James Oswald (1710–1769) was a Scottish

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

, arranger, cellist, and music publisher, who was appointed as Chamber Composer for King

George III George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 173829 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two kingdoms on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Br ...

and also wrote and published many Scottish folk tunes.David Johnson and Heather Melvill, "Oswald, James". Grove Music Online. Accessed March 15, 2012."James Oswald (1711–1769)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Accessed March 15, 2012.

Life

Oswald was born in

Crail Crail (); gd, Cathair Aile) is a former royal burgh, parish and community council area (Royal Burgh of Crail and District) in the East Neuk of Fife, Scotland. The locality has an estimated population of 1,630 (2018). Etymology The name ''C ...

, Scotland in 1710, being baptised on 21 March, and died in

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on 2 January 1769. As a young man he worked in

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, Fife as a musician and dancing master. Throughout his career he maintained an interest in traditional Scottish music, but he also composed in classical ''

style galant In music, galant refers to the style which was fashionable from the 1720s to the 1770s. This movement featured a return to simplicity and immediacy of appeal after the complexity of the late Baroque era. This meant simpler, more song-like melodie ...

'' forms. In 1741 he left

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, eloping to

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with Mary Ann Melvill. The poet Allan Ramsay lamented his departure in "An Epistle to James Oswald". The couple had their first child in 1742 and married on 12 February 1744 in St. James's Church, Piccadilly. They had three daughters. In London Oswald eventually set up his own publishing house and published the ''Caledonian Pocket Companion'', a collection of Scottish folk tunes, some with his own variations. This ran to 12 volumes and many editions. Like many others whose works feature in the Wighton Collection in

Dundee Dundee (; sco, Dundee; gd, Dùn Dè or ) is Scotland's fourth-largest city and the 51st-most-populous built-up area in the United Kingdom. The mid-year population estimate for 2016 was , giving Dundee a population density of 2,478/km2 or ...

, he was a member of "The Temple of Apollo", a secret musical society of composers in London along with

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, John Reid,

Charles Burney Charles Burney (7 April 1726 – 12 April 1814) was an English music historian, composer and musician. He was the father of the writers Frances Burney and Sarah Burney, of the explorer James Burney, and of Charles Burney, a classicist a ...

and others. Oswald's first wife, Mary Ann, died in 1756. He married Leonora Robinson Lytton after she was widowed in 1762.Purser, John (2019), ''Remarkable Scot's Royal Approval'', The National, 25 November 2019, p. 21

Compositions

He wrote variations of popular Scottish

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, arranged these for the

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and composed other original tunes in the same

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. He published his chamber works under the nom de plume "Dottel Figlio". A "Collection of Minuets" was published in Edinburgh in 1736 and a "Curious Collection of Scots Tunes" in 1740. The tunes "The East Neuk of Fife" and "The Flowers of Edinburgh", "two classic

reel A reel is an object around which a length of another material (usually long and flexible) is wound for storage (usually hose are wound around a reel). Generally a reel has a cylindrical core (known as a '' spool'') with flanges around the en ...

tunes of the Scots fiddle repertory", have been attributed to him - however "The East Noock of Fife" was already in manuscript in 1709, before Oswald's birth, while ''Flowers of Edinburgh'' was included in John Walsh's ''Caledonian Country Dances'' in about 1737,long before its appearance in Oswald's collection ''The Caledonian Pocket Companion''. Some tunes which were later used for some of

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's song lyrics, were included in that collection. The earliest version of 'Ae Fond Kiss' was closely modelled on Oswald's tune 'Rory Dall's Port'. It is unsafe to assume that tunes in the ''Caledonian Pocket Companion'', are his compositions unless this is stated explicitly, although some are unknown elsewhere. However, many of the variation sets are his - the title page states that it includes ''All the Favourite Scotch Tunes ... with Variations by James Oswald''. Later, he wrote a collection of German military music, "40 Marches, Tattoos and Night Pieces for two German flutes, violins or guittars as performed by the Prussian and Hessian Armies". He was appointed Chamber Composer to

in 1761, when George became King. Since many of his compositions were written anonymously, research still needs to be done to identify them. Some of Oswald's most remarkable creations are his two sets of 'Airs for the Seasons' - some 96 compositions in all - each named for a different flower or shrub, and attributed to their appropriate season of the year. They are playable by violin (flute, oboe) and cello, with second violin parts available for 12 of them and therefore performable as trios. Contained within the Wighton Collection in

is a manuscript of "Airs for Autumn" in the composer's own hand.

Selected published works

* ''Caledonian Pocket Companion'' – being a collection of the most favourite Scotch tunes for the German flute (12 books), by James Oswald, (); :: Books 1–6, online ''via'
Internet Archive
(copy:

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) ::: Books 1–2:

: Printed for J. Simpson in Sweeting's Alley opposite the East Door of the Royal Exchange ::: Books 3–6:

: Printed for the author at his music shop on the pavement St. Martin's Church Yard :: Books 1–8, online ''via'
Internet Archive
(copy:

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) :::

: Printed for the author at his music shop on the pavement St. Martin's Church Yard :: Book 2, online ''via'
National Library of Scotland
:::

: Printed for the author at his music shop on the pavement St. Martin's Church Yard :: Books 7–12, online ''via'
Internet Archive
(copy:

) :::

: Printed for R. Bremner, opposite

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Notes and references

Notes

References

External links

*A collection of digitised scores by James Oswald can be found at th
Five Centuries of Scottish Music collection
hosted b

*Modern editions of Oswald's ''Eighteen Divertimento's for two Guitars or two Mandolins'' and ''Twelve Divertimentis for the Guittar'' can be found at th

website. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Oswald, James 1710 births 1769 deaths Scottish Baroque composers Classical-period composers Dance teachers People from Fife Scottish classical composers British male classical composers 18th-century classical composers 18th-century British male musicians