First published 1 December 2025
Arcangelo's second studio film production melds Baroque with Folk in the astounding setting of Rosslyn Chapel in Midlothian.
Out now on YouTube, the film presents an Arcangelo quartet of Colin Scobie (violin), Teodoro Baù (viola da gamba), Sergio Bucheli (Archlute) and Arcangelo Artistic Director Jonathan Cohen (harpsichord) in performances of traditional Scottish melodies in 1742 arrangements by the Lucca-born Francesco Barsanti (1690-1775).
Directed by Andy Staples, the film also celebrates the remarkable history and architecture of its principal location, Rosslyn Chapel in rural Midlothian. Known to millions around the world from Dan Brown's best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code and the subsequent film, the chapel was founded in 1446 by the St Clair family who have since held it in continuous possession and by whose kind permisison Arcangelo's film was made.
Although there is no known historical connection between Barsanti and Rosslyn, the chapel's first great restoration in 1736 opened a new lease of life for the building as a muse for poets, writers and artists engaged in a rediscovery of Scottish traditional culture. Barsanti's folk tune arrangements, created six years later for a cultivated circle including members of the recently-formed Edinburgh Music Society (1728), likewise aim to "revive the Taste of our Ancestors".
Staples' film creates original connections through the intertwining story of violinist Colin Scobie, who attended primary school at Roslin and whose grandfather played bagpipes in Roslin Glen, and through the presentation of 'new' Baroque arrangements by gambist Teodoro Baù, working in the style of Barsanti, of two traditional Rosslyn melodies.
The film has been made possible by the permission of the Earl and Countess of Rosslyn, with the kind assistance of Roslin Primary School, and with the generous support of private donations, the Cockaigne Fund at Foundation Scotland, the Hope Scott Trust and the Music Reprieval Trust.