In this special release for Burns Day 2019, Burns expert Katherine Campbell brings together 10 songs from the Bard for which the original tune is unknown. Sometimes this is because the music has been lost, for example the tune entitled The Banks of Cree, or sometimes it is because we don’t know what the original tune actually was. In one unusual case, O Raging Fortune’s Withering Blast, Burns composed his own melody which is unfortunately not extant.

Burns’s usual method of song composition was to start with a pre-existing melody, often drawn from the Scottish song or fiddle repertoire, and then to write lyrics to it.  In the case of this album, this process has been reversed, as the starting point has been Burns’s beautifully-crafted words, which often relate to his own personal experience.

Katherine comes originally from Morayshire in North-East Scotland and she has been singing, composing and creating song accompaniments for some forty-odd years. Let Katherine introduce you to some of the lesser-known works of the Bard in this intimate and intense album, which features solo voice with keyboard accompaniment. It is hoped that the new tunes that Katherine has written, together with their accompaniments, will serve as the vehicle through which Robert Burns’s outstanding lyrics can be more fully enjoyed and appreciated.

“Katherine Campbell has a deep, rich and smoky voice; it offers a wonderfully rich palette of colours for Burns’s songs. Her love and deep knowledge of Burns’s tunes and working practice really brings something unique to his inspiring range of lyrical masterpieces.” Professor Kirsteen McCue – Co-Director, Centre for Robert Burns Studies, University of Glasgow

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