TRAVEL TUESDAY 553 - DUNDEE, SCOTLAND

“The world is neither Scottish, English, nor Irish, neither French, Dutch, nor Chinese, but human…” — Sir Alexander Gray

Welcome to the Travel Tuesday meme! Join me every Tuesday and showcase your creativity in photography, painting and drawing, music, poetry, creative writing or a plain old natter about Travel.

There is only one simple rule: Link your own creative work about some aspect of travel and then share it with the rest of us. Please use this meme for your creative endeavours only.
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Dundee is the fourth-largest city in Scotland. The 2020 mid-year population estimate for the locality was 148,210. It lies within the eastern central Lowlands on the north bank of the Firth of Tay, which feeds into the North Sea. Under the name of Dundee City, it forms one of the 32 council areas used for local government in Scotland. Within the boundaries of the historic county of Angus, the city developed into a burgh in the late 12th century and established itself as an important east coast trading port. Rapid expansion was brought on by the Industrial Revolution, particularly in the 19th century when Dundee was the centre of the global jute industry. This, along with its other major industries, gave Dundee its epithet as the city of "jute, jam and journalism”.

With the decline of traditional industry, the city has adopted a plan to regenerate and reinvent itself as a cultural centre. In pursuit of this, a £1 billion master plan to regenerate and to reconnect the Waterfront to the city centre started in 2001 and is expected to be completed within a 30-year period. The V&A Dundee – the first branch of the V&A to operate outside of London – is the main centrepiece of the waterfront project. Today, Dundee is promoted as "One City, Many Discoveries" in honour of Dundee’s history of scientific activities and of the RRS Discovery, Robert Falcon Scott's Antarctic exploration vessel, which was built in Dundee and is now berthed at Discovery Point.

Dundee is an international research and development hub in technology, medicine and life sciences, with technological industries having arrived since the 1980s. Dundee was named as a “City of the Future” by Cognizant in 2021, the only UK city to be featured. Dundee is also a leading city in AI, cybersecurity, fintech and electric vehicles where the city has one of the largest fleets of electric vehicles in the country. The city was named as the electric vehicle capital of Europe in 2018, and it has continuously been branded as the electric vehicle capital of Scotland and the United Kingdom.

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TRAVEL TUESDAY 546 - DUNNOTTAR CASTLE, SCOTLAND

“The gloomy hills of Scotland keep my spirit clean” - Robert Louis Stevenson

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Dunnottar Castle (Scottish Gaelic: Dùn Fhoithear, "fort on the shelving slope") is a ruined medieval fortress located upon a rocky headland on the northeast coast of Scotland, about 3 kilometres south of Stonehaven in Aberdeenshire. The surviving buildings are largely of the 15th and 16th centuries, but the site is believed to have been fortified in the Early Middle Ages.

Dunnottar has played a prominent role in the history of Scotland through to the 18th-century Jacobite risings because of its strategic location and defensive strength. Dunnottar is best known as the place where the Honours of Scotland, the Scottish crown jewels, were hidden from Oliver Cromwell's invading army in the 17th century.

The property of the Keiths from the 14th century, and the seat of the Earl Marischal, Dunnottar declined after the last Earl forfeited his titles by taking part in the Jacobite rebellion of 1715. The castle was restored in the 20th century and is now open to the public. The castle ruins are spread over 1.4 hectares, The site is surrounded by steep cliffs that drop to the North Sea, 50 meters below.

A narrow strip of land joins the headland to the mainland, along which a steep path leads to the gatehouse. The various buildings within the castle include the 14th-century tower house as well as the 16th-century palace. Dunnottar Castle is a scheduled monument, and twelve structures on the site were listed buildings.

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TRAVEL TUESDAY 209 - PERTH, SCOTLAND

“I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move…” Robert Louis Stevenson 

Welcome to the Travel Tuesday meme! Join me every Tuesday and showcase your creativity in photography, painting and drawing, music, poetry, creative writing or a plain old natter about Travel.

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Perth (Scottish Gaelic: Peairt) is a city in central Scotland, located on the banks of the River Tay. It is the administrative centre of Perth and Kinross council area and the historic county of Perthshire. According to the preliminary 2011 census results Perth, including its immediate suburbs, has a population of 50,000. Perth has been known as The Fair City since the publication of the story Fair Maid of Perth by Scottish writer Sir Walter Scott in 1828. During the later medieval period the city was also called St John's Toun or Saint Johnstoun by its inhabitants in reference to the main church dedicated to St John the Baptist. This name is preserved by the city’s football team, St Johnstone F.C. Perth in Australia and Perth in Canada are both named after Perth in Scotland.

