This document discusses the changing traditions of Scottish folk music collections from the 19th century to early 20th century. It describes popular song collections from the 1800s like the Scots Musical Museum and how collectors like Dun, Thomson, and Graham sought to make the songs more accessible to amateur performers and domestic music-making. The document also profiles important figures who helped preserve traditional Scottish music, like Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, who published collections of Gaelic songs from the Outer Hebrides. It notes how folk music traditions faced threats from clearances and loss of Gaelic language but were celebrated and promoted through organizations like the Mod and An Comunn Gaidhealach.
5. The Songs of Scotland Prior to Burns
(Chambers,1862)
• ‘It is meant as historical in its general scope and
arrangement, and may *…+ satisfy all ordinary
inquirers into the subject, as a department of the
national literature.
• ‘It is also hoped that the collection may be
serviceable amongst those who have not consented
to the entire banishment of our national airs from
the drawing-room.’
6. The Songs of Scotland Prior to Burns
(Chambers,1862)
7. Popular mid-19th century collections
• Vocal Melodies of Scotland (1836); Finlay Dun
& John Thomson. Reissued 1842-53; again
post 1853; Revised & re-edited 1884.
• The Songs of Scotland adapted to their
appropriate melodies (1848-9) ; G F Graham
(a.k.a. Wood’s Edition of the Songs of
Scotland); Rev. as The Popular Songs of
Scotland with their appropriate Melodies (1887,
1908)
8. Vocal Melodies of Scotland - Dun &
Thomson’s concern for the performer
• ‘… some of the finest Scottish songs have been
published, hitherto, in keys quite unsingable by the
generality of voices…’
• ‘… accompaniments … appropriateness of style and
facility of execution’
• ‘marks of expression *to guide those+ either
unacquainted with the Scottish style, or had no
teacher to guide them’
9. Orain na h-Albain; Dun
• Accompaniment … ‘simple and appropriate’
• ‘a few suggestions as to the manner of singing the songs.’
• ‘simple and natural … due expression of the words will
occasionally require the time to be retarded or
accelerated … rhythm is irregular ’
• ‘long-drawn out sounds seem to be a characteristic
feature in the style of the music of many mountainous
countries, originating … from the physical conditions …
being favourable to the production of echoes’*!!!+
10. Graham comments on lyrics
• ‘As the third and fourth stanzas of the original song
are not only unsuited to the air, but are little better
than street-ballad doggerel, we have taken the
liberty to alter them in this work.’
• Graham won’t repeat the ‘profane absurdity’ of
certain opening stanzas.
• ‘rejected the old words as very silly, and quite
unworthy of the popular air to which they were
adapted.’
• ‘We give here the three most tolerable stanzas of
this very trashy song’
11. Musical examples
• Flow gently, sweet Afton
(i) arr. F. Dun
(ii) Arr. G. F. Graham
Compare accompaniments with
(i) An die Musik (Schubert)
(ii) Ständchen (Schubert)
12. Highland sentiments
• Continued to collect tunes ‘in the
field’, because fear of culture disappearing
• Threat to Gaelic language
• Clearances, emigration, arguments about croft
and land-ownership
26. Musical Examples
• Debussy – Pelleas & Melisande opera (overture)
• Compare the style of Debussy’s La Cathedrale
Engloutie (piano), with
• Kennedy-Fraser’s Sleeps the noon in the deep blue
sky (sung by Lisa Milne)
• This is the same tune, untitled, in the Macdonald
collection
• Kennedy-Fraser – The Coolin of Rum
(again, impressionistic, Debussy-esque)
27. Musical Examples
• Kennedy-Fraser – A simple setting of A Raasay
Love-Lilt (Songs of the Hebrides Vol.I)
• Musically more adventurous
setting, Lochbroom love song (SOH Vol.1)
• Then listen to choral Mod setting
28. Hamish MacCunn (1868-1916)
• The land of the
mountain and the flood
• The Dowie Dens o’
Yarrow
• Ship o’ the Fiend
• Jeanie Deans
• Diarmid
• 150+ songs …