Sunday 8 April 2007

Back home from holiday by the Tweed. I've been reading a little publication by Jim Inglis called The Organ in Scotland before 1700 (Schagen, 1991), which I enjoyed much more than I thought I would, unlike Ben Katchor's collection of Julius Knipl stories which I enjoyed rather less, even though I loved the idea of The Evening Combinator, a newspaper that prints the populace's dreams. Here are my favourite scraps of source material on early Scottish organs.

from James IV's Treasurer's Accounts, 1501/2:
Item, the xxj day of March, be the Kingis command, to Jok Silvor that playis on the organis xxviij s.

Jock Silver: what a great name for an organist. At least he got paid by the king and wasn't being told by some local magistrates to do more practice.

from the Linlithgow Burgh Records, 26 May 1546, concerning the chaplain Thomas Mwstard:
... the said Sir Thomas sall [...] play upoun the organis, as he hes done in tymes bygane, and rather bettir.