This is a dowloadable copy of the 1910 work transliterated from the Gesto Canntaireachd by P/M William MacLean, Kilcreggan. He has taken the canntaireachd and interpreted it in such a way as to provide us with scores of tunes in settings that are eminently playable by today’s pipers. There is a fulsome introduction and you can read more about the pipe major here. This volume is offered as a pipingpress.com service and is taken from a copy of the orginal work in the possession of editor Robert Wallace. Roderick Cannon: ‘Niel MacLeod was the laird of Gesto, which is about six miles from Dunvegan in the Isle of Skye. He was born about 1766/8, and succeeded to the land and title in 1787. He served in the Army from 1793, becoming a Lieutenant in the 42nd Regiment, and finally a Captain when he left the Regiment in 1797. lain Dubh MacCrimmon is thought to have been born in the early 1730s and lived until 1822. In 1828, Niel Macleod published this book containing 20 tunes in canntaireachd ‘as verbally taught by the McCrummen pipers … to their apprentices’, taken, as he says, from John Mccrimmon. The book was reprinted by J, & R. Glen in 1880. The reprint was freshly typeset, but is extremely accurate… A recent discovery is a short manuscript written by Macleod of Gesto, of historical notes on the 20 tunes in the present work, now in the National Library, M.us.D.s.138.’ A copy of the original MS book is also available for download here.
Gesto Collection – Transliterated by P/M W MacLean
