Who Was Alexander Campbell?
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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by OpenGrey Repository McAulay, Karen E. (2009) Our ancient national airs: Scottish song collecting c.1760-1888. PhD thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/1242/ Copyright and moral rights for this thesis are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Glasgow Theses Service http://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] Our Ancient National Airs: Scottish Song Collecting c.1760-1888 Karen Elisabeth McAulay BA, MA, LTCL, DipLib, MCLIP Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Music Faculty of Arts University of Glasgow © Karen Elisabeth McAulay June 2009 2 Abstract This thesis explores the musical dimension of Scottish song-collecting between the years c.1760 and 1888. The collections under investigation reflect the general cultural influences that bear on their compilers, starting with those associated with what we now call the Scottish Enlightenment, and continuing with those we associated with developing nineteenth-century romanticism. Building upon the work of Harker on the concept of ‘fakesong’, and of Gelbart on the developing idea of ‘folk’ versus ‘art’ music, I suggest that the sub-title of James Johnson’s Scots Musical Museum , ‘Our Ancient National Airs’, has implications which can be traced throughout this period. The nature of the finished collections tells us much about editorial decisions, value-judgements, and intended audiences. The prefaces, other published writings and surviving correspondence have been especially informative. Parallels can be traced between Joseph and Patrick MacDonald’s A Collection of Highland Vocal Airs , and the Ossian works of James Macpherson, embodying an urge to record and preserve the heritage of Highland Scotland’s primitive past. The collaborations of Robert Burns with James Johnson and George Thomson, and the English Joseph Ritson’s Scotish Song , similarly reflect the antiquarian ‘museum’ mentality. However, the drive to record and codify is tempered by Burns’s and Thomson’s wish simultaneously to improve and polish. The ‘discovery’ of the Highlands as a tourist destination, and the appeal of its primitive history, prompted a substantial body of literature, and Alexander Campbell’s output particularly exemplifies this, but the sense of place was as much a motivator for private collectors. It can also be demonstrated that later song-collectors, such as Robert Archibald Smith, were as much motivated to create and improve the repertoire, as were James Hogg and his literary peers. 3 A passion for domestic music-making, and an increased wish to educate and inform, is evidenced in song-collections by George Farquhar Graham, Finlay Dun and John Thomson, but most significantly, this thesis demonstrates a resurgence of cultural nationalism, driven as much by William Chappell’s anxiety to define and defend the English repertoire, as by Andrew Wighton’s and James Davies’ passion for the Scottish, with Graham and Laing caught in the crossfire. Thus, even if ‘Our Ancient National Airs’ appeared at different times in different kinds of musical setting, and for differing purposes, it can clearly be demonstrated that published Scottish song-collections of this period can, indeed, be taken to reflect a wider range of contemporary cultural trends than has hitherto been recognised. 4 Table of Contents Abstract...................................................................................... 2 List of Tables................................................................................ 6 Introduction ................................................................................. 7 Acknowledgements........................................................................ 18 Chapter 1. ‘Never hitherto published’: preserving the Highland heritage........ 20 Chapter 2. ‘The aera of Scotish music and Scotish song is now passed’: Lowland Song Collecting, c.1780-1800 ............................................................ 44 Introduction ............................................................................. 44 Background and Philosophies ......................................................... 47 The Scots Musical Museum............................................................. 51 George Thomson ........................................................................ 58 Joseph Ritson............................................................................ 66 Ritson the ‘anti-Scot’? ................................................................. 71 The Motivation behind these Lowland Collections................................. 76 Primitivism and Class Culture......................................................... 78 The Effect of Primitivism on Musical Presentation ................................ 80 Chapter 3. ‘To take down a melody’: Travel in Pursuit of Song.................... 88 Travel and Tourism at the turn of the Nineteenth Century ...................... 89 Scottish Writers Touring Scotland .................................................... 91 The Lure of the Hebrides .............................................................. 94 Who was Alexander Campbell?........................................................ 97 Networking in the Highlands .........................................................105 Fixers and Informants ..............................................................105 Other Collectors.....................................................................107 How? Campbell’s Methodology......................................................114 Briefly to the Borders .................................................................117 ‘I have given my old airs to a Mr Campbell here’: Campbell’s association with Hogg .....................................................................................118 Chapter 4. ‘Leaving the world to find out whether they are old or new’: Invention or Fakery?......................................................................125 Hogg: ‘Recovered’ Verses and ‘Imitation of the Ancients’ ......................131 R. A. Smith’s ‘fine airs produced and saved from oblivion’ .....................138 Chapter 5, Illustrations and Notes: Stenhouse’s and Hogg’s Quest for Origins, c.1820 ......................................................................................153 From Interleaved Volumes to Illustrations .........................................157 Burns’s and Riddell’s Notes, and Cromek’s Reliques ..........................157 ‘Copious Notes and Illustrations’: William Stenhouse .........................159 Stenhouse’s Motivations and Methods............................................161 ‘Chaste and Masterly’ Melodies ...................................................165 Arguments about Nationality, Origins and Scottish History...................169 ‘No wise man will undertake a literary work on Scotland without taking counsel with Mr. Laing.’ ..............................................................172 Reception of the Illustrations .....................................................177 Collaborative Commentary and Common Concerns...............................179 The Pragmatic Antiquarian – and the Politicised Poet.........................180 Origins: a Question of National Pride ............................................182 5 A Sign of the Times: the ‘Professional’ Intermediary is born.................182 Chapter 6: Increasing the knowledge and improving the taste, c.1830-1850 ...184 ‘Distinguished literary and musical attainments’ .................................188 Conventional but not commonplace ................................................203 Romantic Scotland: Wild Highland and Simple Lowland Song ................203 ‘Illustrated with Historical, Biographical and Critical Notices’ ..............206 Can there be an ‘original’ version of a tune? ...................................208 Transcription challenges ...........................................................208 Harmonising tunes ..................................................................209 A pragmatic approach to Scottish melodic traits...............................210 Victorian prudishness...............................................................211 Authority: a Winning Formula........................................................211 Chapter 7: ‘The Feelings of a Scotsman’ and the Illusion of Origins in the Later Nineteenth Century ......................................................................213 Andrew Wighton: Amateur Musician, Collector, Patron of Art, Benefactor...214 James Davie: ‘A man possessed of taste and ability’ ............................217 The Oswald dispute.................................................................218 One of the ‘Overnational Scotchmen’? ..........................................221 Popular Music of the Olden Time (1855-59) .......................................222 Anglo-Scottish arguments..........................................................228 The abortive