The 20th Century
by Charlie Gore
There can be very little disagreement about the state of Scotland’s fiddle tradition when the world went to war in 1939. It was precarious. Skinner had died in 1927, leaving a towering reputation as a performer and composer along with his own music collections – nine bound volumes, a sheaf of sheet music and those priceless early recordings of his, played on a stroh fiddle. These created the link with the older days from whence a handful of players (with Skinner himself to the fore) had carried the flame in changing times – Peter Milne, J. F. Dickie, Hector MacAndrew and the Hardie family. Led by that strong contingent from the north-east, the torch would from thence be in the hands of a few top soloists, such as, in more recent times, Angus Cameron, Ron Gonella, Angus Grant, Douglas Lawrence and Maurice Duncan, the fiddle orchestras and a plethora of accordion led bands. These last were discovering an increasing affection for the true pipe music repertory, a fashion that the fiddlers were not slow to imitate!
The war put a damper on most enterprises not directly connected with the war effort, but when it was over one or two bands still contrived to make the fiddle speak (Tim Wright of Edinburgh was the prime example) offering a bit of variety on a Saturday evening in the fifties. From that period the BBC took a prominent part in the guardianship, if not primarily of the fiddle, at least of traditional dance. When, in the fifties, the newly discovered sounds of the Shetlands and the Irish Ceili Bands exploded onto the folk scene, things were never really to be quite the same again. At the beginning of the sound recording era the term ‘Traditional’ came to mean anything that could be published without undue fear of royalty payments. In the newly created world of international folk music the tag ‘trad. Scottish’ still identifies the odd tune as a survivor from earlier days. Scotland’s fiddle tradition is not, by and large, a recognisable feature of the wider world of contemporary folk music.
It is nevertheless of vital importance to keep the root traditions alive without the use of a life support system. The music itself can be revived at any time. What may prove to be much more difficult will be to find fiddlers who can play it in the older styles and provide the authentic backing for traditional dancing, which is, after all, what most of the music was written for. When the present generation hang up their dancing shoes, will Scottish Country Dancing have gone for ever? It has happened before. During the 19th century the ‘valse’, the polka and the quadrilles quickly put the country dances to flight or banished them to the outer fringes, the ‘farm touns’ and the Highlands. When demand at the Assembly Rooms and public dances picked up again from around the mid-1840s, the publishers were ready, as publishers tend to be, with an answer.
James Spiers Kerr’s ‘Collection of Merry Melodies for the violin’ (Glasgow, from 1875) has been the quintessential source book for country dance music ever since and is still in print! More than 1600 tunes, mostly reels and strathspeys, ‘Specially arranged for the Ballroom’; and ‘Arranged in sets for dancing Reel and Strathspey alternately’. If anybody can tell me why Kerr’s books, and all the other collections of this period, followed this format I would be grateful. Perhaps future generations might want to know the reason for it too. Surenne (in a note on page 1 of his collection) states that the tunes are arranged “….in sets of three, a Reel, Strathspey, and Reel, this being the succession in which they are usually performed’. The ‘Scots Medley’, whatever that may be, appears to have held centre stage!
The ‘Merry Melodies’ have another curious characteristic, shared with other of their ilk. They give no hint whatever as to the source of the music printed in them. It’s easy enough to discover (from original editions) that almost all of it is of a much earlier date, but nevertheless no reference is given – except in a few isolated instances – no source, no publisher, no date. This gives a completely false impression of ‘oneness’…is this music of great antiquity, or brand new? No, it’s ‘traditional’. In such a way the editors were able to write off the whole repertoire (with those few exceptions) as ‘traditional’ in one master stroke, no questions asked. In addition to Kerr, the same applies to all the following :
Joseph Lowe’s ‘Collection of Reels etc’ (1844) Six volumes plus others.
John T. Surenne’s ‘The Dance Music of Scotland’ (1851) 164 pages.
James Stewart Robertson’s ‘Athole Collection’ (1884) 302 pages
Keith Norman MacDonald’s ‘Skye Collection’ (1887) 192 pages (although he does dot the pages with composers’ names where known).
