The Angus MacKay Manuscript

Angus MacKay’s MS, was compiled during the 1830’s and early ’40s by Angus MacKay, principle piper to Queen Victoria from 1843 to 1854.   It contains almost 200 tunes and is one of the largest MS collection assembled during the 19th century.  The manuscript is written out in fair copy using shorthand conventions pioneered by John MacGregor in the MacArthur – MacGregor MS.  The contents include transcripts from existing MS sources, and material collected from Angus’s father, John MacKay, and other tradition-bearers.  The thorough and systematic nature of Angus MacKay’s  work suggests a mind of great energy and ability.  He marks the transition of piping from an oral to a predominantly literate mode and his notational style is characterised by a concern to develop a simplified and standardised approach to ornament, and to reduce the rhythmical ambiguities of earlier scores by specifying note values with a new precision. Although the suggestion that all later piper-editors simply copied Angus MacKay’s work has no foundation, his influence on later collectors and editors was very great.

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