There has been a settlement at Perth since prehistoric times, on a natural mound raised slightly above the flood plain of the Tay, where the river could be crossed at low tide. The area surrounding the modern city is known to have been occupied since Mesolithic hunter-gatherers arrived more than 8000 years ago. Nearby Neolithic standing stones and circles also exist, dating from about 4000 BC, following the introduction of farming in the area.

The presence of Scone Abbey, home of the Stone of Destiny (rightfully known as the stone of Scone) where the King of Scots was crowned, enhanced the early importance of the city. Perth became known as a 'capital' of Scotland, due to the frequent residence of the royal court. Royal Burgh status was soon given to the city by King William the Lion in the early 12th century. The city became one of the richest burghs in the country, doing trade with France, the Low Countries and Baltic Countries for goods such as Spanish silk and French wine. The Scottish Reformation also played a big role in the city with the sacking of the Houses of the Greyfriars and Blackfriars, after a sermon given by John Knox in St John's Kirk in 1559.

The Act of Settlement later brought about Jacobite uprisings. The city was occupied by Jacobite supporters on three occasions (1689, 1715 and 1745). The founding of Perth Academy in 1760 helped to bring major industries, such as linen, leather, bleach and whisky, to the city. Given its location, Perth was perfectly placed to become a key transport centre with the coming of the railways, and its first station was built in 1848. Today, Perth serves as a retail centre for the surrounding area. Following the decline of the whisky industry locally, the city's economy has now diversified to include insurance and banking. Due to its location, the city is often referred to as the “Gateway to the Highlands”.

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TRAVEL TUESDAY #109 - INVERNESS, SCOTLAND

“Scotland should be nothing less than equal with all the other nations of the world.” - Sean Connery

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Inverness (from the Scottish Gaelic: Inbhir Nis [iɲɪɾʲˈniʃ], meaning “Mouth of the River Ness”) is a city in the Scottish Highlands. It is the administrative centre for the Highland council area, and is regarded as the capital of the Highlands. Inverness lies near two important battle sites: The 11th-century battle of Blàr nam Fèinne against Norway which took place on The Aird and the 18th-century Battle of Culloden which took place on Culloden Moor. It is the northernmost city in the United Kingdom and lies within the Great Glen (Gleann Mòr) at its north-eastern extremity where the River Ness enters the Moray Firth.

At the latest, a settlement was established by the 6th century with the first royal charter being granted by Dabíd mac Maíl Choluim (King David I) in the 12th century. The Gaelic king Mac Bethad Mac Findláich (MacBeth) whose 11th-century killing of King Duncan was immortalised in Shakespeare’s largely fictionalised play “Macbeth”, held a castle within the city where he ruled as Mormaer of Moray and Ross.

The population of Inverness grew from 40,949 in 2001 to 46,870 in 2012. The Greater Inverness area, including Culloden and Westhill, had a population of 59,910 in 2012.  Inverness is one of Europe’s fastest growing cities, with a quarter of the Highland population living in or around it, and is ranked fifth out of 189 British cities for its quality of life, the highest of any Scottish city. In the recent past, Inverness has experienced rapid economic growth: Between 1998 and 2008, Inverness and the rest of the central Highlands showed the largest growth of average economic productivity per person in Scotland and the second greatest growth in the United Kingdom as a whole, with an increase of 86%.

Inverness is twinned with one German city, Augsburg, and two French towns, La Baule and Saint-Valery-en-Caux. Inverness College is the main campus for the University of the Highlands and Islands. With around 8,500 students, Inverness College hosts around a quarter of all the University of the Highlands and Islands’ students, and 30% of those studying to degree level. In 2014, a survey by a property website described Inverness as the happiest place in Scotland and the second happiest in the UK. Inverness was again found to be the happiest place in Scotland by a new study conducted in 2015. 

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TRAVEL TUESDAY #84 - GLASGOW, SCOTLAND

“Glasgow is less polite than Edinburgh but that’s a good thing - they keep it very real.” - Nik Kershaw 

Welcome to the Travel Tuesday meme! Join me every Tuesday and showcase your creativity in photography, painting and drawing, music, poetry, creative writing or a plain old natter about Travel.

