James Oswald
James Oswald's chamber music sits easily between Scottish folk tune and galant sonata: flower-named Airs for the Seasons, fiddle variations and song airs that eighteenth-century players set beside Corelli without hierarchy.
His two sets of Airs for the Seasons gather some ninety-six short pieces, each titled for a different plant and assigned to its season. They suit violin, flute or oboe with cello, and a few expand into trios. Oswald also wrote variation sets on popular Scots tunes for the fiddle and issued the multi-volume Caledonian Pocket Companion, a working store of airs that later fed songwriters. On record the winter flowers, snapdragon and snowdrop, sit among folk songs and baroque sonatas as if the styles had never been parted.
Compositions by James Oswald appear on
Where have you been all these years?
Claire Patti (vocal and harp), Louise Godwin (cello) and Tony Gould (piano) join in a warm tribute to musical friendship, bringing fresh interpretive colour to traditional songs they love.
Snow in Summer
In 18th-century Scotland, folk songs sat beside Corelli and Vivaldi without hierarchy. Across thirteen tracks, Snow in Summer pairs period sonatas with folk arrangements: sparse strings, plucked notes like stars, and a voice high above.