Capt. Simon Fraser

Simon Fraser (1772 or 1773 – 1852), commonly known as Captain Simon Fraser of Knockie, was a Scottish Gaelic-speaking fiddler, composer, army officer, and collector and editor of traditional Highland music. He is best known for The Airs and Melodies Peculiar to the Highlands of Scotland and the Isles, published in 1816. Its 232 tunes include melodies associated with Gaelic songs, dance music, inherited family repertory and compositions by Fraser himself.

Early life and family

Fraser was born at Ardachie, near Fort Augustus, in the parish of Abertarff, Inverness-shire. Most reference and archival sources give his birth year as 1773, although modern scholarship has dated it to 1772 or 1773.

He was the only son of Captain John Fraser, who had served in the 78th Highland Regiment, and Janet Fraser. John Fraser was himself remembered as a singer and performer of Highland airs. Simon Fraser's later collection drew substantially upon music transmitted through his father and earlier members of his family.

Military service

Fraser entered the Fraser Fencibles in 1795 and remained with the regiment until its disbandment in 1802, by which time he had attained the rank of captain. The unit served in Ireland, including during the rebellion of 1798, and Fraser was credited with helping to recruit Highlanders for it. After his military service he farmed at Knockie in Stratherrick, from which his usual territorial designation was derived.

A note in one surviving copy states that Fraser had decided to publish after a manuscript that he had lent for the preparation of bass parts was not returned. He feared that its music might otherwise be issued under another person's name.

The authenticity of some aspects of Fraser's presentation was disputed. The early nineteenth-century commentator William Stenhouse objected to Fraser's use of expressive markings, ornaments and altered notes, regarding them as foreign to the character of older Gaelic melody. Later scholarship has similarly distinguished between the traditional sources of the tunes and Fraser's work as an arranger and instrumental composer.

The surviving papers associated with Fraser and his son Angus are held by the University of Edinburgh as the Angus Fraser Manuscript (Coll-58). Although named after Angus, the collection incorporates material inherited from his father as well as Angus's own work. Its contents range from drafts of projected musical collections to tune variations and miscellaneous working papers.

Fraser's 1816 publication remains an important source for the study of Highland fiddle music and the melodies of Scottish Gaelic songs. Its significance lies both in the repertory it preserved and in the evidence it provides of the way Highland music was adapted for the domestic and published music market of the early nineteenth century.

Selected publications

Thirty Highland Airs, Strathspeys, &c., with a Bass for the Violoncello or Harpsichord (Edinburgh, 1795). Elegy, Occasioned by the Sudden Summons of a Friend from the Career of Life (Inverness, 1811). The Airs and Melodies Peculiar to the Highlands of Scotland and the Isles (Edinburgh, 1816). The Airs and Melodies Peculiar to the Highlands of Scotland and the Isles, new edition prepared from the Fraser papers (Inverness, 1874; posthumous).