Barnaby Brown - Spellweaving: Ancient Music from the Highlands of Scotland (2016)

The patronage of elite Highland pipers collapsed after the Jacobite rebellion of 1745. Worried that the classical music of the Gaels would fade away, the English-speaking gentry offered prize money for scientific notations.

By 1797, Colin Campbell had written 377 pages in a unique notation based on the vocables of Hebridean 'mouth music, but unintelligible to the judges in Edinburgh Campbells extraordinary work of preservation has remained overlooked or misunderstood until now. Barnaby Browns realisations bring the musical craftsmanship of a remote culture vividly to life, giving a voice back to some of Europes most illustrious ancient instruments and refocusing attention on a type of music whose trance-inducing long spans and elaborate formal patterning echo the knots and spells of Celtic culture.

Bill Taylor gives gentle if learned accounts on clàrsach and lyre and Brown takes a spacious solo on a vulture bone flute, but the highlight is Clare Salaman doing bold and sensitive things on Hardanger fiddle with a majestic 15-minute account of The Sutherlands Gathering. --The Guardian