Hector The Hero: A Song History

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Hector the Hero is a lament by the Scottish fiddler and composer James Scott Skinner, written for Major-General Sir Hector Macdonald.[1] Skinner, born in 1843 in the Aberdeenshire parish of Banchory-Ternan and died in Aberdeen in 1927, had more than 600 compositions in print, many of them self-published.[2] He performed in Highland dress, an image that made him the kilted "Strathspey King."[3] Macdonald, known as "Fighting Mac," had enlisted as a private in the Gordon Highlanders and risen to major general, becoming a national hero after commanding a brigade at Omdurman in 1898.[4] In 1902 he took command of British forces in Ceylon; newspapers later carried allegations of homosexuality against him, and on 25 March 1903 he shot himself in his Paris hotel room.[5][4]

Print of a ruined abbey above wooded riverbanks, with figures by the water in the foreground

Joseph Mallord William Turner, Liber Studiorum: Dumblain Abbey, Scotland, etching and mezzotint. A Scottish scene, shown for its setting; it has no connection to the tune.

Skinner's manuscript of the tune, which he called a coronach, is dated at Monikie on 27 March 1903, two days after Macdonald's death, and marked for immediate publication.[1] In a note on the piece he asked for it to be played in church on Sunday, with the minister announcing the death as a national calamity, and wrote, "my eyes are full."[6] It appeared in Skinner's Harp and Claymore collection, published in 1904 and edited by Gavin Greig, whose handwritten fair copy of the tune served as the printers' copy.[7][8] Words were also set to the tune by Thomas McWilliam, and the University of Aberdeen's notes on that song take it, together with a Robert Service poem, as a sign of public sympathy for Macdonald.[9]

According to the Traditional Tune Archive, the tune is considered among Skinner's best, and he played it under another title on a 1921 concert tour; the archive lists recordings by artists including the Bothy Band and Tony McManus, and cites Perlman (1996) for its use as a funeral lament on Prince Edward Island.[10] Gail L. Van Amberg includes it in the MaxDAD Songbook, a collection of 33 tunes for the Folkcraft MaxDAD mountain dulcimer, a five-string instrument tuned DADAD, published by Fingers Of Steel.[11]

Our book that contains the song "Hector The Hero"

Sources

  1. University of Aberdeen, The Music of James Scott Skinner: "Hector the Hero" (manuscript in Skinner's hand, JSS0176).
  2. University of Aberdeen, The Music of James Scott Skinner: "Biography".
  3. University of Glasgow Library, Special Collections: "Book of the Month, June 2000" (James Scott Skinner).
  4. Encyclopaedia Britannica: "Sir Hector Macdonald".
  5. National Records of Scotland: "Sir Hector MacDonald (1853-1903)".
  6. University of Aberdeen, The Music of James Scott Skinner: "Note about Hector the Hero" (JSS0177).
  7. University of Aberdeen, The Music of James Scott Skinner: "The Harp and Claymore".
  8. University of Aberdeen, The Music of James Scott Skinner: "Hector the Hero" (Gavin Greig manuscript, JSS0622).
  9. University of Aberdeen, The Music of James Scott Skinner: "Words, Hector the Hero" (JSS0623).
  10. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Hector the Hero".
  11. Fingers Of Steel: "Gail L. Van Amberg, MaxDAD Songbook".
  12. Image: Joseph Mallord William Turner, Liber Studiorum: Dumblain Abbey, Scotland, etching and mezzotint. The Cleveland Museum of Art.

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