[BITList] Fwd: Reel life

[John Feltham]

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> Gow,  Nathaniel  (1763-1831), fiddler and composer, was born on 27 May 1763 at Inver, near Dunkeld, Perthshire, and baptized at Little Dunkeld two days later, the fourth of the five sons of Niel Gow  (1727-1807) and his first wife, Margaret Wiseman. The date of his birth, which has often been given wrongly, is established by the baptismal register for Little Dunkeld parish. As a child he was given fiddle lessons by his father before being sent to Edinburgh, where his teachers included the violinists Robert Mackintosh and Alexander McGlashan and the trumpeter Joseph Reinagle. In August 1782 he was appointed one of the king's trumpeters for Scotland and in the same year was engaged as a professional violinist in the orchestra of the Edinburgh Musical Society. He also played for fashionable dances, working his way up from cellist in McGlashan's band to leader of his own (following the death of his eldest brother, William Gow, in 1791). The first of his annual balls was held in 1797; these became major events of the Edinburgh social calendar and enjoyed noble patronage. By the turn of the century Gow's band was in wide demand and his fame had spread to London, where George Gordon, marquess of Huntly, arranged a ball for his benefit in 1797. On 17 August 1784, in Edinburgh, Gow married Janet (d. 1808), the daughter of Francis Fraser, a sheriff officer who became a solicitor in the supreme court of Scotland; they had five daughters (Margaret, Janet, Catharine, Mary, Jean) and one son, Niel Gow  (1794-1823), music-seller and composer , who was born in Edinburgh on 17 February 1794. In 1786 the family was living in Bailie Fyfe's Close, where they remained until moving to Princes Street in the New Town in 1800.
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> Nathaniel Gow contributed pieces to his father's first three collections of strathspey reels (1784, 1788, 1792; the third book includes a lament for the death of his brother William), and he was largely responsible for the 'considerable additions and valuable alterations' in their later editions. In 1796 he went into business in partnership with the cellist William Shepherd as a seller of music and musical instruments and a publisher specializing in dance music composed or arranged by members of the Gow family. They had a shop at 41 North Bridge Street, Edinburgh, before moving to Princes Street. Gow and Shepherd were the chief suppliers of Broadwood pianos in Scotland and maintained close links with the London firm of John Gow, Nathaniel's brother. Among their publications were the fourth and fifth collections of strathspey reels by Niel Gow & Sons (1801, 1809), the first three parts of the Complete Repository of Original Scots Slow Strathspeys (1799-1806), and, reflecting current international fashion, A Complete Collection of Originall German Valtz (c.1800). Each season new dance tunes introduced by Gow's band would appear in print; there were also his popular arrangements of Edinburgh street cries-'Caller Herring', 'The Mad (or Poor) Boy', 'Pease and Beans and Rock Partens'. Following Shepherd's death on 19 January 1812, however, the firm went into decline, and on 11 October 1813 it was wound up.
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> Gow's first wife died in 1808, and on 30 August 1814 he married Mary (1786-1838), the daughter of William Hogg of Prestonpans. Two years previously she had successfully sued him in the court of session for breach of promise. The eldest of their five children, Augusta, was born on 13 July 1815. The family lived at 19 Queen Street in 1814-16, and afterwards at 2 Hanover Street. After the firm of Gow and Shepherd was dissolved, Gow continued to work as a private teacher and as the leader of his band. The patronage of the prince regent, for whom he played several times in London, added to his prestige.
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> In 1818 Gow resumed business as a publisher and retailer, this time in partnership with his son Niel. The latter, of whom his father had high hopes, had studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh (1811-15) and in Paris, and in 1815 was admitted as a licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh; it was to him that the 'active management' of the new shop at 60 Princes Street was entrusted  (Edinburgh Advertiser, 21 July 1818). Niel's musical taste is apparent in his settings of poems by James Hogg ('The Lament of Flora Macdonald', 'Bonny Prince Charlie') and in his editing of The Edinburgh Collection (1824). The presence of English and Italian madrigals in the latter was perhaps the first sign in Scotland of an awakening interest in such 'ancient' music.
