The document summarizes Scottish music in the 18th century. It was influenced by political upheaval following the Acts of Union, as well as cultural trends like the Enlightenment, primitivism, and antiquarianism. Major figures like James Macpherson, the McDonald brothers, Robert Burns, and Joseph Ritson helped collect and preserve traditional Scottish songs. Collections like the Scots Musical Museum and Ritson's Scotish Songs aimed to establish a "national museum" of Scottish music and authenticate early melodies before they disappeared.

1. C18TH SCOTTISH
MUSIC
Karen McAulay

2. The story so far
• Last lecture we looked at some historic Scottish sources
and key names.
• Do these ring any bells:-
• Skene …………………….. For what instrument?
• Forbes was a …………………… of what?
• Panmure was actually …………………………….
• Tea-Table ……………….?
• …………….. Oswald wrote …………..?
• Oswald contemporary with ……………?

3. (Late)18th Century Scottish Music
• Political upheaval, cultural fallout
• Major events in Scotland? (Can you remember?)

4. 4
Overview
• How people in Scotland viewed their own national music
in the C18th
• (To a lesser extent) how it was viewed in England.
• And what was happening in Ireland and Wales?

5. C18th (and early C19th) Scottish
song: influences
Travel
Political
History
Ossian
Popularity Scottish
outwith Song
Scotland
Enlightenment Primitivism &
Antiquarianism
5

6. 6
1. Political History
•1707 - Act of Union
•1715 & 1745 Uprisings

7. 7
2. Popularity: cultural identity
•Popularity both
sides of the Border
•Songs and Airs
(and „improving‟
texts)
•Scottish style, e.g.
Thomas Shaw‟s
Arioso (Violin
concerto)

8. 8
3. Enlightenment
Intellectual curiosity
and atmosphere of
sociable debate.
Societies and clubs,
Eg Edinburgh
Musical Society, &
Society of
Antiquaries of
Scotland

9. 9
4. Primitivism &c
Enlightenment
idea of
„conjectural
history‟

10. 10
5. Literature: Remember Ossian?
Bards, minstrels &
bygone days

11. 11
Macpherson – important context for
what followed
• Ossian phenomenon (literary parallel)
• James Macpherson (1736-96)
• Fragments of Ancient Poetry (1760)
• Fingal (1761)
• Temora (1763)
• The Works of Ossian (1765)
• See Blind Ossian’s Fingal for more info.

12. 6. Travel
Many travellers:-
Political
Travel
• Macpherson
History
• Remember
Popularity
Ossian Johnson/
Scottish
outwith
Scotland
Song Boswell?
• Explorers
Enlightenment Primitivism &
Antiquarianism
• Curious tourists
• Now meet the
Macdonalds!
12

13. Patrick and Joseph McDonald
• Patrick McDonald (1729-1824)
• Joseph McDonald (1739-1762)
• 1760 was a big year for Joseph McDonald (and James
McPherson) …
• Prior to that …
• After that …
• Patrick‟s (and Joseph‟s posthumous) publication,
Highland Vocal Airs (1784)
• Joseph‟s other posthumous publication, Compleat Theory
of the Scots Highland Bagpipe (1803, 1927, 1971, 1994)

14. Highland Vocal Airs (1784)
• A Collection of Highland vocal airs never hitherto published, to
which are added a few of the most lively country dances or
reels of the North Highlands & Western Isles, and some
specimens of bagpipe music.
• ALSO written contributions from:-
• Rev Walter Young of Erskine (preface & harmonisations)
• John Ramsay of Auchtertyre (Dissertation upon Highland
Poetry and Music)
• What‟s significant about this book?
• No words – just tunes, some with basses, some without.
• Commentary
• Efforts at authenticity
• Patrick McD‟s and Young‟s efforts to regularise melodies.

15. Authenticity and Preservation
• Comments in preface and dissertation of McDonald‟s
collection
• „ … to preserve the monuments of antiquity‟ [preface]
• „… probably … the most genuine remains of the ancient
harp-music of the Highlands‟ [preface]
• Ramsay suggested in his Dissertation, that in another 20
years the repertoire would have vanished.
Accompaniments

16. Tytler‟s Dissertation
• William Tytler (1711-1792)
• Six years before McD‟s collection, William Tytler wrote a
Dissertation on the Scottish Music (1779, anon, and in
several later publications)
• His observations influential on subsequent compilers of
song collections.
• Don‟t know if Patrick McD had read Tytler. Quite possibly.

