Henry Playford, c 1657 - c 1707

Henry Playford (1657 - c 1707) Henry Playford (1657 - c 1707), carried on a music publishing business in London with his father, John Playford (1623 - 1686), author of the highly regarded and much-re-printed The Dancing Master (London: Playford, 1651). His best known works include Henry Purcell's Pastoral elegy on the death of Mr John Playford, with words by Nahum Tate (1687); and his own A Collection of Original Scotch-Tunes, (full of the Highland Humors), for the violin being the first of this kind yet printed: Most of them being in the compass of the flute (London: Henry Playford, 1700), one of the earliest printed collections of Scottish music, widely circulated at the time, but of which few known copies are now extant. In 1688 he married Ann Baker (1761 - 1743), daughter of Thomas Baker of Oxford, and had a daughter, Anne Playford (1694 - 1739), who married Rev. Thomas Fitzgerald, 1728/29.

John Murdoch Henderson (1902 - 1972) John Murdoch Henderson, son of Charles Henderson, farmer, and Mary Jane Murdoch, was born in New Deer on 31 March 1902, and graduated from the University of Aberdeen, MA 1926. He taught for several years in the south of Scotland, before returning to Aberdeen where he taught science and mathematics at Frederick Street, and latterly, Ruthrieston School. A gifted composer, and an authority on Scottish fiddle music, he wrote The Flowers of Scottish Melody: A First Companion to the Scottish Violinist and Pianist (Glasgow: Bayley & Ferguson, 1935), and arranged J. Scott Skinner's The Scottish Music Maker Skinner: a choice selection of strathspeys, Scots reels, schottisches, double jigs, waltz tunes, song airs, pastorals, marches, quicksteps, hornpipes ... arranged for the violin (Glasgow: Bayley & Ferguson, 1957). He was also a prolific collector of music for the fiddle and pipes, and during his life made several significant manuscript deposits to the University of Aberdeen.

His printed music collection was bequeathed to the National Library of Scotland in 1975/6, and duplicates from this collection transferred to Aberdeen University, where they form the University's John Murdoch Henderson Collection. A further collection of his papers was deposited more recently in the North East Folklore Archive, Aden Country Park, Mintlaw, Aberdeenshire, by his family. See Related Units of Description for further details.