A chamber-scale Concerto Caledonia bring to life a key figure from the Golden Age of Scottish fiddling, when the publishing of fiddle music books was in full spate and the familiar forms of strathspey, reel and jig were still taking shape. 'Red Rob' Mackintosh, named in the customary Gaelic fashion after the color of his hair, found himself a place in the orchestra of the Edinburgh Musical Society and set up business as a teacher. Airs, Minuets, Gavotts and Reels (1783) was his first collection, published the year before his ill-fated move to Aberdeen, and it represents his desire both to understand the musical world around him as fully as possible and to forge himself a career within it. The Davids Greenberg and McGuinness, Greg Lawson and Alison McGillivray shed light on an age when, not yet 'traditional', such dance genres still bore the imprint of their individual composers.
