Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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SCOTTISH MUSIC SCOTTISH MUSIC 399
irregular ; but their beauty has not a very wide
appeal on a first hearing. Of the style of performance
the editor says :
These aire are sung by the natives in a wild, artless
and irregular manner. Chiefly oeonpied with the sentiment
and expression of the music, they dwell upon the
long and pathetic notes, while they hurry over the inferior
and connecting notes, in such a manner as to
render it exceedingly difficult for a hearer to trace the
measure of them. They themselves while singing them
seem to have little or no impression of measure.
This is more particularly the case with the very
old melodies, which wander about without any
attempt at rhythm, or making one part answer
to anotlier. The following air is an excellent
example of the style :
^^m^m
Wet is the night and cold.
In contrast to these are the LuiNio and
JoERAM (see these articles), the former sung by
the women at their work, the latter boat-songs.
Patrick Macdonald says ' the very simplicity
of the music is a pledge of its originality and
antiquity. ' Judged by this criticism his versions
of the airs seem much more authentic than those
of his successors. Captain Eraser of Knockie,
who published a very large and important
collection of Highland airs in 1816, took much
pains, in conjunction with a musical friend, to
form what he terms a 'standard.' As he had
no taste for the old tonality, he introduces the
major seventh in minor keys, and his versions
generally abound in semitones. He professed a
liking for simplicity, and is not sparing of his
abuse of MacGibbon and Oswald for their departures
from it ;
yet his own turns and shakes
and florid passages prove that he did not carry
his theory into practice. As, however, a large
portion of his volume is occupied with tunes
composed during the latter part of the 18th and
the beginning of the 19th century, in these it
would be affectation to expect any other than the
modern tonality. A specimen of what he calls
an ancient Ossianio air is given as a contrast to
that selected from Patrick Macdonald. In style
it evidently belongs to a date nearer to the times
of MacPherson than to those of Ossiaii. (Compare
last example, p. 3986, with the first on
next column.)
It cannot be denied that though by his alterations
of the forms of Gaelic melody Fraser may
have rendered them more acceptable to modern
ears, he has undoubtedly shorn the received
versions of much of their claim to antiquity.
The volume published by the Gaelic Society of
An air to which Ossian is recited.
IeSS^^
^iEteites'^iB
fe^^j^^^ffiEili^
London in 1876, though not faultless in regard
to modem changes, has restored some of the old
readings ; one example ought to be quoted, for
the air ' Mairi bhan og ' is very beautiful, and
the FH in the fourth bar gives us back the
simplicity and force of ancient times.
Mairi hhan og.
(Mary fair and young.)
^^
iS^^^I^^ig
l^^S^spiiH
^^^pEifeiifel^l^
Captain Fraser stigmatises the previous collections
of Patrick Macdonald and Alexander
Campbell (Albyn's Anthology) as very incorrect.
But Eraser's own versions have in many cases
been much altered in the second edition (1876),
while more recent works differ most remarkably
from earlier copies. The airs are evidently still
in a plastic state, every glen, almost every family
seems to have its own version.
There has been a good deal of controversy in
former times about Highland and Lowland,
Irish and Gaelic claims to certain melodies :
most of the former seem pretty well settled,
but both Irish and Scot still hold to Lochaeer,
and to EiLEBN Aroon or Eobin Adaik (see
those articles).
It is evident from the examples given by
Patrick Macdonald that in the most ancient
times Gaelic music was devoid of rhythm. The
Ossianic chants are short and wild. They are
succeeded by longer musical phrases, well suited
it may be to heighten the effect of the Gaelic
verse, but, apart from that, formless to a modern
ear. From these emerge airs still wild and
irregular, but with a certain sublimity arising
from their very vagueness. Even when they
become more rhythmic, the airs . do not at once
settle down into phrases of twos and fours, but
retain an easy indifference to regularity ; two
alternating with three, four with five bars, and
this in so charming a way that the ease and