Day 61: Scottish Songs? George Thomson?

HaydnCD61Today’s CD looked like an incredibly interesting diversion from the previous compositions. And it is. Just not the way I was hoping.

I love songs from the U.K. Give me Ireland, Scotland (even England) any day. There’s something about the sound and feel of music from that spot on the globe that does it for me.

But, today’s music isn’t exactly giving me goosebumps.

For one thing, the tempo is too slow for a Scottish song – at least, my favorite Scottish songs. (Come to think of it, I don’t believe I could name any Scottish songs. I’m thinking of Irish songs full of tin whistles and “Laddies” and “Lasses” and Danny Boys.)

The song titles on this CD certainly have the right feel to them. Track 4, for example, is called “The wee, wee man.”

I’m glad I’m not a wee, wee man. (But I’ve had a lot of coffee this morning. So I may be soon.)

Here’s what I find off-putting about this music: The vocalists .

They are listed as Lorna Anderson, soprano, and Jamie MacDougall, tenor. (MacDougall sounds like the right guy for the job.) However, Ms. Anderson sounds more like a contralto to me. Her soprano range is definitely lower register. And Mr. MacDougall’s tenor range sounds more like baritone to me. So the two of them together are not endearing me to what I thought would be a toe-tapping round of Gaelic drinking songs.

Here. Listen for yourself. This is the exact same performance to which I’m listening this morning.

To be sure, laddie, “Rattling roaring Willy” (Track 6) is making me yearn for a pint or two. But, overall, this music sounds less festive and more pensive than is my preferred style. The musicians in the Haydn Trio Eisenstadt certainly are not to blame. They’re wonderful musicians.

No, it’s the vocalists. That’s what’s wrong with this music. (And, again, this is not a reflection on the professionalism or talent of Anderson and MacDougall. They are superb. I just don’t prefer their vocal ranges.)

By the way, the lyrics are in English, which is a welcome change of pace.

But the questions begging to be answered this morning are:

1. Why did Haydn write Scottish songs?
2. When did Haydn write Scottish songs?
3. Who is George Thomson?
4. Were these songs originally written in English?

Good questions, wot?

To the third question (“Who is George Thomson?”) I have Wikipedia to thank. According to the article about Mr. Thomson,

was a noted collector of the music of Scotland, a music publisher, and a friend of Robert Burns. He was clerk to the Board of Trustees in Edinburgh for sixty years. His A Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs for the Voice came out in five volumes between 1799 and 1818, and included contributions from Burns, Walter Scott and Thomas Campbell. Thomson published folksong arrangements by Joseph Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven and Johann Nepomuk Hummel.

That doesn’t tell me why Haydn wrote music for him. Or when. So I have to keep digging.

I discovered that Brilliant Classics released a different collection of these songs. Same performances. But split up different from how they are in their Haydn Collection box set, which is what I’m listening to.

Be that as it may, this review from James Manheim on the Allmusic web site supplies enough information for me to put these compositions in historical context, as well as supplying information about the vocalists and musicians. It’s a fine review. Here’s an excerpt:

Haydn wrote arrangements of Scottish folk songs, mostly for voice and piano trio, for several publishers between 1791 and about 1805; these discs contain those he wrote for the Scottish publisher George Thomson. These recordings do contain some music that has probably never been recorded before; in addition to folk song arrangements, there are a few delightful little sets of instrumental variations on Scottish songs. Some of the music in this set would have been among the last that Haydn set down in his old age.

“I do not expect that he [Haydn] will do the accompaniments better than Kozeluch [another composer Thomson employed]; that is scarcely possible, but in the Symphonies [presumably independent introductions and small compositions] Haydn will be great & original,” Thomson wrote. Indeed, the master’s personality shows through even in a thing so small. Although Haydn was given only tunes, not texts or titles (and although he would probably have struggled with the texts if he had had them), he made something distinctive of each tune. When his music is set to a text by Robert Burns, who often wrote new words to a traditional tune, the effect intermittently is of a meeting of great minds. Soprano Lorna Anderson and tenor Jamie MacDougall, true Scots both (MacDougall is one of the Three Scottish Tenors), offer ideal interpretations of this music, with text intelligibility, a minimum of fuss, and a popular spirit. Although we might have wished for a fortepiano instead of the Steinway used, the Eisenstadt Trio of Austria provides circumspect accompaniment and even offers more information about the project on its own website.

Here’s a review on Amazon (written by W.R. Shindle) of the first disc in the collection Brilliant Classics released:

Over two centuries ago, between 1800 and 1804, in agreement with George Thompson, Haydn made arrangements of about 125 or more Scottish Folk Songs accompanied by piano, violin and violoncello. Until recently, they were more or less regarded as trifles…Given the fact that Haydn was not supplied with the text, a number of which is in Scottish dialect, it is surprising how he understood the essence of each song, and it was to the advantage in these performances that we had the two Scottish singers who could sing in the dialect and transmit to the Haydn Trio Eisenstadt the basic character of each song. It should be noted that at the same time Haydn was working on this project, he was also composing three of his late masterpieces, the Creation Mass, the Harmonie Mass, and the Oratorio, The Seasons.

Okay. So, so if the last reviewer is correct, these were written between 1800 and 1804. Haydn would have been 68 – 72.

The more I learn about these compositions, the more impressed I am with them.

Except for that Willy guy.

In Track 6 he was “Rattling roaring Willy.” In Track 25 he was “…a wanton wag.”

Since my name is William, I’m glad I didn’t live back in the day of these poems and folk tales. There’s no telling what sort of mischief I would have found myself in at the hands of these composers.

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