Over 2,000 pieces of music condemned to virtual anonymity! But there was one majoy exception; John Glen, the Edinburgh music collector who delved into the subject most of his life, left us with two volumes of ‘The Dance Music of Scotland’ (1891 and 95) with full attributions, biographies and analysis.
In the 20th century, John Murdoch Henderson (1935) and James Hunter (1979) followed this invaluable practice. There is also just a hint in the introduction to the 1961 edition of Athole. The Royal Scottish Country Dance society has added much research to the subject since its foundation in 1923. Annie Shand and Winifred Bird Matthew were leading contributors. Despite the fact that the international folk movement has tended to bypass the bulk of the real Scottish traditional repertory, more of the old music has been reprinted in the last decade than in the whole of the preceding century. One can’t help wondering for whose benefit this will turn out to be!
I picked these three tunes more or less at random from ‘The Athole Collection’ (870 tunes first published in 1884; reset 1996). Every tune of the period 1780-1830 (and that’s most of the music in Kerr, Athole, Skye, Surenne, etc.) has a story like these to tell, or more so!
Only Glen’s ‘Scottish Dance Music’ (1891-5) makes any attempt to record them :
Mrs Bourke (Reel) Originally ‘Mrs. J. W. Bourke’ in Gow’s Reels Book 4, 1800; no named composer, but that’s not unusual; the publication dates the tune.
Abercairny House (Strathspey/Slow Strathspey) was published in the same year (1792) by Charles Duff (Dundee) and Malcolm MacDonald (Inver), but under two different titles. Who was the composer? My guess would be a third party who may or may not have given it a title – that would account for MacDonald’s ‘Abercairney House’ and Duff’s ‘Mr John Smith’s Strathspey’; both, incidentally marked ‘slow’.
Mrs Christie (Rant/Strathspey) had three distinct personalities
(1) Published by Alexander MacGlashan (Book 3, 1786) and clearly attributed ‘Mrs Christie’s Rant – by Mr Marshall). Nathanial Gow followed suit in 1806 with ‘Mrs Christie. A Strathspey’, but un-attributed (The Complete Repository, Book 3).
(2) Meanwhile the tune appeared as a dance title, ‘Miss Smollet’s Fancy’, in a Broderip & Wilkinson dance manual (No. 8. London, 1800)
(3) Marshall then published it himself in his second collection (1822) using the title ‘Fiddich-side Lasses’ and this was carried through to the ‘Skye Collection’ (1887). Athole (and Kerr) published the tune as ‘Mrs Christie’.
Box and Fiddle
December 2002
The war put a damper on most enterprises not directly connected with the war effort, but when it was over one or two bands still contrived to make the fiddle speak (Tim Wright of Edinburgh was the prime example) offering a bit of variety on a Saturday evening in the fifties. From that period the BBC took a prominent part in the guardianship, if not primarily of the fiddle, at least of traditional dance. When, in the fifties, the newly discovered sounds of the Shetlands and the Irish Ceili Bands exploded onto the folk scene, things were never really to be quite the same again. At the beginning of the sound recording era the term ‘Traditional’ came to mean anything that could be published without undue fear of royalty payments. In the newly created world of international folk music the tag ‘trad. Scottish’ still identifies the odd tune as a survivor from earlier days. Scotland’s fiddle tradition is not, by and large, a recognisable feature of the wider world of contemporary folk music.
It is nevertheless of vital importance to keep the root traditions alive without the use of a life support system. The music itself can be revived at any time. What may prove to be much more difficult will be to find fiddlers who can play it in the older styles and provide the authentic backing for traditional dancing, which is, after all, what most of the music was written for. When the present generation hang up their dancing shoes, will Scottish Country Dancing have gone for ever? It has happened before. During the 19th century the ‘valse’, the polka and the quadrilles quickly put the country dances to flight or banished them to the outer fringes, the ‘farm touns’ and the Highlands. When demand at the Assembly Rooms and public dances picked up again from around the mid-1840s, the publishers were ready, as publishers tend to be, with an answer.
