An overview of Celtic music

1. CELTIC MUSIC
An overview
Dr Karen McAulay
For the University of Strathclyde 14 March 2013

2. The story so far …
• 5 things you remember from last week?
• (Mrs Simpson‟s dried fern doesn‟t count!)

3. So, the question is …
• What is Scottish music?
• What is folk music?
• People who‟ve written about COLLECTING folk music
• People who‟ve written about PERCEPTIONS OF
SCOTTISHNESS

4. COLLECTING FOLK MUSIC
• Dave Harker – Fakesong (1985)
• R. M. Dorson – The British Folklorists: a history

5. ABOUT SCOTTISHNESS
• Hugh Trevor-Roper – The Invention of Scotland: myth and
history
• The Invention of Tradition, ed. Hobsbawm & Ranger
(includes Trevor-Roper‟s essay on tartan etc)
• Matthew Gelbart – The Invention of ‘Folk Music’ and ‘Art
Music’
• ‘The Great Highland Bagpipe’
• ‘found’ manuscripts, songs, etc, etc …
• Q: What did people in earlier times consider Scottish?

6. Where‟s the evidence, eh?
Queen Mary‟s harp Geikie‟s early C19th painting

7. Remember – SCRAN and NAXOS
www.scran.ac.uk Via electronic resources page
• Images, recordings • Streamed sound.

8. Archeological/ architectural
C10th Pictish harp & pipe Rosslyn Chapel,from C15th carving

9. Obvious and not so obvious
Manuscripts & early printed music Printed non-musical literature
Panmure Manuscript. C19th Eg William Tytler‟s
copy of C17th Robert Dissertation on the Scottish
Edwards‟ Common Place Musick (in ECCO database)
Book

10. Other sources (music in daily life)
Travel writing As others see us
• Martin Martin - A • Gillies – A Hebridean in
Description of the Western Goethe’s Weimar
Isles of Scotland (1703)
http://www.appins.org/martin.htm
• Johnson – A Journey to the
Western Islands
• Boswell – A Tour to the
Hebrides
• Many, many more …!

11. Context – who else was active?
• Carver Choirbook manuscript. Robert Carver: Scottish monk,
c1485-1570 cf JOSQUIN, TAVERNER, TALLIS, PALESTRINA
• Dauney‟s Skene MS, c.1620 (lute) cf DOWLAND
• Robert Edward, “Panmure MS” / Commonplace Book, late C17th
• „Forbes Cantus‟: John Forbes, Cantus, Songs and Fancies (1662)
• John Angus, David Peebles cf BUXTEHUDE
• Allan Ramsay, 1686-1758 cf J S BACH
• James Oswald, 1711-69 cf C Ph E BACH
• Remember, we only know about what survives.

12. Robert Carver/Carvor (c.1485 – c.1570)
•♫ Cantus firmus Mass Dum sacrum mysterium, à10, 1506-13
•♫ Motet O bone Jesu, à19, for Scottish Chapel Royal 1520s?
• Compare with
•♫ Tallis – „Spem in alium‟ for 40 voices (in 8 choirs), c.1570
• OVERVIEW OF SCOTTISH SACRED MUSIC: See Musica
Britannica Vol.15, Music of Scotland 1500-1700, ed. Kenneth
Elliott (1957), xv-xviii, Introduction
• Mid C16th – Reformation. 1536, Dissolution of the monasteries,
choirs & town „sang-schools‟ disbanded. Carver had been a
canon at Scone & music survived in Scone Antiphonary
• 1579 another act required burghs to re-establish sang-schools.

13. Not all elaborate polyphony
• Eg, Thomas Wode‟s Psalter (1562-92 + later additions,
aka Thomas Wode’s Part Books (Edinburgh UL),
containing motets, anthems, metrical psalms.
• University of Edinburgh, Centre for the History of the
Book, http://www.hss.ed.ac.uk/chb/WodePsalter.htm (The
Wode Psalter Project)
• ♫ David Peebles, Psalm 124. Now Israel may say

14. For more about early Scottish church
music
• Our awin Scottis use: Music in the Scottish Church up to
1603, ed. Isobel Woods Preece (2000)
• (Not in Strathclyde University Library)
The Skene MS
• William Dauney, Ancient Scotish Melodies (1838) – a
transcription of the early 17th century Skene lute
manuscript.
• (Not in Strathclyde University Library)

15. Secular: Dauney‟s edition of Skene MS
Facsimile of original lute tab Dauney‟s transcription
♫ Rob McKillop plays it

16. Secular: Allan Ramsay
• Poet - The Tea-Table Miscellany and The Ever Green
(both 1724-1727).
• Lots of useful info & illustrations on the Glasgow
University Special Collections website:
http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/teach/music/home.html
• University of Aberdeen has Ramsay material:
http://archiveshub.ac.uk/data/gb231ms243
• Two individuals assembled collections of tunes
• 1st, unauthorised: William Thomson, Orpheus
Caledonius, 1725
• 2nd, instigated by Ramsay: Alexander Stuart, Musick for
Allan Ramsay’s Collection of Scots Songs, 1726

