The Piper's House
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
by Hugh Cheape and Decker Forrest RESEARCH Part Three The Piper’s House Taigh a’ Phìobaire N the last issue, we looked at the sub- The music of the Mackays of Raasay lies at the heart of Scotland’s stantial musical legacy of Angus Mackay I and his family. As well as books and mu- piping tradition although our conventional wisdom tends not to sic, another tangible link with Angus is his image. He is remarkable for being probably engage further with issues such as the origins of the Mackays or the the most illustrated Highland piper before Hebridean context, cultural and social, in which they flourished. the age of photography. Possibly more than half a dozen ‘portraits’ of him survive, rang- In this third and final part, piping scholars Professor Hugh Cheape ing in quality from an exquisite portrait in oils of 1840 to a series of engravings both and Dr Decker Forrest, both programme leaders at Scotland’s contemporary and posthumous. This latter class of imagery is less significant as por- Gaelic college, Sabhal Mòr Ostaig in Skye, look at the portraiture traiture than for its heavy use of symbolism of Angus Mackay and investigate further into the history of his with thistles, a castle or royal palace (usu- ally Windsor Castle), a version of the Royal family, Clann Mhic Ruairidh, before returning to Raasay to Arms, and the piper in Highland dress of the latest (early 19th century) fashion. recover something of the life and music within the Piper’s House. Portraits In the history of piping in Scotland, we have still heavy with symbolism, reveal much closer principally names, and images or portraits of attention to technical detail, giving us more pipers are rare though bagpipes and players convincing representations of the household appear widely on the broader canvas of Euro- piper of the early-to-mid 19th century and his pean art; but these are generally anonymous instrument. figures and tend to represent genre art-styles This series of portraits of Angus begins, as far with artistic elements and moral messages for as we know, with the very striking portrait in a contemporary audience. The instruments de- oils by Alexander Johnston (1815-1891). This picted in these genre portraits were represented was painted about 1840 when Angus was piper in the same spirit of educating and entertaining to Walter Campbell of Shawfield and Islay. The but mostly serve to frustrate the musicologist beautifully detailed image shows him playing or historian of piping. An interesting and the Prize Pipe won in the Highland Society important case in point is Richard Waitt’s Competition in 1835, with an inscribed silver much re-produced Piper to the Laird of Grant shield clearly shown on the chanter stock. of 1714 in which the viewer gains an impres- Surviving evidence otherwise tells us that the sion of William Cumming as a real person and inscribed prize ‘shield’ was indeed fixed on the yet the bagpipe is intriguingly strange and the chanter stock. The same detail appears in the chanter seemingly modelled on a shawm or Angus Mackay by Alexander Johnston, oil on canvas, dated same position on the earlier engraved portrait Baroque oboe. The instrument may have been 1840. By permission of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. of Neil Maclean, having won the Prize Pipe in ‘reconstructed’ when the artist returned to his 1784 and a Prize Pipe by Hugh Robertson of studio and found himself without sufficient for depicting a distinctive tartan and historic 1802 carries the shield on the chanter stock. information to represent the Great Highland mode of Highland dress. We presume that he The Angus Mackay painting is small and neat, Bagpipe. A later example is of the ‘portrait’ of is playing a ‘Great Highland Bagpipe’ but there 90.2 cm by 70.5 cm, prompting a comparison MacCrimmon by Robert Ronald McIan pub- is no material evidence for this MacCrimmon with the huge life-size image of William Cum- lished in The Clans of the Scottish Highlands in bagpipe as depicted here. In contrast, the ming at 213 cm by 154 cm. This is one of the 1847. Here, the figure is essentially a ‘vehicle’ majority of portraits of Angus Mackay, while notable series of portraits painted between PIPING TODAY • 14 RESEARCH 1713 and 1726 of the Laird of Grant, his fam- ily, relatives, cadet chiefs and tacksmen – the Luchd-Taighe or traditional retinue of the clan chieftain. What is immediately striking is that the portraits of the ‘Piper’ and the ‘Champion’ are life-size and all the rest – including the Laird and his wife – smaller, head-and-shoulders, portraits. Significantly, perhaps, the portrait of Angus Mackay is very small by