Scotland
Scotland
is the most northerly country of Great Britain, occupying about one third of the
land area. In 1707, when King James VI of Scotland became also King James I of
England,
Scotland became a part of Great Britain. Scotland was then ruled by the UK parliament in London for
nearly 300 years, until in 1999 a new Scottish parliament was established in
Edinburgh.
Scotland has
a rich heritage of folk music, which displays distinctive Scottish
characteristic
s such as the Scottish Snap and the use of the pentatonic
scale. And bag-pipes are almost exclusively regarded as the Scottish
national instrument, though differing forms of bag-pipes are found in several
other countries, including Ireland, and Italy.
Sadly, no world-famous 'art-music' composers have emerged from Scotland. William Wallace (born in Greenock) was fairly well-known at the close of the 19th century in the UK. It
has been left to foreign composers such as Mendelssohn to utilize Scottish
characteristics in their music. Mendelssohn
was greatly attracted to Scotland, as evidenced by his overture Fingal's cave,
and his Scottish Symphony. The Norwegian composer
Grieg
was born in Bergen, Norway, but his father was from Scotland!