Fergusson is not principally known as a songwriter, but he wrote around fifteen songs set to popular tunes. Some of Fergusson’s songs are marketed to a well-heeled audience, including his work for contemporary operas and for this Collection of Scots Songs, which was probably designed for domestic performance, but others were songs for communal singing in the Cape Club, an Edinburgh association of which Fergusson became a member in 1772.

‘Where winding Forth adorns the Vale’ takes the countryside around Edinburgh as its theme. It is set to the tune ‘Cumbernauld House’, a very old melody first published in 1687.

‘Amidst a rosy bank of Flowers’ is set to a tune entitled ‘The Highland Lamentation’, an eighteenth-century melody by James Oswald (1710-69), a Scottish composer, which was first published in 1760. Music historians have argued that the tune was composed to mourn the failure of the Jacobite cause at the Battle of Culloden in 1746.

These pieces of music come from the Kidson Collection. Frank Kidson (1855 - 1926) was a collector of old music, folk-song, folk-dances, ballad and opera of the 19th century. His collection, of around 9000 items, was purchased by the Mitchell Library in 1930, with additions in 1949.

Although this is not the version of Artaxerxes that features Fergusson’s songs, it shows one of the many variations of the opera. The version of Artaxerxes which Fergusson contributed to was first performed at the Theatre Royal Edinburgh in July 1769, with the music printed thereafter by Martin and Wotherspoon.

This print gives us an idea of what a production of Artaxerxes would have looked like in the late 1700s. Although this is an image of the production being performed at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden in London, the elaborate scenography and costumes of the show would have looked very similar in the Edinburgh production Fergusson contributed to.

Fergusson began his literary career by writing songs - often to well-known Scottish tunes - for new operas staged in Edinburgh. He was involved with two operas - The Royal Shepherd and Artaxerxes - in 1769, performed when he was just 18/19 years old. In his work for The Royal Shepherd, Fergusson became acquainted with renowned Italian castrato opera singer Giusto Fernando Tenducci (c.1735-90) who, in later life, could not remember his friend Fergusson without tears.

Fergusson’s Auld Reikie is an album of songs and recitations first released in 1981 by Scottish author and broadcaster Billy Kay and Jock Tamson's Bairns, a group focused on Scotland’s musical heritage. Featuring performances of Fergusson’s songs and recitations of his poems alongside contemporary melodies, Fergusson’s Auld Reikie was revived in a November 2024 performance as part of the commemorations of the 250th anniversary of Fergusson’s death. The Scots poetry of Robert Fergusson was read by Billy Kay, whilst the music and song was performed by Karine Polwart, Sarah Hoy, Steve Byrne and Gary West.