17. For more about C18th Scottish music
• David Johnson, Music and Society in Lowland Scotland in
the Eighteenth Century (1972)
• ML Main Library 6 Week Loan (D 780.9411 JOH )

18. James Oswald (1711-1769)
• Moved to London 1741
• Published Caledonian Pocket Companion (15 vols)
• Had already published Collection of Minuets, Edinburgh
(1736) and A Curious Collection of Scots Tunes (1740)
• ♫ A Sonata of Scots Tunes, no.5, Polwart on the Green
(from the Curious Collection)
• ♫ Balance a straw (song setting words by London-based
Scot, Tobias Smollett, 1757)
• ----------------------------------------------------------------------
• Strathclyde University Library has a CD, DVD and sheet-
music by Oswald

19. English enthusiasm for Scottish music
• Playford‟s Dancing Master - 18 editions in 80 years,
1651-c.1728
• Thomas Shaw (c.1755-1830) – Violin Concerto in G
major, c1785
•♫ Arioso (Adagio)
English enthusiasm for Scottish literature
• We‟ll come to that another time!

20. Unions, rebellions, wars
• Political events - effect on music in the Celtic nations
• Scottish Regal Union 1603 (James VI of Scotland/ James I
of England)
• Scottish Acts of Union 1707; Jacobite uprisings 1715 & 1745
• Smouldering resentment for 70-odd years! Jacobite songs –
collections of them
• French Revolution 1789-99
• Irish – influenced by French Revolution
• Irish rebellion 1798 - United Irishmen
looking for democratic reform. Minstrel & harp symbolic
• Welsh – harp revival tied up with cultural identity, & myth.

21. 19th century Ireland, Wales, Scotland
• Ireland – United Irishmen movement
• Thomas Moore‟s Melodies
• Wales – eisteddfodd movement – periodic revivals of harp
playing!
• Wales – Evangelical movement and non-conformity was so
influential that singing secular music was frowned upon in
some quarters!
• Scotland – political rebellion had died down; Walter Scott‟s
arrangements for King George IV to visit Edinburgh in 1822
marked a turning point. Scott‟s novels, too.
• End of 19th century – „Celtic Twilight‟ movement

22. Instruments
• So far …
• sacred and secular vocal music
• music from the Skene lute manuscript
• chamber and vocal music by James Oswald
• If you‟re particularly interested in folk music, you might be
more concerned with the repertoire for particular
instruments.
• What were most popular instruments? }
• What music is extant? } Let‟s look …

23. Instruments and repertoire
• Harp, Violin, Flute, Keyboard, Bagpipes
• Consult Oxford Music Online
• Purser, Scotland’s Music
• Sanger, Tree of Strings
• Johnson, Music and Society in Lowland Scotland –
‘Bibliography of Scottish manuscripts containing folk
tunes, 1680-1840‟
• Bagpipe repertoire – Donaldson, The Highland Pipe and
Scottish Society; also look at the first bagpipe tutor,
Joseph MacDonald's compleat theory of the Scots
Highland bagpipe (c.1760); lots of material at Piping
Centre

24. An invaluable e-resource
• National Library of Scotland digitises music from Glen
Collection
• Major news - Scottish collections digitised
• John Glen (1833-1904) former owner, big collection
• 146 volumes from the NLS Glen Collection have been
digitised via the Internet Archive. "The volumes have been
digitised as part of a mass digitisation programme and we
hope to be able to get more volumes digitised in the not
too distant future. Current images with improved metadata
will gradually become available in the NLS digital archive
at http://digital.nls.uk/."
• Link to digitised Glen collections here.

25. And that takes us to 20th/21st centuries
• (How are we for time?!)
• Significant trends …
• The Mod
• Royal Scottish Country Dance Society
• Folk Song Revival in 1960s
• The Feìs movement
• Scottish, other folk music degrees: Sabhal Mor Ostaig,
RSAMD (now Royal Conservatoire of Scotland),
Newcastle‟s Folk and Traditional Music at The
Sage,Gateshead, Edinburgh‟s Celtic & Scottish Studies
Dept.

26. Summary
• What‟s Scottish/ what‟s folk music?
• (Why not write yourself a paragraph for future reference?
To clarify in your own mind – not to hand in.)
• Looked at some key themes – sacred, secular
• A few of the big names
• Influence of political events on culture
• Instruments particularly assoc. with Scottish/Celtic music
• Some useful resources
• Modern developments
• Next week – looking more closely at C18th