Here is a record that fairly bristles with mystery. Let us begin with the title. "Scots Fiddle" is not to mislead those addicted to the American Country Fiddle, or even to the Swedish Fiddle; it seems to be Scottish violin music (much as Percy Grainger insisted on calling the viola and contrabass "middle fiddle" and "bull fiddle"). Moreover, "high style" should make you think neither of Yves St. Laurent nor of the highlands, for my sources indicate that the violin is (sneer!) a Lowland (not to say English) phenomenon; apparently the phrase means that this is "art" fiddling (or violining), which it is.

To be sure, there is a bow toward folk music in the four sets of variations on Scottish songs. Prior to the 18th century, Scottish folk-music must remain a closed book, for it was apparently not set down on paper before then, and when it was, it was no doubt prettified and "corrected." Scottish melody is characterized by, among other things, use of modality and of the pentatonic scale (the "Chinese" scale, which you can reproduce by playing tunes on the black keys of your piano or accordion or harmonium). Then there is the "Scotch snap," which is not a ginger-flavored oatmeal cookie, but (typically) a sixteenth-note followed by a dotted eighth ("Gin a bod-YYYY meet a bod-YYYY. ") In the Lowlands, however, tunes are often suspect of having under­gone pollution from across the border, if they aren't actually smuggled imports. Of the four heard here, "Duncan Gray" is perhaps best known; some may remember Richard Dyer-Bennett's singing of "The Laird of Cockpen." The real mystery, however, is the source of the variations. The liner tells me only that the music on the record was published between 1735 and 1770, but, because of a shaky syntax, this fact may apply only to the sonatas. If the dates are merely approximate, a likely source would be Charles Macklean 's A Collection of favourite Scots Tunes with Variations for the Violin published in Edinburgh in 1772.

Macklean (or Maclean or McLean or M'Lean) is represented by two sonatas for violin and continuo--or more specifically ''for Violin and Violoncello with a Thorough Bass for the Harpsichord." These come from a set of twelve, designated as Op. 1, and published in 1737. All we know about Macklean is that in the same decade he taught in music schools in Montrose and Aberdeen. The author of the volume of variations is called therein "the late Mr. Chs. McLean" (note that the varia­tions extend to orthography!), and it has been doubted that the two are the same.

David Foulis, represented by a sonata in B-flat, is ignored by my musical dictionaries. The notes tell us merely that he was a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in Edinburgh, and that composing was a sideline.

James Oswald, composer of four "Flower Pieces" (including the Deadly Night­shade!), has a larger claim to fame, if only because he defected to London. There he ingratiated himself with the Court, may have taught the young George III (whose official Chamber Composer he became later), and ran a music-shop and publishing business. For mysterious reasons, he published much of his work anonymously, his authorship being revealed only after his death in 1769. He seems to have been the originator of a small secret society of musical people called the "Society of the Temple of Apollo."

Edna Arthur, the violinist heard here, plays both straight and pop violin, and has apparently increasingly turned her attention to such fascinating and unknown home-brew as she dispenses here.