Authors: Kirsty Gunn
The MacCrimmons were a Scottish Highland family, pipers to the chiefs of Clan MacLeod for an unknown number of generations, who established, from the sixteenth century onwards, a piping college of music at Boreraig, where they lived, near the Clan MacLeod seat at Dunvegan on the Isle of Skye. The college was famed throughout Scotland and beyond, and pupils would be sent to study there for seven years to perfect their playing and understanding of Ceol Mor. It was, in this way, the first school of piping established in Scotland, and in the world. It was founded at the time of the great universities of Oxford and Cambridge and St Andrews, and long before any of the other schools of music we know today – and though there is nothing to survive of its walls and rooms today, it is a presence, a structure mounted at the back of any real piper or serious bagpipe student, a place they can claim as part of their tradition as they claim, too, the tradition of the family who lived there for so long.
Over time, many pieces of piobaireachd have been attributed to the MacCrimmons, as they were one of the most famous families of hereditary pipers – along with the clans MacArthur (pipers to MacDonald of Sleat), MacGregor (pipers to Campbell of Glenlyon) and Rankins (pipers to the MacLeans of Coll, Duart and Mull). Even though the term ‘hereditary’ is not a native Gaelic term, it has been used, throughout the history of bagpipe playing, to imply an above-average skill or special status – as well as the sense, noted in earlier Appendices, of a tradition that is passed down through canntaireachd and close tuition from generation to generation. So in the Scottish Highlands, and in Europe itself until the Industrial Revolution, most positions were inherited, ‘from the chief down to the humblest cotter’, as John Gibson notes in his popular book (see Bibliography/Music: Piobaireachd/secondary). But in the case of the MacCrimmons, one is describing the great inheritance of art and aesthetics that was expressed in the manner of, say, the dynasty of Bach in Germany, or the Breughel family of painters in Holland.
This tradition – of a musical genealogy – continues to the present in that, in the twentieth century, the chiefs of Clan MacLeod instated two MacCrimmons as hereditary pipers to the clan. Despite continued debate and discussion amongst historians and scholars about the genesis of this family of musicians, there is no doubt of their inheritance and influence upon the playing and understanding of piobaireachd. The music, as they say, is the all.
Certainly the origin of the MacCrimmons has long been debated. One theory, from Captain Neil MacLeod of Gesto, was that the MacCrimmons descend from an Italian from the city of Cremona. Gesto was an intimate friend of Black John MacCrimmon (d.1822), the last hereditary piper to MacLeod, and it is
reputed
that from him Gesto received the ‘Cremona tradition’. According to Gesto, the founder of the MacCrimmons was a priest from Cremona named Giuseppe Bruno, whose son Petrus (or Patrick Bruno) was born at Cremona in 1475 and later emigrated to Ulster in 1510. On Patrick’s arrival in Ireland, he married the daughter of a piping family and Gaelicised his name. Gesto’s origin for the Mac-Crimmons is not taken very seriously today. According to Alastair Campbell of Airds, the tradition was ‘fuelled by a non-Latinist finding the word “Donald” in a 1612 Latin charter to Donald MacCrimmon, [and thinking] that they were Italians from Cremona’.
It is generally more accepted that the surname may be of Norse origin. With MacCrimmon being an Anglicised form of the Scottish Gaelic Mac Ruimein, meaning ‘son of Ruimean’. Ruimean is possibly a Gaelic form of the Old Norse personal name Hroth-mundr, which is composed of the elements hroth (meaning ‘fame’) + mundr (meaning ‘protection’).
