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Skinner wrote: "The great work of my life has been composing music for the people of Scotland. ... The music that reaches and lives in the hearts of the people is the music that they whistle or sing at their daily toil or in their hours of recreation, that the mother croons o'er the cradle, and that accompanies her children, a joyous companion, through life." (Skinner, 1994:103-4) Skinner was justified in thinking that his "great work" was as a composer; his name lives on in Scotland and further afield as a result of his compositions, many of which are still very popular at the present day. One of the most famous of these is "The Bonny Lass o' Bon Accord". Skinner tells us that it was written for a servant girl called Wilhelmina Bell whom he met in December 1884 in Aberdeen. She was a good dancer, and her father had played bass fiddle for Skinner's father, William. When Skinner asked why she was a servant she became upset and said that the family was in debt as her father had signed someone else's bill, and was being held responsible for the payment of it. To console the girl, Skinner said: "Never mind, my lassie, ... I'll mak' a tune that'll maybe keep ye in min' when we're baith deid." (Skinner, 1994:99) He wrote the tune the next morning.
Another famous tune of Skinner's, "The Cradle Song", was written after he witnessed a beautiful woman tending a sick child in Forres, and "The Miller o' Hirn" relates to the times he played for dancing at the Mill near Banchory where he said that he found the two things he prized most – "dancing fiddle strings" and warm friendships (Smith, 1993:172).
Find out more about James Scott Skinner: James Scott Skinner homepage - Dancing master and performer - Collections
About the author - Acknowledgements - Banchory homepage - Bibliography - Celtic and Scottish Studies homepage - Conclusion - Homepage
Published by the Department of Celtic and Scottish Studies, University of Edinburgh
© University of Edinburgh 2001
Last modified Wednesday, 26-Aug-2009 13:33:34 BST by Katherine Campbell