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Glasgow (Scots: Glesga; Scottish Gaelic: Glaschu) is the largest city in Scotland, and third largest in the United Kingdom. Historically part of Lanarkshire, it is now one of the 32 council areas of Scotland. It is situated on the River Clyde in the country’s West Central Lowlands. Inhabitants of the city are referred to as Glaswegians. Glasgow grew from a small rural settlement on the River Clyde to become the largest seaport in Britain.

Expanding from the medieval bishopric and royal burgh, and the later establishment of the University of Glasgow in the 15th century, it became a major centre of the Scottish Enlightenment in the 18th century. From the 18th century the city also grew as one of Great Britain’s main hubs of transatlantic trade with North America and the West Indies. With the onset of the Industrial Revolution, the population and economy of Glasgow and the surrounding region expanded rapidly to become one of the world’s pre-eminent centres of chemicals, textiles and engineering; most notably in the shipbuilding and marine engineering industry, which produced many innovative and famous vessels.

Glasgow was the “Second City of the British Empire” for much of the Victorian era and Edwardian period, although many cities argue the title was theirs. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries Glasgow grew in population, reaching a peak of 1,127,825 in 1938. Comprehensive urban renewal projects in the 1960s, resulting in large-scale relocation of people to new towns and peripheral suburbs, followed by successive boundary changes, reduced the population of the City of Glasgow council area to 599,650 with 1,209,143 people living in the Greater Glasgow urban area. The entire region surrounding the conurbation covers about 2.3 million people, 41% of Scotland’s population.

Glasgow hosted the 2014 Commonwealth Games and is also well known in the sporting world for the football rivalry of the Old Firm between Celtic and Rangers. Glasgow is also known for Glasgow patter, a distinct dialect that is noted for being difficult to understand by those from outside the city.

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TRAVEL TUESDAY #41 - EDINBURGH

"Scotland should be nothing less than equal with all the other nations of the world." - Sean Connery

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Edinburgh (Scottish Gaelic: Dùn Èideann) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 local government council areas. Located in Lothian on the Firth of Forth's southern shore, it is Scotland's second most populous city and the seventh most populous in the United Kingdom. The 2014 official population estimates are 464,990 for the city of Edinburgh, 492,680 for the local authority area, and 1,339,380 for the City region as of 2014 (Edinburgh lies at the heart of the Edinburgh & South East Scotland).

Recognised as the capital of Scotland since at least the 15th century, Edinburgh is home to the Scottish Parliament and the seat of the monarchy in Scotland. The city is also the annual venue of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and home to national institutions such as the National Museum of Scotland, the National Library of Scotland and the Scottish National Gallery. It is the largest financial centre in the UK after London.

Historically part of Midlothian, the city has long been a centre of education, particularly in the fields of medicine, Scots law, literature, the sciences and engineering. The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1582 and now one of four in the city, was placed 17th in the QS World University Rankings in 2013 and 2014. The city is also famous for the Edinburgh International Festival and the Fringe, the latter being the world's largest annual international arts festival.

The city's historical and cultural attractions have made it the United Kingdom's second most popular tourist destination after London, attracting over one million overseas visitors each year. Historic sites in Edinburgh include Edinburgh Castle, Holyrood Palace, the churches of St. Giles, Greyfriars and the Canongate, and the extensive Georgian New Town, built in the 18th century. Edinburgh's Old Town and New Town together are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which has been managed by Edinburgh World Heritage since 1999.

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MUSIC SATURDAY - BIBER'S MYSTERY SONATAS

“If you persevere in reciting the Rosary, this will be a most probable sign of your eternal salvation.” - Blessed Alan de la Roche

Today is the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, the festival celebrating the bodily death of the Virgin and her entrance into Heaven.  This feast is called in Scotland “Great St Mary’s Feast in Harvest”. In many Mediterranean countries the feast is celebrated with great brilliance and rejoicing.  The great church of the Virgin on the Greek island of Tenos is home to one of the greatest festivals in Orthodoxy and this attracts many pilgrims every year.

In Scotland, on this day Mary’s Bannock (Moilean Moire in Gaelic) was made. The ears of new corn were plucked and dried in the sun.  They were husked by hand, ground with stones to make flour.  The flour was made into dough and kneaded on a sheepskin and made into a cake.  A fire was made with rowan wood and the cake was toasted on its embers.  A piece of the Bannock was eaten by each member of the family in strict order of age.  All family members then walked sunwise around the fire.  The embers were then gathered in a pot and were carried around the farm grounds and fields in a sunwise direction.  This ritual ensured prosperity and good health for all family members.

Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber (12 August 1644 (baptised) – 3 May 1704) was a Bohemian-Austrian composer and violinist. Born in the small Bohemian town of Wartenberg (Stráž pod Ralskem), Biber worked at Graz and Kroměříž before he illegally left his Kremsier (Kroměříž) employer (Prince-Bishop Carl Liechtenstein-Castelcorno) and settled in Salzburg. He remained there for the rest of his life, publishing much of his music but apparently seldom, if ever, giving concert tours.

Biber was one of the most important composers for the violin in the history of the instrument. His technique allowed him to easily reach the 6th and 7th positions, employ multiple stops in intricate polyphonic passages, and explore the various possibilities of scordatura tuning. He also wrote one of the earliest known pieces for solo violin, the monumental passacaglia of the “Mystery Sonatas”.

During Biber’s lifetime, his music was known and imitated throughout Europe. In the late 18th century he was named the best violin composer of the 17th century by music historian Charles Burney. In the late 20th century Biber’s music, especially the “Mystery Sonatas”, enjoyed a renaissance. Today, it is widely performed and recorded.

The “Rosary Sonatas” (also known as the “Mystery Sonatas”) are a collection of 16 short sonatas for violin and continuo, with a final passacaglia for solo violin. Each has a title related to the Christian Rosary devotion practice and possibly to the Feast of the Guardian Angels. It is presumed that the “Mystery Sonatas” were completed around 1676, but they were unknown until their publication in 1905.

The music of Biber was never entirely forgotten due to the high technical skill required to play many of his works; this is especially true of his works for violin. Once rediscovered, the “Mystery Sonatas” became Biber’s most widely known composition. The work is prized for its virtuosic vocal style, scordatura tunings and its programmatic structure.

Here are the “Mystery Sonatas” of Biber with Musica Antiqua Koln conducted by Reinhard Goebel.

First Part

I. The Annuciation

II. The Visitation

III. The Nativity

IV. The Presentation

V. The Finding in the Temple

VI. The Agony in the Garden

VII. The Scourging of Jesus

VIII. The Crowning of Jesus with Thorns

Second Part

IX. Jesus carries His Cross

X. The Crucifixion

XI. The Resurrection

XII. The Ascension

XIII. The Descent of the Holy Ghost

XIV. The Assumption of our Lady

XV. The Crowning of the Blessed Virgin Mary

XVI. Passacaglia

ALL ABOUT OFFAL

"Hunger is the best sauce in the world." - Cervantes

If you are a vegetarian, you may like to skip this blog today as you may find it too distressing! People with heart conditions are warned not to read any further. Treehuggers and animal liberation people read no more. If you are an incurable romantic with easily bruised sensibilities, likewise, do not read this.

Humans are described as omnivores biologically, meaning that we eat a little bit of everything. That everything includes fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds, meats and fats. Ii some cultures, the term “everything: is taken rather more literally and if an animal is slaughtered for food, each and every part of that animal is consumed or somehow used. The term “offal” is used for describing the internal organs and innards of an animal or fish, including brain, liver, kidney, tripe, and heart. It can also refer to the animal's extremities, such as head, tail, trotters and tongue. Various other bits and pieces like giblets, cockscomb, caul, lights, various glands, bone marrow, blood, etc are also included in this definition. Offal used as food is a tradition that goes back to the hunter/gatherer days of prehistory when to have killed an animal meant an awful lot of good luck. Every part of that animal was eaten as people did not know when again they would be able to feast on such a luxury.

We have come a long way since then, but our Neanderthal heritage is still to be found in our genes, and offal is still on our menu. The masters of the contemporary euphemism, the Americans, prefer to refer to offal as “variety meats” and in several chic restaurants in the States, one may now find increasing use of these delicacies. Are the foodies and epicures slumming it? The tradition of offal consumption represents a simple case of thrifty agrarian necessity. The farmer who knows what expense and resources go into the raising of a food animal, is convinced easily that if one is to be so indulgent as to slaughter an animal, one had better make use of all of it, even the “nasty bits”. Europeans rich and poor have always dined on offal, but it nevertheless has retained a certain… bucolic reputation. The Italians call it “la cucina povera”, or “poor food”, as a reminder of the farming origins of these dishes.

Recipes for offal abound and regional cuisines around the world make full use of all bits and pieces of the animal. “Waste not, want not” is still very much alive and many cultures would blanch at our wasteful society and its preoccupation with “chicken breasts” and “fillet mignon”.