comparison and compares more readily with the late 18th and 19th century genre portraits of the ‘servants’ of royal and aristocratic households. Another small portrait of Angus Mackay, of the subject’s head and shoulders only, was commissioned by the Highland Society of London but remains to be further researched. A later portrait of Angus Mackay is in The Royal Collection. The watercolour is by a London-born painter, William Wyld (1806- 1889), who worked in France and Italy but occasionally returned to the United Kingdom. On a trip to England in 1852, Queen Victoria invited him to Balmoral to draw and paint the surroundings. A portrait of the ‘Queen’s Piper’ seems to have been a legacy of this Royal com- mission in 1852. The composition of William Wyld’s portrait bears comparison with engraved images of Angus. A further ‘portrait’ in an ex- travagant style was published as frontispiece in W L Manson’s The Highland Bagpipe in 1901, ‘from a drawing in the possession of Duncan Munro, Kyleakin, Skye’. It is heavy with sym- bolism of Angus’s appointment to the Royal Household and his bagpipe – we assume – is a grotesque caricature. Queen Victoria’s interest in her Highland ‘servants’ is further reflected in the fine wa- tercolour portrait of the next Royal piper, The Queen’s Piper, Angus Mackay, by William Wyld, about 1852. William Ross, appointed in 1854 and painted With grateful thanks to The Royal Collection ©2011 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. in 1866. This image of her Scottish retain- ers is one of the series commissioned by the brother, John, won the fourth. It was said that of John Mackay. Close relationship or not, Queen from Kenneth Macleay (1802-1878) John Mackay had other oileanaich or ‘students’, John Bàn Mackenzie (1796-1864) must have and published in 1870 as ‘The Highlanders such as Archibald Munro, Angus Macpherson been about the same age as John Mackay’s son, of Scotland’. who was related to the MacLeods of Suidhisnis, Donald, and came second to him in the 1822 a farm next to Oighre, and John Bàn Mackenzie Highland Society competition and then took Traditions of Clann Mhic Ruairidh whose father, William, was married to a Raasay the first prize in 1823. John Bàn was born in According to island tradition, the Piper’s House Mackay. Achilty, Contin, Strathpeffer, and is said to have in Oighre or ‘Eyre’, at the south end of the Is- Raasay tradition still has more to tell us of been taught by Donald Mòr MacLennan and land of Raasay, was where Angus’s father, John, John’s immediate family than do the conven- John Beag MacRae, as well as by John Mackay raised his family and taught his four sons. His tional sources of piping history; we know that of Raasay. It is interesting to speculate as to eldest son, Donald, won the first prize in the he had a brother Donald – Dòmhnall Ruairidh why John Bàn crossed the country or was sent Highland Society of London’s pìobaireachd – and a sister, Catriona, and two or possibly for teaching in Raasay. Doubtless, as a pupil competition in 1822. His next son, Roderick, three other sisters. It would not be impossible with ability, he was welcomed into the Piper’s born in 1811, won the first prize in 1832. In therefore that William, the father of John Bàn House and probably stayed with the family 1835, Angus won the first prize and his younger Mackenzie, might have been a brother-in-law while in Raasay. PIPING TODAY • 15 RESEARCH WORLDS John Mackay was born about 1767, accord- and was buried at Kilmoluaig in Raasay where ing to his age as given in a later census record. his burial place has now been marked by the He is listed aged 75 in the 1841 Census, living Raasay Heritage Trust. Aged 80 or 81, this is a together with his wife, Margaret, aged 70, in longevity not all together typical of the 18th Kyleakin in the household of his son, Roderick, or 19th centuries, but reminiscent of the described as ‘Merchant’. By 1792, John Mackay patriarchal ages of piping families such as was piper to MacLeod of Raasay, that is, James MacCrimmon and Mackay. It was a fact MacLeod who had succeeded his father, John noted in the 1790 Statistical Account for MacLeod, 9th of Raasay (and the host of the Parish of Snizort (in which Raasay Johnson and Boswell), in 1786. John Mackay was) by the Rev Malcolm MacLeod was listed as winner of the Highland Society’s who wrote that ‘the air, on the whole, pìobaireachd competition in Edinburgh in is not thought unsalubrious, and some 1792 when he won the first prize of a Great instances of longevity tend to confirm Highland Bagpipe. In 1823 or possibly 1824, the opinion… many are now living in aged 56, John Mackay left the Laird of Raasay’s this district above eighty years of age’.