As I head off to bed, I wanted to share a recording of one of my favorite tunes. According to the tune notes in Piobaireachd Society Book 9, Donald MacKenzie was a noted piper who died of smallpox at age 30. Being composed in the 1860s, this tune is, if not one of the newer tunes in the Piobaireachd Society collection, at least one of the less ancient. As the title suggests, the tune was composed by his father, a lovely tribute by a grieving parent.
Variation II has one of the most unique and distinctive bits of technique I've ever heard. At first glance it appears to be a standard dithis variation, but the E theme notes use an F gracenote to low A, instead of the usual G gracenote. This pattern continues into the Variation II doubling.
The video description attributes the recording to a piobaireachd concert in 1993 in Brittany; William Morrison was one of the featured pipers, along with Willie McCallum, Roddy MacLeod, and Hervé Le Floc'h. This video was what I listened to when I was learning the tune.