Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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400 SCOTTISH MUSIC SCOTTISH MUSIC
singularity are alone apparent. The air 'Morag'
may be quoted ; other examples may be found
in Albyn's Anthology, 1816-18, and in 'Orain
na h-Albain,' an excellent collection of Gaelic
airs made by Miss Bell and edited by Finlay
Dan. J. M. w.
George Thomson employed Pleyel, Kozeluoh,
Haydn, Beethoven, Weber, and Hummel to
harmonise and supply symphonies to the
Scottish songs which comprised his published
collections. The choice in all these instances
was not very good. Beethoven appears to have
been under the impression that the ' Scotch
snap ' was characteristic of all Scottish music,
whereas, really, it only naturally belongs to the
strathspey, the reel, and the Highland fling.
Haydn, who seems truly to have had a liking
for, and some knowledge of, Scottish vocal
music, was certainly better fitted for the task ;
he also arranged the two volumes of Scottish
songs issued by Whyte in 1806-7.
Sir 6. A. Macfarren's collection has already
been spoken of, and an excellent set of twelve
Scottish songs arranged by Max Bruch was published
by Leuckart of Breslau.
'
Songs of the
North,' with the music arranged by Malcolm
Lawson, had a great popularity, but many of
the airs suffered a good deal in transmission,
and several of them are to be found in a purer
form in Macleod'a Songs ' of a Highland Home.'
The virulent attack made ' the late Mr.
William Chappell on the claims advanced for
tlie Scottish origin of certain airs cannot in
every case be considered justifiable. There is
much truth in what he advances, i.e. that a
number of Anglo-Scottish Songs of the 17th and
18 th centuries have been too readily claimed as
Scottish folk-songs, in spite of the fact that they
have been sufficiently well ascertained to be the
composition of well-known English musicians.
See Ohappell's Popular Music, old edition,
pp. 609-616, etc.
It is, however, quite evident that Ohappell's
irritation has, on some points, led him astray ;
for some of his statements can be proved to be
wrong ; those for instance regarding ' Jenny's
Bawbee,' 'Gin a body,' and 'Ye Banks and
Braes ' {q.v.), and some others. That Sten-
HOUSE, up to Ohappell's time the chief writer
on the history of Scottish Song, makes many
lamentably incorrect assertions in his commentary
on Johnson's Scots Musical Museum, cannot be
denied, but that he did so wilfully is quite unlikely.
It must be remembered that Stenhouse
was handicapped by being four hundred miles
from the British Museum Library, a storehouse
which supplied Ohappell so well, and besides,
Stenhouse's work was a pioneer, for his notes
were begun in 1817. The late Mr. John Glen
in his Eajrly Scottish Melodies has much to say
regarding Ohappell's attack.
The question as to the antiquity of much of
Scotland's national music is still undecided.
The dates of manuscripts and of printed books,
wherein such music first appears, are not a very
trustworthy guide, for it is quite obvious that
tradition has carried much of it over a considerable
stretch of time, and also that music was
built upon the modes, which remained in popular
use for a long period after their abandonment in
cultivated music. The existing manuscripts,
none of which are prior to the 17th century,
show that music-lovers of the day were well
acquainted with English and Continental work ;
and although there cannot be the slightest
doubt that the common people played and sang
purely national music, yet this was never written
down until late times. Of the country songs
mentioned in The Oomplaint ' of Scotland ' and
other early works only few are to be recognised
and identified with existing copies.
Another class of music which now constitutes
part of the national music of Scotland was the
compositions of professional or semi-professional
musicians. As the fiddle is the national instrument
of Scotland, so the reel and the strathspey
reel are the national dances. A great number
of country musicians, particularly in the northern
part of Scotland, composed and played these
dance tunes for local requirements. These they
named either after some patron or gave them a
fanciful title. In many instances, by the aid
of subscription, the musician was enabled to
publish one, or a series of his compositions,
and so favourite dance tunes from these works
were frequently reprinted and rearranged by
other musicians.
Isaac Cooper of Banff, Daniel Dow, William
Marshall, and many other lesser-known composers,
along with' the Gow family, have thus
enriched Scottish music. We mustalso remember
that where one of this type of musicians has
succeeded in getting his compositions into print,
there may be many whose tunes have passed
into local tradition namelessly, so far ascomposer
is concerned. While there are a great many
beautiful and purely vocal airs, yet these instrumental
melodies have largely been used by songwriters
in spite of their great compass ; this
is one of the factors which makes Scottish
song so difficult of execution to the average
singer.
'
Miss Admiral Gordon's Strathspey,'
'Miss Forbes' Farewell to Banff," 'Earl Moira's
welcome to Scotland,' with others, are wellknown
examples, and have been selected by
Burns and other song-writers for their verses.
Another notable one is Caller Herring,' ' which,
composed by Nathaniel Gow as a harpsichord
piece (one of a series) intended to illustrate a
popular Edinburgh Cry, had its words fitted
twenty years afterwards by Lady Nairne.
In the ' twenties ' and the ' thirties ' many
now well-known songs in the Scottish vernacular
had their birth, possibly owing to the Waverley
Novels. Allan Ramsay was the first to collect
the Soots Songs into book form from tradition,