Everyone has heard of the famous traditional Scottish haggis, which consists of sheep stomach stuffed with a boiled mix of liver, heart, lungs, rolled oats and other ingredients. Steak and kidney pie is traditional English fare, while in France, the Iberian peninsula and Italy, many items in the delicatessen and charcuterie displays boast delicious concoctions made from offal. Some of the top restaurants in Europe serve offal as “plats de resistance” – with prices to match! Asian cuisine makes no distinction between offal and other parts of the animal and is it very much a case of eating everything from the pig except the squeal.

In Greece, offal is consumed with great gusto and some famous Greek dishes utilise offal to great effect. Splinantero consists of liver, spleen and small intestine, roasted over an open fire. Kokoretsi is a similar dish that is usually Easter fare and comprises pieces of lamb offal (liver, heart, lungs, spleen, kidney and fat) that are pierced on a spit and covered by washed small intestine wound around in a spiral fashion. The kokoretsi is then roasted over coal fire. Another traditional Easter food is mageiritsa, a soup made with lamb or kid's offal and lettuce, dill, spring onions in a white egg-and-lemon sauce. Tzigerosarmas ("liver wrap") and gardoumba are two varieties of splinantero and kokoretsi made in different sizes and with extra spices to improve the taste.

If you want to read more, here are a couple of links:

Offal good and,

Eating nose to tail

ART SUNDAY - GILBERT STUART

“What a business is this of a portrait painter! You bring him a potato and expect he will paint you a peach.” - Gilbert Charles Stuart

For Art Sunday, an American painter active in the late 18th to early 19th century. Gilbert Stuart, in full Gilbert Charles Stuart (born December 3, 1755, Saunderstown, Rhode Island colony [now in North Kingstown, Rhode Island, U.S.] died July 9, 1828, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A.), was an American painter who was one of the great portrait painters of his era and the creator of a distinctively American portrait style.

Stuart grew up in Newport, Rhode Island, where he learned the rudiments of painting. In 1775 he went to London and entered the studio of the expatriate American artist Benjamin West, with whom he worked for about six years. His mature style owes more, however, to the work of Thomas Gainsborough and Sir Joshua Reynolds than to West. In 1782 Stuart opened his own London studio, and for five years he received portrait commissions from some of England's most distinguished gentlemen.

After his apprenticeship, Stuart became London's leading portrait painter, next to Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough, whose style he emulated, as in a rare full-length portrait of William Grant of Congalton as The Skater (ca. 1782). For a while Stuart lived in splendour, but being a bad businessman and a profligate spender, he was in constant debt. He fled to Dublin in 1787 to escape his creditors. He lived in Ireland from 1787 to 1792 and then returned to America to make a fortune, he said, by painting Washington's portrait.

This last phase of his career was so successful that Stuart had more work than he could handle. He'd developed his own distinctive style (emulated by the next generation of painters) that led to the title, “Father of American Portraiture”. After living in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., he settled in Boston in 1805, and spent the next 24 years painting Presidents, First Ladies, important figures in early American history and - of course - wealthy people from all along the Eastern seaboard.

Though he is best known today for his portraits of George Washington, Stuart is credited with well over 1,000 bust-, three-quarter- and full-length works. Many of these were unfinished and attribution is somewhat problematic at times, as he almost never signed his work. And, despite these many, hefty commissions, he never did develop any business sense. Ironically, the artist whose work is seen millions of times each day (on the U.S. $1 bill) died broke.

Stuart was known for working without the aid of sketches, beginning directly upon the canvas. This was very unusual for the time period. His approach is suggested by the advice he gave to his pupil Matthew Harris Jouett: “Never be sparing of colour, load your pictures, but keep your colours as separate as you can. No blending, tis destruction to clear & bea[u]tiful effect.”  Stuart's works can be found today at art museums and private collections throughout the United States and Great Britain, including the University Club in New York City, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the National Portrait Gallery in London, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

His daughter, Jane Stuart (1812-1888), also a painter, sold many of his paintings and her replicas of them from her studios in Boston and Newport, Rhode Island. A life mask of Stuart was created by John Henri Isaac Browere around 1825. In 1940, the U.S. Post Office issued a series of Postage stamps called the “Famous Americans Series” commemorating famous Artists, Authors, Inventors, Scientists, Poets, Educators and Musicians. Along with the artists James McNeil Whistler, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Daniel Chester French and Frederic Remington, Gilbert Stuart is found on the 1 cent issue in the Artists category.