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> For five years things went well. The firm's publications included The Vocal Melodies of Scotland (1819), a sixth collection of Strathspeys, Reels, and Slow Tunes (1822), and The Ancient Curious Collection of Scotland (1823), which was dedicated to Sir Walter Scott. Scott repaid the compliment in St Ronan's Well (1824), where he imagined Gow's band playing for theatricals at Shaws-Castle:'"He is his father's own son," said Touchwood ... "I never expected to hear his match in my lifetime"'  (Scottvol. 2, chap. 7). For the royal visit to Edinburgh in August 1822 Nathaniel Gow composed King George the Fourth's Welcome to Auld Reekie, and at the banquet at Dalkeith House was singled out by the king 'with some marks of Royal condescension'  (Edinburgh Advertiser, 21 Jan 1831).
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> But Niel Gow fell ill with 'a lingering disease', and on 7 November 1823 he died in Edinburgh, aged twenty-nine. Nathaniel, too, was struck down with apoplexy. Suddenly the family faced financial problems; these were exacerbated by a loss of 'upwards of eight thousand pounds' which Nathaniel had lent to his son-in-law Adam Armstrong, the proprietor of Drum colliery, who had married Mary Gow in 1810. Nathaniel's business struggled on, with help from his brother John's firm in London, and he still gave lessons 'to young Ladies at his own house'  (Edinburgh Advertiser, 28 May 1824). On 14 February 1826 he announced he was entering into partnership with John Murray Galbraith, an experienced tradesman and piano-tuner who had worked for John Broadwood & Sons in London. But in 1826 he was compelled to abandon his annual ball, and by September 1826 he was largely bedridden. In October the partnership with Galbraith was dissolved, and on 4 May 1827 Gow was declared bankrupt and his firm's stock sequestrated. A petition to the king for a pension  (NL Scot., MS 573, fols. 32-47, dated 4 May-7 Nov 1826) was successful, however; the Royal Caledonian hunt voted him an annuity of £50, and special benefit balls 'for behoof of Gow and Family' were held in 1827-30. Gow died at his home, 2 Hanover Street, Edinburgh, on 19 January 1831, and was buried on the 24th near his son in Greyfriars churchyard.
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> Some of Gow's slow airs, strathspeys, and reels-such as 'Largo's Fairy Dance', composed for the Fife hunt in 1802-have remained favourites of their kind. Of his skill as a fiddler Joseph McGregor wrote:
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> he had all the fire and spirit of his celebrated father in the quick music, with more refined taste, delicacy, and clearness of intonation in the slow and plaintive melodies ... which placed him, by general and ungrudging consent, as the master spirit of that branch or department ... in which, for a long course of years, he walked in unapproachable triumph.
> McGregor characterized him as a man of:
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> good understanding-generally of a lively companionable turn, with a good deal of humour-very courteous in his manners; though, especially latterly, when misfortune and disease had soured him, a little hasty in his temper ... and faithful in his duties to his family. In his person he was tall and 'buirdly'-and he dressed well, which, added to a degree of courtliness of manner on occasions of ceremony, gave him altogether a respectable and stately appearance. (McGregor, 6-7)
> He records that a 'spirited likeness' of him was painted by John Syme.
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> Christopher D. S. Field 
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> Sources  J. McG. [J. McGregor], 'Memoir of Nathaniel Gow', in A collection of airs, reels and strathspeys, being the posthumous compositions of the late Niel Gow (1837), 4-7 + J. Glen, 'Nathaniel Gow', The Glen collection of Scottish dance music, 2 (1895), x-xiv + M. A. Alburger, Scottish fiddlers and their music (1983) + J. L. Cranmer, 'Concert life and the music trade in Edinburgh, c.1780 - c.1830', PhD diss., U. Edin., 1991 + N. Gow, 'To his royal and gracious majesty the king, the petition and solicitation of your majesty's loyal subject and servant', 1826, NL Scot., MS 573, fos. 32-47 + Edinburgh Advertiser (21 July 1818) + Edinburgh Advertiser (28 May 1824) + Edinburgh Evening Courant (23 Oct 1813) + Edinburgh Evening Courant (18 Feb 1826) + Edinburgh Evening Courant (5 March 1827) + Edinburgh Evening Courant (1 March 1828) + Edinburgh Evening Courant (15 March 1828) + Edinburgh Advertiser (21 Jan 1831)
> Archives NL Scot., MS petition and letters
> Likenesses  photolithograph, 1895, repro. in Glen, 'Nathaniel Gow' · J. Kay, drawing, NPG [see illus.] · J. Syme, oils; untraced since 1837
> Wealth at death  declared bankrupt (4 May 1827): Edinburgh Evening Courant
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