Major General CS Thomason was one of the great figures in piping at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. His 400-page work ‘Ceol Mor’ paved the way for the formation of the Piobaireachd Society and its seminal collection of Books 1-16. We continue with the report from the Oban Times of July 10, 1909, of a dinner given in the Major General’s honour in Edinburgh that year…..
The Chairman made the presentation whilst the pipes played ‘Craigellachie’. General Thomason was received with cheers when he rose to reply. He could not tell them how much he appreciated the honour they had done him and they could not have done it in a nicer way. Seeing that he had the opportunity of addressing them he would like to say something about ‘Ceol Mor’.
Many people thought it was a great piece of presumption on his part to produce it, but he had a sincere love for the subject all through his life.
He came of piping stock. His grandfather was a good piper and he rubbed it well into him. He tried very hard in 1850 to get hold of copies of music.
When a copy of MacKay’s book [Angus MacKay 1838] came into his hands he copied the whole book and tried to abbreviate the work and that was the beginning of ‘Ceol Mor’ notation.
He got a look at the family volume they all prized very much, [Donald] Macdonald’s second, unpublished volume…… but he did not think he could make much of it. He took his collection of piobaireachd to India but he lost it at the Siege of Delhi. He felt that it had to be replaced somehow.
Fortunately he had a copy of MacKay’s book given to him and he set to work at this. When he first came back on furlough after the Mutiny he got a good deal of encouragement from different friends and old Sandy Cameron. But it was only when he came home in 1870-71 that he got his first real chance to begin.
He was in his home on Speyside, and an old piper, Donald MacKay, used to come over to him and they ‘held at the pibrochs from morning till night’ and he did what he would never regret all his life: he took down notes from Donald MacKay.
It was owing to these notes that they had ‘Ceol Mor’ today, because he got from MacKay all the variations of old Donald Cameron, the greatest piper in his time.
He took his music to India with him and he never heard a tune on the pipes for years, but he had his chanter with him and his notes. He never got anyone to listen to him [playing] the tunes and (to laughter), ‘perhaps it was as well they did not’.
He was two years at harbour works and had to go all round the coast. He was always wanting to be at ‘Ceol Mor’ but he did not get the opportunity until the work was over.
The day after he retired from active service he began. He had no intention of writing such a book, he simply wanted to reduce to order the notes he had. He found in MacKay’s book a line [of music] marked and he wondered that it never occurred to MacKay to hit upon the next thing – the sections and phrases. This did not seem to have occurred to anybody and it was the most important thing of all.
When he found the music was capable of correction and found a section or line destroying the rhythm it was corrected and thus they reduced chaos to order. The thing was as plain as they now saw it.
Very often he found the corrections corroborative of what he found in the variations and that was the first great step taken in Ceol Mor.
General Thomason was helped a great deal by the 2nd Highland Light Infantry. He made the acquaintance of Pipe Major Paterson and Kenneth Cameron, the son of Donald Cameron, and they were enthusiastic and ‘got through everything’.
He came home and became the purchaser of MacKay’s unpublished pibrochs. They belonged to a Mr Duff, a builder. Having got so far he felt he was getting out of his depth. He had a big book but that to make it complete he needed to adopt some system of abbreviation. The audience had no conception of the amount of writing and re-writing that that entailed.
At last he came to the conclusion that if his work was to come to anything he must give it out and leave it to other people to correct. When he issued the volume it was not done with any spirit of presumption but to make as public as he could the collection.
He trusted the pipers to help in correcting and in producing a second edition which would be most valuable of all. The help he received led a good deal to the simplification of his system.
That was the story of ‘Ceol Mor’. He had always had the idea that ceol mor was the music of nature (cheers from the audience). He made a comparison between the booming of the water over a fall and the softer music of the linn and the notes of the wild birds with the reproduction of them in pipe music.
Mr Archibald Menzies then proposed the toast ‘Tir nam Bean, ‘s na Gleann, ‘s na Glaisgaich’, Land of Bens, Glens and Heroes. He dwelt upon the grandeur of Highland scenery and of the bravery of the Highland soldiers and sailors. There was no finer music than the music of the Highlands of Scotland – vocal music and pipe music. It was also grand upon the fiddle (laughter).
- Read Part 1 here. We are grateful to Jeannie Campbell for her assistance with these articles.
