Our wonderful cello teacher at The Abbey, Florence Petit-Sibley, has released an interesting CD with her group, Ensemble Hesperi. 

Full of the Highland Humours, the debut recording from award-winning period group Ensemble Hesperi, celebrates the immense success Scottish music enjoyed in eighteenth-century London. In 1700 the first known collection of Scots Tunes was printed in London by the celebrated music publisher, Henry Playford. 

Ever the savvy advertiser, Playford claimed in the title that the music contained therein was ‘Full of the Highland Humours’, revealing the stereotypical lens through which many eighteenth-century Londoners saw Scotland. 

Just as today, Highland dress has become an emblem of Scotland as a whole, in the 1700s its national music was often symbolically associated with the Highlands, a distant and ‘exotic’ landscape where wild, pathetic melodies could be found. Yet in reality, after the Act of Union in 1707, ambitious Scots arrived in London in droves, bringing the music of their homeland with them, and contributing to an increasingly diverse musical culture in the capital.

Follow this link to learn more and to acquire this gem https://www.ensemblehesperi.com/product-page/full-of-the-highland-humours