The Piob. Society always concealed its tracks by insisting that John Macdonald taught his pupils as he had been taught by Calum "Piobaire" MacPherson to give its distortions credibility.
And it was the basic lie, which I publicly nailed back in 1985 in the fourth and final part of Pibroch: The Tangled Web broadcasts, called: “Who Changed the People’s Music?”
The most brazen Society distortion of any pibroch occurs in “The Wee Spree”, altered by the Society to “The Little Spree” to remove any purported Scotticism which was presumably too vulgar for the gentry concerned. (They would presumably also have altered “Wee Willie Winkie” to demonstrate their superiority).
Campbell-K and Grant then published the singling of the tune upside down, utterly ruining the impact of the pibroch, which is a lament. Not merely did they crunch the melody notes into semi-quavers, which had to be jerked out as short as possible, but to conceal his trickery, Campbell-K felt constrained to justify it by stating in the Society’s Book 7, 2nd edition, published in 1938, that the tune had been traditionally played with a short first A and a long melody note.
P.M.Bert Barron, St Andrews:
all he wanted to know was who had tricked him.
“For lack of other authority” (?) “the variation came to be played in this way, though there were others like the late J. MacDougall Gillies who, without having seen Angus MacKay’s MS, were certain that the appropriate printing was that given by Angus MacKay, and is now shown”, supposedly providing corroboration from a third and impartial source.
Here was the Artful Dodger at his legal worst. Campbell-K very well knew that Gillies had never seen the original Angus MacKay MS books but he also very well knew that MacDougall Gillies had as a young man had access to a copy of them, meaning he had in fact seen the Angus MacKay setting. But Gillies had already died in 1925 and Campbell-K could and did claim what the master piper had allegedly said without fear of contradiction.
Unhappily for what remains of Campbell-K’s integrity I have here a photocopy of “The Wee Spree” in MacDougall Gillies’s distinctive script. It has the theme notes of the variation long and the low As short in the traditional style in which he wrote out the tune for his protégé, Robert Reid, who later inscribed on it: “Compare this with Book 7 Piob Society’s page 197 and read notes.”
Another MacDougall Gillies manuscript book, which I was given under the Old Pals’ Act, corroborated the timing of the singling in every detail, with long melody notes and short A's. But the situation becomes irremediably worse.
The late Pipe Major Bert Barron, Black Watch, was taught pibroch by King George V’s piper, Robert Nicol, for twelve years. Nicol was taught by John Macdonald, who gave him “The Little Spree” with the distorted singling and in turn he taught Bert Barron the same distorted version.
Years later P.M. Barron called on Angus MacPherson, the son of Calum ‘Piobaire’ MacPherson, who had instructed John Macdonald in pibroch, including “The Wee Spree”.
Angus MacPherson, who lived at Inveran, had kept his father’s old and heavy chanter made by Thow of Dundee, and gave it to Bert, asking him to play “The Wee Spree” which, he said, was “one of my father’s favourite tunes.”
Bert played the singling with the theme notes cut and the low A's long. It was how he had been taught the tune by Nicol, who had been sent to John Macdonald by King George V in the belief his piper would be given traditional training in the music he loved so much – yet even the old king had been tricked. Here is the singling played "down".wee spree angus.mp3
When Bert Barron finished the pibroch, old Angus looked at him and sadly said: “That’s not how my father played the tune. He played it 'up'.” (i.e. with the theme notes long). Here is the singling played "up".wee spree cameron.mp3
PM Barron, as dedicated a piper as I have ever met, was appalled. All he wanted to discover was who had tricked him? Who, for that matter, had tricked Nicol? The answer was glaring them in the face, because John Macdonald specifically did not play the tune in the way he had taught Nicol and Brown, the king’s other Balmoral piper.
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For The Tangled Web broadcasts I had unearthed a stack of unpublished letters which John Macdonald himself had written to Seton Gordon, a prominent member of the Society’s music committee. He had been trying to
establish how Macdonald had played certain tunes which had been controversialised by Campbell-K’s behaviour. One of the most important tunes was “The Wee Spree”.
On 13 January 1939, Macdonald wrote to Seton Gordon: “About the ‘little Spree’, I play the siubhal” (i.e. singling) “with the emphasis on the second notes and the other variations as in Ceol Mor.”
Wee Spree or Little Spree? Where the trickery came from and by who
In fact he played it traditionally “up” as he had been taught by Calum Piobaire but had corrupted the music on the orders of Campbell-K to teach the royal pipers and his other Society pupils the lunatic versions of Angus MacKay.
Macdonald added: “I don’t see why the P.S. Music Committee do so much altering of the tunes they publish. A. Campbell says in the (book 7) notes that Gillies preferred (to play) with the rest on the first note”. He went on: “Gillies and I had a few words about this (26?) years ago. I asked him how he played it and his reply was that he didn’t play the tune.”
Gillies by this time had presumably had enough of Macdonald and would tell him nothing. He certainly taught the tune "up" which is borne out by the manuscript which was annotated by Robert Reid.
Macdonald added: “They have alterations with which I am not too happy and in my opinion they don’t add to the beauty of the melodies, and unfortunately they go down to history as the correct settings…”
But it was because of his own venality that the Deeside pipers played the distorted version of “The Wee Spree” which their pupils and their pupils do to this day, although John Macdonald’s letter, revealing the real way he played the tune, was read out in The Tangled Web broadcast as long ago as 13 October, 1985. His revelation has been distorted elsewhere by omitting the first sentence: "About the 'little Spree'...as in Ceol Mor."