Saturday 27 March 2021
Tune of the Day: Tulloch Gorm
Traditional Scottish strathspey
This tune appears to be quite old. Music historian Francis Collinson finds that a tune in the Rowallan lute manuscript (c. 1612-1628) called “Ouir the Deck Davy” has a “distinct resemblance” to “Tullochgorum”. The earliest record of this tune in more or less modern form is as a rant entitled “Reel of Tullochgorum” in David Young's Duke of Perth manuscript (a.k.a. the Drummond Castle manuscript) of 1734; it is also found in the James Gillespie Manuscript of Perth (1768). These early versions show little of the later strathspey rhythm, at least as noted, and appear as rants. The first appearance of “Tulloch Gorm” as a strathspey is in Robert Bremner's A Collection of Scots Reels or Country Dances, dated 1757.