While this name origin would seem to tie in with the MacCrimmons’ association with the MacLeods and the Isle of Skye, the earliest references to a MacCrimmon (who was also a piper) appears in Campbell lands. The earliest is found in a bond of 29 November 1574 between Colin Campbell of Glenorchy and ‘John Tailzoure Makchrwmen in the Kirktoun of Balquhidder and Malcolme pyper Makchrwmen in Craigroy’, this being more than ninety years before the MacCrimmons are found as pipers to MacLeod of Dunvegan in Skye. Another early reference is to a ‘Patrik Mcquhirryman, piper’ cited in the Register of the Privy Council, vol. 5 (1592–99), in connection with a crime in Perthshire. Indeed, Alastair Campbell of Airds also speculated that the MacCrimmons were pipers to the Campbells of Glenorchy prior to the MacLeods of Dunvegan and Harris – so showing how the mists of
uncertainty
and hypothesis surround the history and genesis of a spectacularly talented family who have influenced bagpipe music at its very heart.
The MacCrimmons held the appointment of hereditary pipers to the MacLeods at Dunvegan in unbroken succession for about three hundred years. Tradition says that the first hereditary piper was Findlay, appointed about 1500, and that he was followed by his son Iain Odhar, who was succeeded in 1570 by his son Donald Mor.
With Donald Mor MacCrimmon begins the real fame of the family and their College of Piping at Boreraig that became, as MacNeill notes (see Bibliography/ Music: Piobaireachd/secondary), ‘the finishing school for every good piper, the compositions and those of their pupils reached the greatest heights ceol mor has known’. After Donald Mor’s death in 1640, he was succeeded by his son Patrick Mor, who in turn was followed in 1670 by his son Patrick Og, perhaps the greatest teacher of the MacCrimmons.
Patrick Og died in 1730 and was succeeded by his sons Donald Ban, who was killed at the Rout of Moy in 1746, and Malcolm, who composed the great ‘
Lament
for Donald Ban’ and died in 1769. By that time the whole clan structure in the Highlands was changing and the profession of piper, which for so long had been an honourable and full-time position, was no longer supported as a vocation.
Nevertheless
, Malcolm’s two sons, Donald Ruadh and Iain Dubh, both seem to have been hereditary pipers to the MacLeods. Iain Dubh died in 1822 and Donald Ruadh in 1825 – and although they had sons who might have inherited their titles, there was no longer a college or a position to go with the title. An era had come to a close.
Such was the fame of the MacCrimmon family that many myths and stories grew up around them pertaining to their origins and the sheer magic of their music. Here follows one such ‘faerie story’, by way of an example:
To receive a faerie gift is an uncertain blessing: it may bring you joy, healing or the skill to make the most beautiful music in the world. It may fall softly and unbidden into your life like a ray of moonlight, but it may also vanish with the light of day if you do not keep your covenant with the Good People. Steal
faerie gold and you will have a pocketful of withered leaves by the time you get home, or, like the Scottish lad who thought he’d won a pair of bagpipes from the faeries, nothing but a puff-ball and willow-reed.
One man gifted with faerie music was Iain Og MacCrimmon of Skye in the Scottish Hebrides. Iain was sitting on a faerie hill in the west of the island, feeling disconsolate because he was not considered a good enough piper to attend a competition promoted by the chieftain, MacLeod of Dunvegan Castle. A faerie woman approached him, saying:
‘Your handsome looks and sweet music
Have brought you a fairy sweetheart.
I bequeath you this silver chanter:
At the touch of your fingers,
It will always bring forth the sweetest music.’
She gave him the silver chanter for his pipes, and taught him the art of piping. Iain Og hurried off to Dunvegan Castle and won the contest over musicians from all over the Highlands, for all could tell that his music had the gift of faerie fingers on the chanter. He became the hereditary piper to the MacLeods, and from that day on, the MacCrimmons of Skye produced many generations of renowned pipers and composers. He founded a famous school for pipers at Boreraig, his home in the west of Skye, where people came from all over Scotland and Ireland to study for a full seven years.
But MacCrimmon had been warned by his faerie sweetheart that should he or any of his descendants treat the silver chanter disrespectfully, the gift for music would be removed from his family for ever. One stormy day, one of his descendants was returning to Skye from the nearby island of Raasay with the Chief of the MacLeods. As he played in the piper’s seat at the prow of the chieftain’s galley, the swell of the waves caused his fingers to slip. Finally, he laid down the pipes with a derogatory remark, blaming the silver chanter for his mistakes. At that moment, the chanter rose of its own accord from the galley, slipped over the gunwale and into the sea, where it has since remained. From that time on, the MacCrimmons’ hereditary gift dried up, their school of piping fell into decay, and the family’s fortunes declined. A lone cairn marks the spot where the school of piping stood, and it is said that the sound of ghostly piping can still be heard in the sea-cliffs and caverns of Boreraig.
