About the Music Three Scottish Airs is a collection of three songs from an area of Scotland known as The Borders. It is a region that was in dispute between Scotland and England for centuries and has proved a fertile source of myths, legends, and tales of bravery and of love found and lost. These three songs all have ancient Gaelic roots but as was the custom at the time the melodies were adapted and set to new lyrics in Scots or English reflecting the social changes taking place in Scotland at the time. The first, The Brae’s of Ballandyne was adapted from an older Gaelic air by composer and arranger James Oswald (1710-1769). The title refers to the hills or braes found south of Edinburgh in the Lanarkshire Hills. The words set by Oswald are those of a young man asking his love to come away with him to the Brae’s of Ballandyne, a place of beauty and calm. Duration 4:06 The next air, Logan Water, is based on a very old Gaelic melody that first appears in print in 1709. The poet Robert Burns wrote new lyrics for it around 1793 and set his text in an area south of Glasgow in the valley of the river known as Logan Water. The words Burns wrote are from the woman’s point of view and are a lament of love lost. It first appeared in print in an undated broadside that can be found in the Bodleian Library. Duration 3:37 Leader Haughs and Yarrow is the third air and is based on a melody that is attributed to a wandering minstrel known as Nichole Burn in the 17th Century. Other sources claim that it is older than that and has Gaelic roots that Burn adapted. The words themselves celebrate the lands found around Leader Water, a river that flows into the River Tweed that forms Scotland’s border with England. Haughs is a Scots word for lowlands found by a river and rhymes with the word loch, while Yarrow is the name given to the general area in which the river is found. Interestingly there is an arrangement of this song for voice written by Haydn as part of a collection of Scottish Folks song that were published in 1791 during his first visit to London. Duration 3:38
