CELTIC MUSICAn overview

Dr Karen McAulay

For the University of Strathclyde 14 March 2013

The story so far …• 5 things you remember from last week? • (Mrs Simpson’s dried fern doesn’t count!)

So, the question is …• What is Scottish music?• What is folk music?• People who’ve written about COLLECTING folk music• People who’ve written about PERCEPTIONS OF

SCOTTISHNESS

COLLECTING FOLK MUSIC• Dave Harker – Fakesong (1985)• R. M. Dorson – The British Folklorists: a history

ABOUT SCOTTISHNESS• Hugh Trevor-Roper – The Invention of Scotland: myth and

history• The Invention of Tradition, ed. Hobsbawm & Ranger

(includes Trevor-Roper’s essay on tartan etc)• Matthew Gelbart – The Invention of ‘Folk Music’ and ‘Art

Music’• ‘The Great Highland Bagpipe’• ‘found’ manuscripts, songs, etc, etc …

• Q: What did people in earlier times consider Scottish?

Where’s the evidence, eh?

Queen Mary’s harpGeikie’s early C19th painting

Remember – SCRAN and NAXOS

www.scran.ac.uk

• Images, recordings

Via electronic resources page

• Streamed sound.

Archeological/ architecturalC10th Pictish harp & pipe Rosslyn Chapel,from C15th carving

Obvious and not so obvious

Manuscripts & early printed music

Panmure Manuscript. C19th copy of C17th Robert Edwards’ Common Place Book

Printed non-musical literature

Eg William Tytler’s Dissertation on the Scottish Musick (in ECCO database)

Other sources (music in daily life)

Travel writing

• Martin Martin - A Description of the Western Isles of Scotland (1703) http://www.appins.org/martin.htm

• Johnson – A Journey to the Western Islands

• Boswell – A Tour to the Hebrides

• Many, many more …!

As others see us

• Gillies – A Hebridean in Goethe’s Weimar

Context – who else was active?• Carver Choirbook manuscript. Robert Carver: Scottish monk, c1485-

1570 cf JOSQUIN, TAVERNER, TALLIS, PALESTRINA

• Dauney’s Skene MS, c.1620 (lute) cf DOWLAND

• Robert Edward, “Panmure MS” / Commonplace Book, late C17 th

• ‘Forbes Cantus’: John Forbes, Cantus, Songs and Fancies (1662)• John Angus, David Peebles cf BUXTEHUDE

• Allan Ramsay, 1686-1758 cf J S BACH• James Oswald, 1711-69 cf C Ph E BACH

• Remember, we only know about what survives.

Robert Carver/Carvor (c.1485 – c.1570)

• ♫ Cantus firmus Mass Dum sacrum mysterium, à10, 1506-13• ♫ Motet O bone Jesu, à19, for Scottish Chapel Royal 1520s?• Compare with• ♫ Tallis – ‘Spem in alium’ for 40 voices (in 8 choirs), c.1570

• OVERVIEW OF SCOTTISH SACRED MUSIC: See Musica Britannica Vol.15, Music of Scotland 1500-1700, ed. Kenneth Elliott (1957), xv-xviii, Introduction

• Mid C16th – Reformation. 1536, Dissolution of the monasteries, choirs & town ‘sang-schools’ disbanded. Carver had been a canon at Scone & music survived in Scone Antiphonary

• 1579 another act required burghs to re-establish sang-schools.

Not all elaborate polyphony• Eg, Thomas Wode’s Psalter (1562-92 + later additions,

aka Thomas Wode’s Part Books (Edinburgh UL), containing motets, anthems, metrical psalms.

• University of Edinburgh, Centre for the History of the Book, http://www.hss.ed.ac.uk/chb/WodePsalter.htm (The Wode Psalter Project)

• ♫ David Peebles, Psalm 124. Now Israel may say

The Skene MS

• Our awin Scottis use: Music in the Scottish Church up to 1603, ed. Isobel Woods Preece (2000)

• (Not in Strathclyde University Library)

For more about early Scottish church music

• William Dauney, Ancient Scotish Melodies (1838) – a transcription of the early 17th century Skene lute manuscript.

