Tullochgorum Haydn — Scottish Songs
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TULLOCHGORUM HAYDN — SCOTTISH SONGS THE POKER CLUB BAND MASAKO ART Tullochgorum Haydn — Scottish Songs 1 O Poortith Cauld Hob. XXXIa:17bis arr. Joseph Haydn (1732—1809) 3'14 2 Auld Rob Morris Hob. XXXIa:192 arr. Joseph Haydn 3'26 3 Prelude in C minor John Elouis (1758—1833) 0'41 4 Roxolane d’Haydn arr. John Elouis 4'00 from Haydn’s Symphony No. 63, ’Roxolane’, Hob. I:63 5 The Mucking of Geordie’s Byer arr. Joseph Haydn 3'09 Hob. XXXIa:51 6 The Siller Crown Hob. XXXIa:260 arr. Joseph Haydn 2'51 7 Up in the morning early arr. Joseph Haydn 2'34 Hob. XXXIa:28 8 Deil tak’ the Wars Hob. XXXIa:229 arr. Joseph Haydn 2'21 Grand duo pour deux guitares tiré de l’œuvre de Haydn 13'31 from Haydn’s String Quartet, arr. François de Fossa (1775—1849) Op. 2 No. 2 / Hob. III:8 9 I. Allegro 3'17 10 II. Adagio 6'23 11 III. Allegro di molto 3'45 12 MacGregor of Ruara’s Lament arr. Joseph Haydn 3'13 Hob. XXXIa:81bis 13 Morag Hob. XXXIa:143bis arr. Joseph Haydn 3'13 2 14 Prelude in G major John Elouis 1'25 15 Romance de Haydn arr. John Elouis 5'57 from Haydn’s Symphony No. 82, ‘L'Ours’, Hob. I:82 16 Lizae Baillie Hob. XXXIa:83 arr. Joseph Haydn 2'17 17 Oran Gaoil Hob. XXXIa:228 arr. Joseph Haydn 2'07 18 Tullochgorum — Puirt A Beul — Tullochgorm’s Reel 3'08 Hob. XXXIa:270 arr. Joseph Haydn — Trad. — Trad. 19 Niel Gow’s Lament for the Death of his 2d Wife 3'21 Niel Gow (1727—1807) TT: 61'38 The Poker Club Band James Graham voice [tracks 1—2, 5—8, 12—13, 16—18] Edin Karamazov guitar [tracks 2, 5, 6, 8—13, 16—18] Sabine Stoffer violin [tracks 1—2, 5—8, 12—13, 16—19] Pierre-Augustin Lay cello [tracks 1—2, 5—8, 12—13, 16—18] [tracks 1—4, 6—19] Masako Art harp, direction Tracks 1, 2, 5—8, 12—13, 16—18: arranged by Joseph Haydn; harp and guitar parts adapted by Masako Art Tracks 3, 4, 14 & 15: John Elouis, from Longman & Broderip’s selection of music for the pedal harp / intended for the use of performers in general / including a variety of preludes and compositions of the following much admired authors / Krumpholtz, Haydn, Elouis, Petrini, Dussek, Cardon, Pleyel, Hinner, Seybold, Delaval &c &c, Longman & Broderip, London, c. 1798 Tracks 9—11: harp part adapted by Masako Art Track 18 (Puirt A Beul): Traditional, as James Graham knows it Track 18 (Tullochgorm’s Reel): Traditional, in Angus Cumming, A Collection of Strathspey or old Highland Reels with a bass for the Violincello, Harpsichord or Pianoforte, Edinburgh, 1780 Track 19: Niel Gow, A Fifth Collection of Strathspeys, Reels &c. For the Piano Forte, Harp, Violin & Violoncello Dedicated to the Right Honorable the Countess of Dalhousie by Niel Gow & Son’s, Edinburgh, 1809 3 The Reel o’ Tullochgorum Drawn and etched by Walter Geikie RSA (1795—1837) of Edinburgh. Published in ‘Etchings illustrative of Scottish Character and Scenery’, Edinburgh 1841 4 y fascination with Haydn’s arrangements of Scottish songs goes back to my student years at the Schola Cantorum in Basel. While arrangements Mof Scottish tunes by continental composers such as Geminiani and Bar- santi had been popular since the high baroque period, I was astonished at the way Haydn used his harmony and idiom – elements foreign to the Scottish melodies but applied here with intuitive understanding and sympathy. Many of the melodies are quintessentially Scottish, by which I mean that they are not well-known popular folk songs of the time, and some are even from the separate, predominantly oral tradition of the Gaelic-speaking regions. I was all the more astounded to learn that Haydn never set foot in Scotland, and that he arranged a staggering number of such songs, often from only textless melodies, either for voice(s), keyboard, violin and cello or for voice(s) and basso continuo. These songs left me wondering: who performed them in Haydn’s time? Could a harp possibly have been part of the ensemble? What kind of multicultural and cross over music-making was happening at the time? I eventually became ac- quainted with the key personalities: George Thomson (1757–1851) was a senior clerk at the Board of Trustees for the Encouragement of Arts and Manufactures in Scotland, a publisher, a collector of folk songs, a friend of Robert Burns as well as an orchestral violinist with the Edinburgh Musical Society in St Cecilia’s Hall. He commissioned Joseph Haydn to arrange a batch of fifteen Scottish airs in November 1799. Thomson and Haydn communicated through Alexander Straton, secretary to the British legation in Vienna, and later also directly to each other, writing in Italian. Over the next years Joseph Haydn (1732–1809) arranged over 400 such songs, including