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.

1. Changing Traditions
Lecture 6 (Strathclyde, 25.4.13)
Karen McAulay

2. Collections as products of their times
• This is what we expect
to find today …

3. Domestic music-making in the 19th
Century

4. Scots Musical Museum
Figured
Bass
G-B-D-E
E-A-B then
E-G#-B

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

13. An Comunn
Gaidhealach, 1891
Preceded by Lorn Ossianic
Society, 1872-early 1880s.
(Prof. John Stuart Blackie a
leading light in both
societies)

14. The Mod (started 1892)

15. Mod – The National Bard
• Gaelic Mod at Oban
- Crowning of the
Bard - Mr Angus
McInnes (4.10.58)

16. Choral music at The Mod
• A Choisir-Chiuil (St
Columba Collection
of Gaelic Songs), late
19th Century.
• (And there’s a
modern edition!)

17. Musical example
• Thainig an Gille dubh (A’ Choisir Chiuil p.13) –
melody then choral setting

18. Marjory Kennedy-Fraser
• 1857-1930
• Perth …
• Edinburgh …
• World tours … Eriskay …
• Barra …

19. Fr. Allan McDonald, Eriskay
• Gaelic poem collector
& folklorist (1859-1905)

20. Early recording equipment
• Kennedy-Fraser’s
graphophone
Archival sound – 1908 (not MKF)

21. Marjory Kennedy-Fraser
• Songs of the Hebrides
(3 vols)
• Sea Tangle
• From the Hebrides
• More Songs from the
Hebrides

22. Musical examples
• Kennedy-Fraser –
• Spinning wheel accompaniment
• Harp effect accompaniment

23. Musical Example
• Kennedy-Fraser –
• Eriskay love-lilt, sung by Lisa Milne

24. W B Yeats (Irish poet and dramatist)
• Celtic Twilight– a
‘sketchbook full of
folklore reverie’ (1893)

25. Ducoudray:
Breton song

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 …

29. Musical Example
• MacCunn – Flow gently, sweet Afton

30. 20th century developments
• Folk revival
http://folkmusic.about.com/od/folkmusic101/a/60sFol
kRevival.htm
• Ewan MacColl http://www.peggyseeger.com/ewan-
maccoll/ewan-maccoll
• Ethnomusicological approach
• School of Scottish Studies
• (now Celtic and Scottish Studies)
http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/literatures-
languages-cultures/celtic-scottish-studies
• Travellers’ repertoire – Recordings
• Internet – electronic advances