BURNS NIGHT SPECIAL

Being Burns Night we made our regular meeting a musical celebration with a bonus of cock-a-leekie soup and pudding. The food was excellent, and the music had a Scottish flavour. It ranged from pieces by Mendelssohn, Peter Maxwell Davies, Percy Grainger and James MacMillan to Jimmy Shand, Harry Lauder and Robbie Burns himself. A haggis on a silver(foil) platter was brought in to the sound of bagpipes. A later highlight was a reading of Scotland’s other great poet – William MacGonagall; his tale of the Famous Tay Whale was set to music and recorded at a Hoffnung Festival – enough said!

Much of the music was inspired by dance and folk tunes, which continued through the last piece ‘Orkney Wedding and Sunrise’ by Peter Maxwell Davies. As the dancing got unsteadier, relative sobriety was reached when a solo bagpiper heralded the end of a long party as the sun rose. The evening ended with Burns’ greatest all-time hit ‘Auld Lang Syne’.