fun to play with the drummers and dancers – we first performed it at a mighty gig in the Hawthorn Town Hall, with the entire drum section of the Hawthorn City Pipe Band, who lent us Bryce, Hugh and Mark for this recording.
- 8. A Long Way From Home (Neil Adam; arranged Neil Adam & Jack Wilson)
- This traditional ballad from Northern Ireland, was set to music by Neil Adam in 1976 and has since been recorded a number of times in the UK and Australia - here we add one of our top young fiddlers, Jack Wilson, on his erhu (Chinese fiddle), giving it an added touch of lonesomeness.
- 9. Hoea Ra (trad NZ; arranged Claire Alleway & Judy Turner)
- We learned this gorgeous tune from the NZ band Rua, and learned some of its provenance via Google. Jimmy Young wrote the third and fourth parts of the tune. It seems that various lyrics have been set to the original first parts of the tune over the years. The earliest reference we found was to a Maori song "Come Dear Maidens" which became very popular in NZ during World War One, and was in fact used (in published form) as a fundraiser for the Maori battalion fighting in Passchendaele. It has also had a life as a rather sentimental song "A Mother As Lovely As you-. Either way, it is still very well known in NZ, with many audience members saying they associated it with their schooldays. Featuring here the cello playing of young Clare Alleway, accompanied by Judy on fiddle and Neil on piano.
- 10. The Shetland Set Da Road to Da Oube/Izzy's Jig/Merryn's Reel (David Hall/Margaret Scollay/Ronnie Cooper; arr. MSFC creative team)
- This set is played on fiddles built by fiddle maker and Shetland expat John Anderson, between 1929 and 1959, mostly in Melbourne. A railway worker most of his life, Anderson's main love (outside his family of course) was the music and fiddling of his native islands. We were lucky enough to have the support of his many grandchildren and his three surviving daughters in collecting the fiddles, and the patience and commitment of Jim Vizard (fiddle maker and club member) in putting them back in playing order. We were introduced to the first tune by another Melbourne Shetland expat, Carl Hall, brother of the late composer and to the second by the composer herself, in California in 2004. The third we learned (variations and all) from the great Shetland band Fiddlers' Bid. Soloists are Judy and Gus (Da Road), Pria (Izzy's), and Jack (Merryn's) playing Anderson fiddles I 1,12, 20 and 25.
- 11. From the Friends (and Land I Love) (Robbie Burns/ arranged Neil Adam)
- This song by Robbie Burns is thought to be written from the viewpoint of Bonnie Prince Charlie, looking back fondly on Scotland from the loneliness of exile. Of course, the sentiment is just as appropriate to the life of Georgiana McCrae, famous diarist and Melbourne pioneer, whose life at Gordon Castle (where as the illegitimate daughter of the Duke she was given a good education and left home an accomplished portraitist) was a far cry from her life in the pioneer shack on the Portsea Peninsula. The shack is still there, owned and maintained by the National Trust, and the region is now known as McCrae after Georgiana and her husband Andrew who were the first white settlers there, in the 1840s. One of Georgiana's songbooks, held at the State Library of Victoria, contains this song, hand transcribed by her, along with hundreds of others. The books have been the subject of a study by Melbourne researcher Rosemary Richards, published as "Far Frae the Friends" in 2005.
- 12. The Gordon Family Set The Duchess of Gordon's New Strathspey/ The Marchioness of Huntly's Jig/Marquis of Huntly's Favourite (Robert Mackintosh/William Marshall/William Marshall; arranged Chris Duncan)
- Following in the footsteps of Georgiana McCrae, Chris Duncan was asked to put together a set in which all tunes were named for members of the Gordon/Huntly family, from which Georgiana was descended. He manfully searched his huge database of tunes and came up with these, beautifully played by him and accompanied by Neil Adam, whose grandfather Jimmy Adam, a talented cricket all rounder, had, coincidentally, played in the Duke of Gordon's first eleven in the 1870s!
- 13. Da Guiser’s March/MacLeod’s Farewell (Gideon Stove/ Donald Shaw)
- Da Guisers' is from Shetland - composed by Gideon Stove (1875-1954), who wrote it for the "Up Helly Aa" Britain's biggest fire festival and torchlight procession, held in Lerwick on the last Tuesday every January. Over 900 colourfully dressed "guisers" follow the Jarl's squad of Vikings and their longship through the darkened streets of the town to the burning site. Here the official ceremony ends in a spectacular blaze as 800 flaming torches are thrown into the galley. We learned the tune it from The Fiddle Music of Scotland edited by James Hunter. The slow reel was taught us by the lovely NZ fiddler Jamie McLennan, who plays with the Emily Smith Band out of Glasgow. We pinched Jamie's arrangement too, cause we liked it so much. The reel was written by Donald Shaw of Capercaillie, who gave it the title you see above, and who must be disappointed with the number of people who know it as The Wedding Reel.
- 14. The Dark Island (David Silver & Iain MacLaughlan; arranged Ron McCoy & Neil Adam)
- One of those modern songs that feels like a classic from the moment it's written – apparently first for a BBC film of the same name, in 1963. It became the unofficial anthem of our NZ tour where we much enjoyed startling a ferry load of tourists by shouting it to the skies above Milford Sound. Featuring Dr Ronald McCoy, one of Australia's best known Gaelic singers, here singing in English, and supported by one of the Club's mum and dad teams, Dave and Di Alleway, of the band Drop 0' Scotch, on harp and small pipes, and the marvellous piping of Andrew McKeon from the Hawthorn City Pipe Band.
- 15. Da movie (Ashley & Louise Schwall-Kearney)
- Made by another of our mum and dad teams, Ashley and Louise Schwall-Kearney, this is a brief excerpt of a 20 minute documentary on our trip to New Zealand.
(The movie can be viewed nyputting it in the cd drive of your computer.)
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