Also called Neil Gow's Lament for the Death of his Second Wife.
This is a beautiful slow air composed by Neil Gow after the passing of his second wife Margaret Urquhart of Perth. They were married for 30 years. Neil Gow outlived her by two years.
I have to research more on the story, however, I think they married after his first wife passed on prematurely from an illness...I think...Not sure so don't quote me on that bit of fuzzy memory...So if anyone knows more on this tune and have stumble into this wee nook in cyberspace before I update please do e-mail. and you'll get anonymous credit (alas, I won't post a full name or e-mail so you don't get unwanted Spam... Of course with lobster thermador and a nice Bernaise sauce, Spam isn't that bad...).
On a more serious note, more history of this tune as I find more about it.
I first got turned onto this tune after I heard it on a CD by Duncan Chisholm, Ian Mac Farlane & Bruce MacGregor called CD A Highland Fiddler on Macmeanmna Records (a label out of Skye) the music of Donald Riddell. Duncan's interpretation of this brings a tear to the eye... Ed Pearlman of Portland-America distributing (they distribute Celtic CDs and have a great selection), who is also a wonderful musician, highly recomended this CD to me once after a fiddle workshop, and now I too highly recommended this CD!!!! It's on the Macmeanmna Label and when you arrive at the site, you'll probably see Bruce MacGregor's 101 reasons to do Nothing -- that is also a great CD... Both CDs were produced another wonderful fiddler (and one of my all time favorites) Jonny Hardie.
After hearing this I decided to jot down the melody, and decided to just transcribe the skeleton of the melody without the extra ornaments...
Noet that this tune should be played a little slower than MM60 marking (that my program defaulted to and I neglected to change). It lends itself to rubato interpretation and there's room for ornaments, and the version I heard used many of the traditional "Scottish" ornaments (which come from the piping tradition). I then took my guitar and plunked along with the MIDI file and added a very basic accompaniment which is also open for interpretation and ornamentation using inversions or passing tones in the bass notes... :)
So...this will give ya mickle to do...
MIDI file--this file, generated from the notation below does NOT do this melody justice, but will give you an idea of the melody structure...