Today, Stuart's birthplace in Saunderstown, Rhode Island is open to the public as the Gilbert Stuart Birthplace and Museum. The museum consists of the original house Stuart was born in, with copies of paintings from throughout his career hanging throughout the house. The museum opened in 1930.

Stuart painted George Washington in a series of iconic portraits, each of them leading in turn to a demand for copies and keeping Stuart busy and highly paid for years. The most famous and celebrated of these likenesses, known as “The Athenaeum” (shown here), is currently portrayed on the United States one dollar bill. Stuart, along with his daughters, painted a total of 130 reproductions of The Athenaeum. However, Stuart never completed the original version; after finishing Washington's face, the artist kept the original version to make the copies. He sold up to 70 of his reproductions for a price of US$100 each, but the original portrait was left unfinished at the time of Stuart's death in 1828.

FOOD FRIDAY - TRIFLE

“Scotland should be nothing less than equal with all the other nations of the world.” - Sean Connery

Well, it seems that the will of the Scots is to stick together with the United Kingdom for just a little longer. By 55% to 45%, a majority of voters rejected the possibility of Scotland breaking away and becoming an independent nation. UK Prime Minister David Cameron welcomed Scotland’s decision in a televised statement outside 10 Downing Street, saying it was a clear result. Here is a dessert to celebrate the intactness of the Union Jack, at least for a little while longer…

BRITISH TRIFLE
Ingredients
1 sponge cake (25 cm diameter), cut in cubes
1 and 1/2 cup seedless raspberry jam
200 g fresh raspberries
200 g fresh strawberries
300 mL + 300 mL fluid ounces whipping cream
3 egg yolks
4 tablespoons white sugar
100 g sliced almonds (optional)
Blueberries, strawberries to decorate

Method
Heat 300 mL cream in a medium saucepan over medium heat. While the cream is heating, beat the egg yolks with the sugar until pale yellow and smooth. Strain yolk mixture into a clean bowl. Pour hot cream into egg yolks and stir vigorously. Return mixture to pan over low heat and cook, stirring, until thick enough to coat the back of a metal spoon. Remove from heat and allow to cool.
Place almonds on a baking sheet and toast, in a 150˚C oven or toaster oven, stirring frequently, until golden, 2 to 10 minutes. Allow to cool.
While custard is cooling, whip the other 300 mL of cream until soft peaks form.
Spread a little jam on each piece of cake.
Assemble the dessert in a large glass bowl by layering cooled custard, cake, berries, cream and so on.
Top with whipped cream and toasted almonds (if desired), decorating with berries.
Chill 2 hours before serving.

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MUSIC SATURDAY - THE HEBRIDES OVERTURE

“The essence of the beautiful is unity in variety.” - Felix Mendelssohn

The ‘Hebrides Overture’, written by the 20 year-old Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, was inspired by his visit to Fingal’s Cave when he was touring Scotland. He sent a letter to his sister Fanny describing his impression of the cave and along with it an autograph of the first several bars of the overture written on 2 staves. Fingal’s Cave is a sea cave on the uninhabited island of Staffa, in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland, part of a National Nature Reserve owned by the National Trust for Scotland. It became known as Fingal's Cave after the eponymous hero of an epic poem by 18th-century Scots poet-historian James Macpherson.

The cave is formed entirely from hexagonally jointed basalt columns within a Paleocene lava flow, similar in structure to the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland and those of nearby Ulva. In all these cases, cooling on the upper and lower surfaces of the solidified lava resulted in contraction and fracturing, starting in a blocky tetragonal pattern and transitioning to a regular hexagonal fracture pattern with fractures perpendicular to the cooling surfaces. Similar hexagonal fracture patterns are found in desiccation cracks in mud where contraction is due to loss of water instead of cooling. Its size and naturally arched roof, and the eerie sounds produced by the echoes of waves, give it the atmosphere of a natural cathedral. The cave’s Gaelic name, An Uaimh Bhinn, means “the melodious cave”.

The first section of the overture explores the cave’s ambience and eerie darkness. The following section where the orchestra plays tutti gives the impression of a raging ocean. The development section introduces a new theme which is very lyrical and in a cantabile style. The recapitulation reintroduces the original theme with some variations and new orchestral colors and the use of a marcato rhythm and is finally followed by a great climax, which is well prepared for in advance and very anticipated. The climax is played tutti in a raging fortissimo with many lines going in different directions but nonetheless balanced perfectly in terms of tone and harmony. Such a dramatic climax calls for a quiet ending where the strings continue to play a couple of pizzicato notes after the rest of the orchestra goes silent.