John Blackwood McEwen

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Sir John Blackwood McEwen (1868–1948) was a Scottish classical composer. He is best known for orcherstral works on his native Galloway, such as ‘’A Solway Symphony’’ (1909), ‘’Hills o'Heather’’ and ‘’Where the Wild Thyme Blows’’ (1918). His ‘’Three Border Ballads’’ include Grey Galloway (1908), The Demon Lover (1906/7) and Coronach (1906). Other works include Hymn on the Morning of Christ's Nativity, a setting of The Hymn from Milton's Ode of the same title.

His main influences appear to be Scottish folk music, Jean Sibelius and Richard Wagner, for example, in the third movement of ‘’A Solway Symphony’’ which shows a very strong influence from ‘’Siegfrieds Rheinfahrt’’. Most of his music is not so derivative. He seems to have been a sort of predecessor of the Scottish Renaissance in trying to use Scottish folk culture, but in a non-sentimental manner.

Thanks to a couple of successful recordings of his works in the early 1990s, often performed by Moray Welsh, he has become known to a new generation of listeners. More recently, the Chilingirian Quartet has recorded ten of Blackwood's seventeen string quartets, written over a fifty-year period. Several late string trios remain unrecorded.