• (Not in Strathclyde University Library)

Secular: Dauney’s edition of Skene MS

Facsimile of original lute tab Dauney’s transcription

♫ Rob McKillop plays it

Secular: Allan Ramsay • Poet - The Tea-Table Miscellany and The Ever Green

(both 1724-1727). • Lots of useful info & illustrations on the Glasgow

University Special Collections website: http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/teach/music/home.html

• University of Aberdeen has Ramsay material: http://archiveshub.ac.uk/data/gb231ms243

• Two individuals assembled collections of tunes• 1st, unauthorised: William Thomson, Orpheus

Caledonius, 1725• 2nd, instigated by Ramsay: Alexander Stuart, Musick for

Allan Ramsay’s Collection of Scots Songs, 1726

For more about C18th Scottish music• David Johnson, Music and Society in Lowland Scotland in

the Eighteenth Century (1972)• ML Main Library 6 Week Loan (D 780.9411 JOH )

James Oswald (1711-1769)• Moved to London 1741• Published Caledonian Pocket Companion (15 vols)• Had already published Collection of Minuets, Edinburgh

(1736) and A Curious Collection of Scots Tunes (1740)• ♫ A Sonata of Scots Tunes, no.5, Polwart on the Green

(from the Curious Collection)• ♫ Balance a straw (song setting words by London-based

Scot, Tobias Smollett, 1757)• ----------------------------------------------------------------------• Strathclyde University Library has a CD, DVD and sheet-

music by Oswald

English enthusiasm for Scottish music• Playford’s Dancing Master - 18 editions in 80 years,

1651-c.1728• Thomas Shaw (c.1755-1830) – Violin Concerto in G

major, c1785• ♫ Arioso (Adagio)

English enthusiasm for Scottish literature

• We’ll come to that another time!

Unions, rebellions, wars• Political events - effect on music in the Celtic nations• Scottish Regal Union 1603 (James VI of Scotland/ James I

of England)• Scottish Acts of Union 1707; Jacobite uprisings 1715 & 1745• Smouldering resentment for 70-odd years! Jacobite songs –

collections of them• French Revolution 1789-99• Irish – influenced by French Revolution• Irish rebellion 1798 - United Irishmen

looking for democratic reform. Minstrel & harp symbolic• Welsh – harp revival tied up with cultural identity, & myth.

19th century Ireland, Wales, Scotland• Ireland – United Irishmen movement• Thomas Moore’s Melodies• Wales – eisteddfodd movement – periodic revivals of harp

playing!• Wales – Evangelical movement and non-conformity was so

influential that singing secular music was frowned upon in some quarters!

• Scotland – political rebellion had died down; Walter Scott’s arrangements for King George IV to visit Edinburgh in 1822 marked a turning point. Scott’s novels, too.

• End of 19th century – ‘Celtic Twilight’ movement

Instruments• So far … • sacred and secular vocal music• music from the Skene lute manuscript• chamber and vocal music by James Oswald

• If you’re particularly interested in folk music, you might be more concerned with the repertoire for particular instruments.

• What were most popular instruments? }• What music is extant? } Let’s look …

Instruments and repertoire• Harp, Violin, Flute, Keyboard, Bagpipes• Consult Oxford Music Online• Purser, Scotland’s Music• Sanger, Tree of Strings• Johnson, Music and Society in Lowland Scotland –

‘Bibliography of Scottish manuscripts containing folk tunes, 1680-1840’

• Bagpipe repertoire – Donaldson, The Highland Pipe and Scottish Society; also look at the first bagpipe tutor, Joseph MacDonald's compleat theory of the Scots Highland bagpipe (c.1760); lots of material at Piping Centre

An invaluable e-resource• National Library of Scotland digitises music from Glen Coll

ection

• Major news - Scottish collections digitised• John Glen (1833-1904) former owner, big collection• 146 volumes from the NLS Glen Collection have been

digitised via the Internet Archive. "The volumes have been digitised as part of a mass digitisation programme and we hope to be able to get more volumes digitised in the not too distant future. Current images with improved metadata will gradually become available in the NLS digital archive at http://digital.nls.uk/."

• Link to digitised Glen collections here.

And that takes us to 20th/21st centuries

• (How are we for time?!)• Significant trends …• The Mod• Royal Scottish Country Dance Society• Folk Song Revival in 1960s• The Feìs movement• Scottish, other folk music degrees: Sabhal Mor Ostaig,

RSAMD (now Royal Conservatoire of Scotland), Newcastle’s Folk and Traditional Music at The Sage,Gateshead, Edinburgh’s Celtic & Scottish Studies Dept.

Summary• What’s Scottish/ what’s folk music? • (Why not write yourself a paragraph for future reference?

To clarify in your own mind – not to hand in.)• Looked at some key themes – sacred, secular• A few of the big names• Influence of political events on culture• Instruments particularly assoc. with Scottish/Celtic music• Some useful resources• Modern developments• Next week – looking more closely at C18th