Scotland
is the most northerly country of Great Britain, occupying about one third of the
land area. In 1707, when King James VI of Scotland became also King James I of England,
Scotland became a part of Great Britain. See the Musical Discovery history
time-line for UK Kings and Queens to put this into a historical and musical
context.. Scotland was then ruled by the UK parliament in London for
nearly 300 years, until in 1999 a new Scottish parliament was established in
Edinburgh.
Scotland has
a rich heritage of folk music, which displays distinctive Scottish
characteristics such as the Scottish Snap and the use of the pentatonic
scale. And bag-pipes are almost exclusively regarded as the Scottish
national instrument, though differing forms of bag-pipes are found in several
other countries, including Ireland, and Italy.
Sadly, no world-famous 'art-music' composers have emerged from Scotland, and it
has been left to foreign composers such as Mendelssohn to utilize Scottish
characteristics in their music. Mendelssohn
was greatly attracted to Scotland, as evidenced by his overture Fingal's cave,
and his Scottish Symphony. The Norwegian composer Grieg
was born in Bergen, Norway, but his father was from Scotland!