John Bane Mac Kenzie and Donald Cameron were the only players who held the title, “King of Pipers.” This was played for at the Northern Meeting, Inverness, and was the prize given at a competition between champions, the winner being known as the “champion of champions” or “King of Pipers.” After Donald Cameron’s day, when he won the prize and the title, the competition lapsed, and though there are now many so-called “champions,” there is no “King of Pipers.”
Among other latter-day pipers it is almost impossible to pick and choose. There was Donald Mac Phee, a miner lad from Coatbridge, who became pipe-maker, teacher, composer of and writer about pipe music, and died in Glasgow in 1880; William Ross, piper to the Black Watch, and later to Queen Victoria, who compiled a book containing forty pibrochs, and 437 strathspeys, marches, and reels; Donald Mac Phedran, a first-class Glasgow player who had one of the largest known collections of manuscript tunes; Alexander Cameron, a brother of Donald Cameron, who won all the champion gold medals, and was looked on as the Mac Crimmon of his day; Duncan Mac Eachern, an apparently clumsy manipulator of the pipes, but an able player; Donald Galbraith, a native of Islay; Alexander Mac Donald, late piper to the Duke of Fife; the Mac Lennans, especially William Mac Lennan, who as a piper and dancer occupied a unique position; Alexander Mac Donald, Glentruim, a splendid pibroch player, who died a few years ago at Aberlour; Malcolm Mac Pherson, Cluny’s piper, and a well-known pibroch player; John Mac Rae, known as Piobaire Beag, who was piper to Francis, Lord Seaforth, and John Bane Mac Kenzie’s first tutor; Duncan Campbell, piper to Sir Charles Forbes, Castle Newe, Strathdon, a piper who on arriving at a competition always asked if Donald Cameron was there, as “he did not care for anyone else;” Pipe-Major Alexander Mac Lennan, of the Inverness Militia; John Mac Lauchlan, a first-rate player of the “little” music; and many others who deserve to be written about. In our own day we have Colin Cameron, son of Donald, piper to the Duke of Fife and recognised as not only one of the best living pipers, but a man who takes more than a passing interest in the literature of his art and of the Highlands generally; William Sutherland, Airdrie, now retired, a man who had not his equal at jigs, was very successful as an all-round player, and composed numerous tunes; Pipe-Major Mac Dougal Gillies, of the 1st H.L.I., a pupil of Alexander Cameron, son of Seaforth’s famous piper, and himself one of the best known and most successful of living players; John Mac Coll of Oban, a pupil of Mac Phee’s and holder of most of the highest possible honours; Ronald Mac Kenzie, late of the 78th Highlanders and now piper to the Duke of Richmond and Gordon; Angus Mac Rae of Callander; Farquhar Mac Rae of Glasgow, and other leading pipers whose success and popularity deserve notice. But to do justice to the subject would require a large amount of space and it would also necessitate comparisons between the abilities of lately deceased and still living men, which the present writer is not at all inclined to make. The task of general biographer would no doubt be pleasant, and there are materials enough in existence to justify anyone in believing that the result would be well worthy of the effort, but this is hardly the place for it. It is enough for us, at present, to know that we still have men fully capable of keeping pipe music up to the high standard set by its old time exponents and that, if we have few who, like Saul of old, are head and shoulders above the crowd, the stature of the crowd itself is of a high average. Perhaps that very fact will make the task of the biographer all the more difficult.
BAND OF THE SUTHERLAND RIFLES—THE LARGEST VOLUNTEER PIPE BAND IN THE WORLD
CHAPTER XX.
How Piping is Preserved.
“O, wake once more! how rude soe’er the hand
That ventures o’er thy magic maze to stray,
O, wake once more! though scarce my skill command,
Some feeble echoing of thine earlier lay;