The Sutherlands
The Sutherlands are an example of a more recent family of pipers that have maintained a long tradition of musicianship in the north-east of the Scottish mainland – since the early part of the eighteenth century, records show, and no doubt before that time.
This tradition reached its height in the mid-twentieth century with the famous ‘Winter Classes’ that were established at The Grey House, itself located on the site of an earlier dwelling that was home to a musical school of a less formal nature, when one John Roderick MacKay Sutherland, known as ‘First John’, first started giving lessons to local pipers and those who came from further away to take
instruction
from him.
Details of the family and the history of the School they established in their home forms a great deal of the substance of ‘The Big Music’ – and further information about the family is contained within the various movements within it, in particular in some of the variations that occur in the Crunluath section.
Like the MacCrimmon family – though the Sutherlands themselves would never compare themselves in this way – the Sutherland family maintained an unbroken succession of pipers since records were first kept of the family’s activities from the mid-1700s onwards. The table at the front of this book indicates the seven
generations
that lead up to the present day, although it is unknown at the time of compiling these Appendices whether Callum Innes Sutherland will take up his father’s pipes in accordance with his history. There are also papers in the Crunluath
movement
of ‘The Big Music’ and various Appendices here that describe more fully the history of the family and their musical legacy.
As those papers show, The Grey House itself is an important element in the
description
of the family’s musical endeavours, representing as it does, in its various incarnations – from a traditional, modestly proportioned longhouse to a more
substantial
Victorian home that itself is extended – the development and growth of a musical tradition. By the time the House has reached its present state as a graciously proportioned building with a walled garden and outbuildings, with large reception rooms etc., so too has the music that emanates from it accumulated prestige and finish.
Thus, he who put the finishing touches to the front and side extensions of the House was also the musician most known to pipers the world over.
Again, details of the history and story of the House and its musical associations are contained throughout ‘The Big Music’. The List of Additional Materials
contains
further sources of information.
As indicated, the strong history of piping schools in the Highlands of Scotland has given rise to a tradition of piobaireachd being taught to pipers and musicians throughout their lives, no matter what their status or position. The MacCrimmons’ school has set a precedent this way, one might say, that always will be followed – the rigorous and technique-driven Glasgow School of Piping being, perhaps, the most famous example of these in the present era.
The Highlands today are also home to a number of smaller world-class piping schools, most of which are advertised by website or in relevant publications such as
The Piping Times.
These schools, unlike the ‘Winter Classes’ of The Grey House, tend to run all year round in short courses of no more than a week. In addition, the Piobaireachd Society, the National School of Piping and the Army School all run their own sets of masterclasses and tutorials, and one-to-one tuition is also available on an ad hoc or timetabled basis.
An example of such a class is detailed below and is a good representation of the terms of tuition etc. that is available. This information is taken from the Wallace Bagpipes School of Music:
School dates
Spring School – 11th to 15th April
Summer School 1 – 27th June to 1st July
Summer School 2 – 4th to 8th July
Summer School 3 – 25th to 29th July
Autumn Piping School – 17th to 21st October
The daily programme will cover all aspects of performance on the Highland
Bagpipe
including practice routines, technique, musical expression, timing and tuning and students will be taught in small groups of similar ability for three to four hours per day, with practice time built in. The course commences daily at 9 a.m. and will finish at approximately 4.50 p.m.
Workshop topics will include such subjects as reed-making, maintenance, massed bands theory and tuning. Students are also encouraged to offer suggestions for what they may like to work on, and other activities throughout the week may include: Teachers’ Recitals, Student Concert and a Pipe Band Visit.