some com- mis sioned by other publishers. What was the motive, apart from money, in taking on such an enormous workload in what some might judge to be an unrewarding field for an internationally acclaimed composer in full maturity? Musicologist 5 Warwick Edwards suggests that both Thomson and Haydn eventually developed the mentality of obsessive collectors typical of the age of the encyclo pedist: From this standpoint we can begin to understand how Haydn, consciously or otherwise, came to view his task for Thomson – and latterly [William] Whyte – as somewhat distinct from his central compositional one, sufficiently so to warrant putting his name to later arrange ments he had asked his pupil Neukomm, and probably others, to undertake. To some Thom son’s action in commissioning Continental composers steeped in musical traditions quite different from those surrounding native Scottish airs seems nothing if not mis guided. The venture was, admittedly, not without controversy in its own time. We should do better to come to terms with the underlying assumption, well nigh uni versal at this time, that national airs and their verses needed not only to be collected, but also to be ‘presented’ in some way. To simply lay them out in their raw state, without any accom pani ment at all, was not an option.1 John Elouis (1758–1833) from Caen, France, was a leading harp teacher in Edin burgh from 1805 until about 1818. Five of his daughters became professional harpists or music teachers and one was also a pianist, a student of Ferdinand Ries, himself a distinguished composer and friend of Beethoven. Elouis also arranged and published a selection of Scottish Songs and was, despite his own continental classical (as opposed to Scottish indigenous) harmonisations, critical of the ‘over- arranging’ of these songs by continental composers such as Haydn: I have also rejected introductory and concluding Symphonies, and likewise difficult Accom- paniments loaded with superfluous notes & extraneous passages… because they overpower the Scottish Melodies and give them the appearance of a mere secondary part. That neither talents nor ingenuity can render such Accompaniments compatible with the Scottish Airs is strongly exemplified by those of the great composer Haydn, which although replete with merit, give no idea of Scottish Music; and for that reason, may be compared to a portrait exquisitely painted, but deficient in resemblance.2 (From the advertisement for Elouis’s second volume of Scottish Songs) 1 Edwards, Warwick (2004): New insights into the chronology of Haydn’s folksong arrangements 2 Sanger, Keith (2014): John Elouis. www.wirestrungharp.com/harps/harpers/elouis/elouis_john.html#_ednref36 6 Elouis did, however, hold Haydn in high esteem. He arranged two movements from Haydn’s symphonies for harp, (tracks 4 and 15), and named his first son James Joseph Haydn Elouis. Margaret Maclean Clephane (1792–1830), later Mar chioness of Northamp- ton, was a poet, a gifted linguist, and a harpist and pianist. Raised on the Hebridean island of Mull and in Edinburgh, she and her sister Anna Jane were fluent in Gaelic, proficient in playing the harp, and capable of copy ing music neatly and pro viding harmonisation to it. They collected a large number of Scots, Gaelic and Irish tunes and airs (many of which are specified as harp airs), as well as copying for them- selves the continental music of Haydn, Mozart and Pergolesi among others, mainly for the harp and some for the guitar. The sisters adopted Sir Walter Scott as their guardian, visited him and his daughter both in Edinburgh and at Abbotsford, con- tributed much to Scott’s interest in Scottish music with their knowledge of the Gaelic tradition, and were very probably an inspiration for Scott’s novel Waverley. Margaret and her husband spent much of her last ten years in Italy, until she tragically died in Rome after childbirth.3 These inspiring protagonists hopefully lend substance to my experiments in the ‘historical’ crossover music that was likely to have been heard in the drawing rooms in Scotland at the time Haydn’s Scottish songs were published. Many collections of fiddle tunes from the time, such as those by Niel Gow, specified the harp on the title page, often before the piano, violin and cello, indicating the harp’s strong pre- sence in this repertoire. James Graham, with his distinctively Scottish timbre and intonation, embo dies the sentiment of the songs. The instrumentalists are trained in historical perfor mance practice, realising Haydn’s rhetoric and zeitgeist on period instruments. The harp used on the record ing deserves a mention: it is a single-action 3 McAulay, Karen E.