Ensemble Hesperi: Mrs Crockat's Music Book
CatStrand, New Galloway, DG7 3RN
Saturday 6th February 2027
Presented jointly with the Galloway Gremlins Recorder Group
In 1709, the mysterious Scotswoman Mrs Crockat was learning music from a beautiful leather-bound book of handwritten tunes for recorder and harpsichord, just one of many surviving volumes owned by Scottish musical women in the eighteenth century. Join Ensemble Hesperi to rediscover these women’s lost voices through their very own music books: Elyza Fraser and Mary Bristow of Castle Fraser, both serious musicians and violin and harpsichord players; Elizabeth Katherine Jane Anne Brodie of Brodie Castle and Mary Eleanor Bowes, Countess of Strathmore and Kinghorne, both composers – and, of course, Mrs Crockat herself!
We’ll play Scots tunes as which these women would have enjoyed in the music rooms of Scotland’s historic castles; favourite theatre music they encountered in London and beyond; and trio sonatas, keyboard works and solos by the most popular composers of the day – Handel, Purcell, Corelli, and many more.
In 1709, the mysterious Scotswoman Mrs Crockat was learning music from a beautiful leather-bound book of handwritten tunes for recorder and harpsichord, just one of many surviving volumes owned by Scottish musical women in the eighteenth century. Join Ensemble Hesperi to rediscover these women’s lost voices through their very own music books: Elyza Fraser and Mary Bristow of Castle Fraser, both serious musicians and violin and harpsichord players; Elizabeth Katherine Jane Anne Brodie of Brodie Castle and Mary Eleanor Bowes, Countess of Strathmore and Kinghorne, both composers – and, of course, Mrs Crockat herself!
We’ll play Scots tunes as which these women would have enjoyed in the music rooms of Scotland’s historic castles; favourite theatre music they encountered in London and beyond; and trio sonatas, keyboard works and solos by the most popular composers of the day – Handel, Purcell, Corelli, and many more.
