Inver Lasses reel

I believe this is a Niel Gow composition. Recorded by Jimmy Shand and a whole bunch of ceilidh bands.

I’ve played this tune for years, and I like it. However, I can find no evidence that it’s a Gow composition, Ben. Other than the fact that Niel Gow was born and lived all his life at Inver, is there a reason you think it’s by him?

I have it in mind that it was composed by Charles Mackintosh of Inver or Dunkeld - but I can’t remember how it got there and I could well be mixing it up with something else. Google doesn’t seem to know.

I’ve made a quick search through what I’ve got of Niel and Nathaniel Gow’s collections and it doesn’t show there. However, it is in “The Athole Collection”, page 11, and in “Kerr’s First Collection of Merry Melodies”, page 3, tune #4. “The Athole Collection” has it asterisked and at the bottom of the entry ~ * cf Sir George MacKenzie of Coull. But, it also says it is in ‘a’ Gow collection, but now one I’ve dug out yet. The listing of alternate sources is ‘Gow 4, Kerr 1’…

X: 2
T: Inver Lasses
B: “The Athole Collection”, James Stewart Robertson, 1884, page 11
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: reel
K: AMaj
|: f |\
{g/4f4/}e2 ({d/}cA) {c/}d2 fd | {f/}e2 ({d/}cA) {c/}dBB<a |\
{g/4f/4}e2 ({d/}cA) {c/}d2 fd | ed{d/}cB {d/}cA<A :|
g |\
{f/4g/4}a2 (ec) {c/}d2 fd | {f/4g/4}a2 (ec) fBBg |\
{f/4g/4}a2 (ec) {c/}d2 fd | ed{d/}cB {d/}cAAg |
{f/4g/4}a2 (ec) {c/}d2 fd | {f/4g/4}a2 (ec) fBBg |\
{g/}afec defa | ed{d/}cB {d/}cAA |]

~ but ‘not’ one I’ve dug out yet. ~ as yet! 😏

As “Sir George MacKenzie”:

X:990
T:Sir George MacKenzie
C:Niel Gow
S:Book-The Gow Collection
Z:Nigel Gatherer
L:1/8
M:4/4
K:A
f | e2 cA d2 fd | e2 cA dBBa | e2 cA d3 =g | f>ded cA A :|
g | f/g/a ec e2 eg | a2 ec fBBg | a2 ec e2- e>=g | fded cAA ^g |
f/g/a ec e2 eg | a2 ec fBBg | a2 ec e2- e>=g | fded cA A |]

That puts paid to any possibility of it being a Charles Macintosh tune. Gow had been dead for over 30 years by the time Macintosh was born.

The tune can be played and also sounds nice in Amix with all the ^g as =g.

Thanks Nigel, Weejie, I had obviously ‘misremembered’…

Thanks for clearing that up, Nigel! As a belated answer, I think I heard “Gow” on a College of Piping recording, but I’m not sure.

It’s very similar in structure to a definitive Gow tune Dunkeld Bridge in B flat.
I’d be claiming it for one of the Gow’s.