James Spiers Kerr’s ‘Collection of Merry Melodies for the violin’ (Glasgow, from 1875) has been the quintessential source book for country dance music ever since and is still in print! More than 1600 tunes, mostly reels and strathspeys, ‘Specially arranged for the Ballroom’; and ‘Arranged in sets for dancing Reel and Strathspey alternately’. If anybody can tell me why Kerr’s books, and all the other collections of this period, followed this format I would be grateful. Perhaps future generations might want to know the reason for it too. Surenne (in a note on page 1 of his collection) states that the tunes are arranged “….in sets of three, a Reel, Strathspey, and Reel, this being the succession in which they are usually performed’. The ‘Scots Medley’, whatever that may be, appears to have held centre stage!
The ‘Merry Melodies’ have another curious characteristic, shared with other of their ilk. They give no hint whatever as to the source of the music printed in them. It’s easy enough to discover (from original editions) that almost all of it is of a much earlier date, but nevertheless no reference is given – except in a few isolated instances – no source, no publisher, no date. This gives a completely false impression of ‘oneness’…is this music of great antiquity, or brand new? No, it’s ‘traditional’. In such a way the editors were able to write off the whole repertoire (with those few exceptions) as ‘traditional’ in one master stroke, no questions asked. In addition to Kerr, the same applies to all the following :
Joseph Lowe’s ‘Collection of Reels etc’ (1844) Six volumes plus others.
John T. Surenne’s ‘The Dance Music of Scotland’ (1851) 164 pages.
James Stewart Robertson’s ‘Athole Collection’ (1884) 302 pages
Keith Norman MacDonald’s ‘Skye Collection’ (1887) 192 pages (although he does dot the pages with composers’ names where known).
Over 2,000 pieces of music condemned to virtual anonymity! But there was one majoy exception; John Glen, the Edinburgh music collector who delved into the subject most of his life, left us with two volumes of ‘The Dance Music of Scotland’ (1891 and 95) with full attributions, biographies and analysis.
In the 20th century, John Murdoch Henderson (1935) and James Hunter (1979) followed this invaluable practice. There is also just a hint in the introduction to the 1961 edition of Athole. The Royal Scottish Country Dance society has added much research to the subject since its foundation in 1923. Annie Shand and Winifred Bird Matthew were leading contributors. Despite the fact that the international folk movement has tended to bypass the bulk of the real Scottish traditional repertory, more of the old music has been reprinted in the last decade than in the whole of the preceding century. One can’t help wondering for whose benefit this will turn out to be!
I picked these three tunes more or less at random from ‘The Athole Collection’ (870 tunes first published in 1884; reset 1996). Every tune of the period 1780-1830 (and that’s most of the music in Kerr, Athole, Skye, Surenne, etc.) has a story like these to tell, or more so!
Only Glen’s ‘Scottish Dance Music’ (1891-5) makes any attempt to record them :
Mrs Bourke (Reel) Originally ‘Mrs. J. W. Bourke’ in Gow’s Reels Book 4, 1800; no named composer, but that’s not unusual; the publication dates the tune.
Abercairny House (Strathspey/Slow Strathspey) was published in the same year (1792) by Charles Duff (Dundee) and Malcolm MacDonald (Inver), but under two different titles. Who was the composer? My guess would be a third party who may or may not have given it a title – that would account for MacDonald’s ‘Abercairney House’ and Duff’s ‘Mr John Smith’s Strathspey’; both, incidentally marked ‘slow’.
Mrs Christie (Rant/Strathspey) had three distinct personalities
(1) Published by Alexander MacGlashan (Book 3, 1786) and clearly attributed ‘Mrs Christie’s Rant – by Mr Marshall). Nathanial Gow followed suit in 1806 with ‘Mrs Christie. A Strathspey’, but un-attributed (The Complete Repository, Book 3).
(2) Meanwhile the tune appeared as a dance title, ‘Miss Smollet’s Fancy’, in a Broderip & Wilkinson dance manual (No. 8. London, 1800)
(3) Marshall then published it himself in his second collection (1822) using the title ‘Fiddich-side Lasses’ and this was carried through to the ‘Skye Collection’ (1887). Athole (and Kerr) published the tune as ‘Mrs Christie’.
Box and Fiddle
December 2002