SKU: CY.CC2144

The Skye Boat Song, among the most popular of all Scottish folk tunes, deals with the flight of Bonnie Prince Charlie (Charles Edward Stewart) from Scotland to the Isle of Skye in 1746, after having been defeated on Culloden Moor by the English Army of King George II. The present setting, for either Tenor or Bass Trombone and Piano, is mostly lyrical and passes through a series of episodes that evoke watery images in various ways. A stormy episode which superimposes a more martial tune (relying heavily on the familiar scotch snappy rhythm) against a variation of the original folk tune leads to brief quotations from Mendelssohn's Hebrides overture (the Isle of Skye is part of the group of islands known as the Hebrides) before a short recapitulation of the theme.