Ceol Mor – A Living Legacy and GeneralThomason’s Contribution
tinuing, but largely overlooked, influence of General Thomason’s great book, Ceol Mor; thoughts prompted by the Piobaireachd Society’s commemoration last year of the centenary of General Thomason’s death.To quote Archibald Campbell, ‘a man of conspicuous intellectual ability, fine musical taste and sound judgement’ and, writing in 1917, ‘the greatest man of my time connected with piobaireachdmusic and probably one of the greatest of all time’. But Thomason had drifted into relative obscurity until Brian MacKenzie
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HE title of this evening’s lecture arose from my thoughts about the con-
brought him to life for us 30 years ago. Even now, it seems to me that we take his legacy for granted. We are immensely indebted to Brian for his fine biographical accounts of Major General Charles Simeon Thomason (CST), first appearing, I believe, in the book celebrating the centenary of The Royal Scottish Pipers’ Society, of which CST was a member. The production of his great work, Ceol Mor, has been extensively reviewed by Roderick Cannon (see Piobaireachd Society’s website and proceedings for excellent articles by MacKenzie and Cannon). This evening I would like to concentrate on General Thomason’s continuing