The Glen Collection of Scottish Dance Music

John Glen assembled this two-volume collection from the earliest printed sources he could trace for each tune, or from the composer’s own publications where those survived. Volume 1 appeared in 1891 (this entry) and volume 2 in 1895, both from the Glen family’s instrument business at 2 North Bank Street in Edinburgh. Glen was a bagpipe maker by trade who had built a large private library of eighteenth and nineteenth century Scottish music books. The collection’s value lies less in the piano arrangements than in the bibliographic research surrounding them: an introduction on the history of Scottish dance music, biographical sketches of musicians and music sellers, a chronological list of published works, and an analytical table running to 1784. Writers on Scottish tune origins cite it regularly for first-printing claims. His own library of printed editions and manuscripts passed after his death to Lady Dorothea Stuart Murray, who gave it to the National Library of Scotland in 1927.

Full title: The Glen Collection of Scottish Dance Music, Strathspeys, Reels, and Jigs, selected from the earliest printed sources, or from the composer’s works