Glenbuchat Heritage

102 Alex Webster Fiddle

Alex Webster, Gamekeeper, Fiddler and Fiddle Maker Part 2

Click for Alex Webster, Gamekeeper, Fiddler and Fiddle Maker Part 1


The Pictures above show the violin made by Alex Webster and given to Hector MacAndrew as mentioned in the text, and a tune written by Angus Cameron for Alex Webster


David Rattray a well-known fiddler and fiddle maker has written a beautiful book on “Violin Making in Scotland”. The following is an article about Alex Webster on his Facebook page,


“During our recent visit to Aberdeenshire, I was introduced to a fiddle made by Alex Webster of Glenbuchat, the instrument been internally signed and dated 1961. Gamekeeper by profession Webster had a passion for a violin making, completing some 20 cool instruments in his spare time. According to family records it all started during the 50s when Michie’s music shop in Brechin changed hands and Alex received a quantity of violin making tools and timber. In common with much amateur work there is a little to distinguish any particular national trait. However his work is cleanly finished being a loosely built on Stradivan form but with rather shallow fluting and heavy plates producing a strong, bright tone. The thinly applied spirit varnish being pale orange in colour. The choice of one piece back of indigenous maple is apparently common to his work.

As well as violin making Alex Webster was known in Highland music circles as a fine player, choosing not to sell his instruments rather to present them to friends and musical acquaintances. Several tunes were composed in his honour the best-known being “Angus Cameron compliments to Alex Webster” His daughter Sandra kindly offered the invitation to view the 1961 fiddle which had been made for the great Hector MacAndrew, it was a returned to the Webster family shortly after his death in 1980. Being given the chance to put a bow on the instrument a few bars of Hector the hero came to mind. Sandra mentioned the last player of the fiddle had been Ron Gonnella and that he has composed a reel in her honour. We finish the afternoon with Sandra’s husband and friend Frankie, reminiscing and looking through some old scrapbooks over tea and freshly baked gingerbread.”

David Rattray from Kirkaldy, is a dedicated maker and restorer of violins, violas and cellos made to modern and period set-up. Hand crafted bespoke instruments in the Classical Italian tradition. A specialist expert in fine old instruments, with thirty years’ experience and an international client base.

Others mentioned in the article are hector McAndrew, Ron Gonella, and Angus Cameron

(From Wikipaedia)
Hector MacAndrew (1903 – 1980) was the foremost Scottish fiddler of the second half of the 20th century. He was born in 1903, in a cottage on the Fyvie Castle Estate in Aberdeenshire, where his father was head gardener and piper to Lord Leith. The family was musical - Peter, his father, was a good fiddler as well as a piper and Hector's brother Pat was also a fine, prize-winning piper. No surprise, then, that he began playing very early in life. As a young man he received some classical training in Edinburgh, which may help to account for the full and generous sound he made, particularly in slow airs; but valuable as this experience was, it never blurred or diluted his awareness of the aural tradition going back to the Gows which he venerated and came to embody. Like his father, he became an estate gardener, eventually at Keithhall House, Inverurie, the residence of the Earl of Kintore. By this time (1933) he was much in demand as a player at social occasions and eventually on Radio Aberdeen. During the War he served in the Royal Artillery and was with the Eighth Army from El Alamein to Trieste when the War ended. He talked little of his wartime experiences, but was at this time that he determined that, should he survive, he would devote himself as far as possible to keeping the tradition of Scottish fiddle playing alive.


Home again, he began to make recordings on the Parlophone label, for the School of Scottish Studies and the BBC. His small cottage in Cults became the centre for visits from many enthusiasts of Scottish fiddling. He judged many fiddle competitions, and it was at one of these, in the City Hall in Perth, that he met Yehudi Menuhin for the first time. Menuhin was greatly impressed by his playing and his knowledge of the ins and outs of traditional Scottish fiddling and in 1974 they made a television programme (Mr. Menuhin's Welcome to Blair Castle) on Scots Fiddle Music in Blair Castle, where Niel Gow, the doyen of Scots fiddlers, had played regularly 200 years before. Of MacAndrew, Menuhin wrote, "What he knew could only be learned from people with a great musical tradition, and I have a kind of reverence, almost awe, for someone who represents a tradition as exciting as that. .... ... to me, of course, he was the voice of Scotland. When I met this man and heard him play, I knew I was in the presence of Scottish history." He died six years later on 5 April 1980, following a stroke, acknowledged by such as Ron Gonnella, Ian Powrie and Willie Hunter as the greatest Scots fiddler of his generation.


Ron Gonnella was originally from Dundee, and lived for many years in Crieff, Perthshire until his death in 1994. Gonnella's great grandfather was a Robert Dewar, who was a shepherd near Tulliemet in Perthshire. Ron Gonnella recorded at least fifteen albums and taught at Morrison’s Academy in Crieff for many years. When he wasn’t there he was travelling the world playing Scottish fiddle, recording albums, and performing on radio, stage and dance halls. His great love was the music of the Golden Age of Scots fiddle, typified by the compositions of Niel and Nathaniel Gow, Robert Mackintosh, William Marshall and Joseph Lowe. Gonnella played in the Scottish Dance Band circuit with the bands of Jim Johnstone and Andrew Rankine. He had his own band for a while - featuring Iain MacPhail on accordion - but it was as a solo artist that he toured all over the world promoting Scots fiddle music.

Until he married - late in his life - Gonnella would sit in his small flat and listen to his precious record collection and practise the fiddle tunes for his next recording. Top Scottish fiddlers such as Duncan Wood and Gregor Borland have told me of their admiration for his skills and techniques, and I think of him as a fiddler's fiddler. The instrument he mostly played was a 1722 Italian violin made by Carlo Antonio Tanegia. I have been told that after his death there were a number of fiddlers desperate to try it to achieve the same wonderful tone that Gonnella produced; in the end it turned out to be a mediocre fiddle, and it was the musician who was special, not the instrument.

ANGUS CAMERON'S COMPLIMENTS TO ALEX WEBSTER. Composed by Angus Cameron. James Hunter relates that composer Cameron was a mathematics teacher in Kirriemuir, and the son of a famous fiddling family, all of whom were pupils of 'Dancie' Reid of Newtyle. The personage he composed the tune for was a gamekeeper at Glenbucket in Strathdon who become "intensely interested" in fiddle making, and who made some excellent instruments, one of which he had presented to Mr. Cameron.


Angus Cameron, musician; born April 12, 1936, died April 6, 1998

ANGUS Cameron, the celebrated Scottish fiddle player, has died after a long illness, aged 61.

The Kirriemuir-born musician is seen by many as a central figure in the history of Scottish music, and is viewed as the best Scottish fiddler of his time. He was a popular figure on radio and television for more than three decades, and recorded with such greats as Lindsay Ross and Jimmie Macgregor.

Highlights of his career included conducting a 70-piece orchestra with Yehudi Menuhin for a TV broadcast from Blair Castle. He also composed and performed for the Queen Mother at Glamis Castle to celebrate her 80th birthday.