Serendipity and how the sheet music happened
Serendipity: “the … phenomenon of finding
valuable or agreeable things not sought for”
Priscilla Weaver tells the story of how you can now buy the transcribed sheet music.
In 2006, the same year Stuart recorded Trevor playing four traditional songs from St. Kilda, I had recently embarked on an improbable adventure on a farm in Oregon, raising Soay sheep descended directly from the wild flocks living for thousands of years on St. Kilda, unaware of the saga unfolding in an old people’s home thousands of miles away. That spring, our first authentic Soay lambs arrived, and with my husband Steve I settled in to conserve, study, and enjoy these fetching creatures. I describe this caper as “improbable” because I was a musician with zero farming experience, much less knowledge of animal husbandry or genetics. Steve, on the other hand, was an academic geneticist and is now a formidable shepherd.
Along the way, and during the time Trevor recorded the eight songs heard on the Decca CD, here in Oregon we continued to grow our flock and seed new flocks throughout the US and Canada. Our conservation efforts even extended to using AI techniques with donor material imported from the UK. It wasn’t entirely an earnest research endeavor, to be sure. A professional cellist friend from Cleveland, Ida Mercer, spent parts of two lambing seasons with us – Lamb Camp - during which she was a skilled partner assisting in the ancient rituals of lambing. What a delight it was to share with Ida, an unreconstructed farm girl, the joys of watching our wee lambs arrive and begin exploring their world, only to later in the day enjoy her musical artistry while I cooked dinner.
In 2006, the same year Stuart recorded Trevor playing four traditional songs from St. Kilda, I had recently embarked on an improbable adventure on a farm in Oregon, raising Soay sheep descended directly from the wild flocks living for thousands of years on St. Kilda, unaware of the saga unfolding in an old people’s home thousands of miles away. That spring, our first authentic Soay lambs arrived, and with my husband Steve I settled in to conserve, study, and enjoy these fetching creatures. I describe this caper as “improbable” because I was a musician with zero farming experience, much less knowledge of animal husbandry or genetics. Steve, on the other hand, was an academic geneticist and is now a formidable shepherd.
Along the way, and during the time Trevor recorded the eight songs heard on the Decca CD, here in Oregon we continued to grow our flock and seed new flocks throughout the US and Canada. Our conservation efforts even extended to using AI techniques with donor material imported from the UK. It wasn’t entirely an earnest research endeavor, to be sure. A professional cellist friend from Cleveland, Ida Mercer, spent parts of two lambing seasons with us – Lamb Camp - during which she was a skilled partner assisting in the ancient rituals of lambing. What a delight it was to share with Ida, an unreconstructed farm girl, the joys of watching our wee lambs arrive and begin exploring their world, only to later in the day enjoy her musical artistry while I cooked dinner.
In the fall of 2016, when Ida sent us a torn-out page from the BBC Music Magazine announcing the release of The Lost Songs of St. Kilda, I was dumbfounded. My music and sheep worlds intersected with St. Kilda for the first time as if by magic. In the voluminous literature about St. Kilda, I had never found more than a few fleeting references to music. I was ecstatic!
Like everyone who hears The Lost Songs CD, I immediately fell in love with the haunting St. Kilda melodies and Trevor’s arrangements. Determined to find the sheet music, I contacted the composers of the new orchestral arrangements and Decca, and even posted on Decca’s marketing Facebook page, but to no avail. If I wanted to play Trevor’s songs, I was going to have to transcribe them myself. And so, intermittently over the next couple of years, I did. |
Copies of the first printing issued in May 2020 found their way to a number of afficionados of The Lost Songs who happened on my FB query. One fan emailed from Edinburgh in late October 2020 to report that during a walk with her friend, one Stuart McKenzie, she told him she had just ordered my sheet music. Serendipity struck again. Stuart had known nothing of my work, and I had not been in contact with him.
The next day Stuart and I “met” in an online video chat, talking over each other in the excitement of sharing how each of us, unbeknownst to the other, had strived to preserve Trevor’s work and make the songs available to others. Stuart, who demurs on all matters musical, casually mentioned and then shared with me his initial, private 2006 recording of four of Trevor’s songs, what Stuart described as earlier versions of his arrangements on the Decca CD. When I opened the files, I did indeed hear fragments of what Decca later named “Soay,” “Hirta,” and “Dun,” but I had never heard the fourth melody before. I couldn’t believe my ears. When I reached Stuart and blurted out, “you didn’t tell me there was another song,” he was the speechless one for a change. He had been unable to match this song with any of the eight melodies on the CD, but chalked it up to his untrained ear. We enjoyed a hearty chuckle at the newest serendipity in this story: four years on from the CD’s release, computer expert with tin ear meets computer-challenged nerdy musicologist.
The next day Stuart and I “met” in an online video chat, talking over each other in the excitement of sharing how each of us, unbeknownst to the other, had strived to preserve Trevor’s work and make the songs available to others. Stuart, who demurs on all matters musical, casually mentioned and then shared with me his initial, private 2006 recording of four of Trevor’s songs, what Stuart described as earlier versions of his arrangements on the Decca CD. When I opened the files, I did indeed hear fragments of what Decca later named “Soay,” “Hirta,” and “Dun,” but I had never heard the fourth melody before. I couldn’t believe my ears. When I reached Stuart and blurted out, “you didn’t tell me there was another song,” he was the speechless one for a change. He had been unable to match this song with any of the eight melodies on the CD, but chalked it up to his untrained ear. We enjoyed a hearty chuckle at the newest serendipity in this story: four years on from the CD’s release, computer expert with tin ear meets computer-challenged nerdy musicologist.
The newest twist, yes, but not the essential serendipity. That one came about fifteen years ago when the ACE IT volunteers’ work to expand the Silverlea residents’ worlds serendipitously brought this most “valuable and agreeable thing” to life. Trevor expressed it best in his own words and in his own hand. The letter of thanks he wrote immediately after Stuart made the first, fateful recording on his laptop with the dime-store microphone says it all.
It is only fitting to begin this volume with the newest ancient melody preserved and given a future in the original 2006 recording, a song Stuart and I named “Memories” in Trevor’s honor. I hope it will touch your heart as have the eight songs on The Lost Songs of St. Kilda CD, all evoking in the most haunting and lovely way the remote islands of the archipelago, their stalwart human inhabitants, and their equally stalwart Soay sheep. Thank you with all my heart, Trevor, for preserving and sharing these treasures with us.
Priscilla Weaver November 2020 |
Listen to 'Memories' played by Priscilla Weaver who discovered this lost 'Lost' song!
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