OUTWITH in Aberdeen: 'Songs and Fancies'
As part of the Library's 100th birthday celebrations, selected treasures are travelling to communities around Scotland.
Aberdeen Art Gallery's Cowdray Hall concert venue is also marking its centenary in 2025. To celebrate this shared milestone, the National Library's OUTWITH programme kicks off by bringing our earliest publication of Scottish secular music to the Art Gallery.
John Forbes' 'Songs and Fancies', published in Aberdeen in 1682, would have been an important guide to students of music at the time. It captured some of the most beloved songs from Renaissance Scotland in print for the first time.
This free display in Gallery 15, Aberdeen Art Gallery is accompanied by a series of local events including talks and live music performance:
Saturday 13 September: OUTWITH: Celebrating centenary connections
Thursday 2 October: Our Aberdeen: Aberdeen on Film
Wednesday 5 November: Lunchtime talk: Early printing in Aberdeen
Thursday 13 November: Music from John Forbes' Songs and Fancies (voice and lute)
Find out more on the Aberdeen Archives, Galleries and Museums website.