17. Scottish literature & song,
according to Tytler
• Have a quick look at the way William Tytler began his
Dissertation on Scottish Music, in 1783:
“The genius of the Scots has, in every age, shone
conspicuous in Poetry and Music. Of the first, the Poems
of Ossian, composed in an age of rude antiquity, are
sufficient proof. The peevish doubt entertained by some of
their authenticity, appears to be the utmost refinement of
scepticism. As genuine remains of Celtic Poetry, the
Poems of Ossian will continue to be admired as long as
there shall remain a taste for the sublime and beautiful.

18. Tytler contd…
• “The Scottish Music does no less honour to the genius of
the country. The old Scottish songs have always been
admired for the wild pathetic sweetness which
distinguishes them from the music of every other
country…”
• “wild” is a term often used regarding Highland melodies.
Quite often denotes a wide-ranging, somewhat
unpredictable melody.

19. 19
Tytler‟s advice about accompaniments
• “The proper accompaniment of a Scottish song is a plain,
thin, dropping bass, on the harpsichord or guitar. The fine
breathings, those heart felt touches which genius alone
can express, in our songs, are lost in a noisy
accompaniment of instruments.
• “The full cords [sic] of a thorough bass should be used
sparingly and with judgment, not to overpower, but to
support and strengthen the voice at proper pauses.”

20. 20
Tytler, contd.
• “Where, with a fine voice, is joined some skill and
execution on either of those instruments, the air, by way of
symphony, or introduction to the song, should always be
first played over;
• “and, at the close of every stanza, the last part of the air
should be repeated … the performer may shew his taste
and fancy on the instrument, by varying it ad libitum.”

21. 2 more important compilers of collections
• Two more compilers of song collections quoted Tytler,
though they didn‟t follow his instructions to the letter:-
• Robert Burns(1759-96); and
• Northern Englishman, Joseph Ritson (1752-1803)
1. Burns effectively became editor after Vol.1 of James
Johnson‟s, The Scots Musical Museum … Consisting of
six hundred Scots Songs with proper Basses for the
Pianoforte &c (1787-1803), 6 volumes.
2. Burns also worked with George Thomson on a very
different collection of Scottish songs.
3. Ritson, Scotish Songs (1794), 2 vols.

22. 22
Scots Musical Museum (1787-1803)
• James Johnson
• Aim – a national museum of songs
• Robert Burns
• Major contributor as regards texts
• Not musically ignorant
• Sentimental feeling for origins – Ossian appreciated as
literature, not as source.

23. Scots Musical Museum – 2 images

24. Burns‟s own copy of SMM

25. 25
Burns‟s other project
• Burns also collaborated with George Thomson on another
major collection of Scottish songs - A select collection of
original Scotish airs for the voice
• Very different starting point.
• Very different results.

26. Ritson – Scotish Songs

27. Ritson – unaccompanied melodies

28. Vive la Revolution! (1789-99)
• Joseph Ritson declared himself a revolutionary, too!
(Visited Paris, 1791)
• Archetypal antiquarian
• Personality  and 
• Influential
• French Revolution unsettling to other parts of Europe - in
Ireland, a society was formed called the United Irishmen -
influenced by events in the French Revolution, they had a
rebellion in 1798. Literary movement.
• (Later – Thomas Moore, 1779-1852)

29. Wales – also resented English „conquest‟
• But distance lent enchantment – English rule had been
instituted so many centuries ago that by now more
nostalgia than rebellion.
• Thomas Gray - poem, 'The Bard' - arguably the original
inspiration for the whole minstrelsy genre!
• Jones, Edward, Musical and poetical relicks of the Welsh
bards (1794)
• Jones, Edward, Bardic Museum (1802)
• Not just literature and music – also painting, eg…

30. John Martin,
The Bard (1820‟s)

31. But let‟s leave the C19th for next
time. Here‟s a summary of C18th…
Travel
Political
History
Ossian
Popularity Scottish
outwith Song
Scotland
Enlightenment Primitivism &
Antiquarianism
31

32. Lecture 3 References
• James Macpherson, Blind Ossian's Fingal : fragments and controversy
(Edinburgh: Luath Press, 2010) Main Library 6 Week Loan (D 824.6-9 MACP )
• [Patrick McDonald, Highland Vocal Airs (1794)]
• [Joseph MacDonald, A Complete Theory of the Scots Highland Bagpipe (c.1760/
1803)]
• James Johnson, Scots Musical Museum Main Library (various locations)
• [George Thomson, A Select Collection of Original Scotish Airs (1793) / … Scottish
Airs (1801-1841)]
• William Tytler, Dissertation on the Scottish Music (1779 &c)
• Joseph Ritson, Scotish Songs (1794)
http://openlibrary.org/books/OL20454142M/Scotish_Songs_In_Two_Volumes