The Scotsman: Art and Commerce - The Tale of the Entrepreneur Responsible for Haydn's and Beethoven's Scottish Songs
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Beethoven's Scottish Songs
http://www.andante.com/article/article.cfm?id=26126
[I have been curious about this for a very long time.]
By Kenneth Walton
The Scotsman [Edinburgh] - 17 October 2005
Just over 200 years ago, a man whose equivalent status today would
probably be as chief executive of Scottish Enterprise had a wonderful
idea. Why not get the very best of the world's composers to dress up
traditional Scots songs in a way that would sell like hot cakes to a
sizeable niche market?
The man's name was George Thompson. As clerk to the Board of Trustees
for the Encouragement of Art and Manufacturing in Scotland, he was
both well connected and affluent.
He fostered a love for music, playing amateur violin in the ambitious
Edinburgh Music Society orchestra, which attracted composers and music
directors from Italy and Germany and performed in the city's elegant
St. Cecilia Hall.
He was also well acquainted with London of the late 18th century
through his business dealings there, and noted the trend among the
upper-middle classes of hosting musical soirées, of the kind you might
find in a Jane Austen novel, at which easy-to-perform arrangements of
popular songs -- particularly those of Scotland and Wales -- were meat
and drink.
Thompson saw an opening. In Edinburgh, there were plentiful
collections of songs by Robert Burns and his contemporaries -- chief
among them being James Johnson's Scots Musical Museum (the earliest
volumes of which were edited by Burns), and the definitive Orpheus
Caledonius. They contained exquisite melodies and basic accompaniments
-- little more than a bassline with figures to indicate the harmonies.
None had the sophistication that Thompson had in mind for his
ambitious publications.
For these, he made full use of his international diplomatic contacts
-- especially in that hottest of musical hothouses, Vienna -- and
enlisted the services of Ignaz Pleyel and Leopold Kozeluch to provide
instrumental accompaniments and additional "symphonies" that would
further adorn the Scots melodies. Where earlier publishers such as the
London musicseller William Napier had kept instrumentation to a
minimum, he went for the fuller combination of piano, violin and
cello. In other words, he took an established form of chamber music --
the piano trio -- and fed it the Scots songs he loved.
His masterstroke, though, was to ask his friend at the Viennese
embassy -- the secretary to the British Legation, Alexander Straton --
to contact the great Joseph Haydn, with a proposition that the
composer might "do the symphonies and accompaniments to the 30 songs".
"When his name is added to those of Pleyel and Kozeluch, Scottish
melodies can boast of being harmonized by the greatest luminaries of
modern music," wrote Thompson.
Haydn obliged, and composed more than 200 arrangements. Thompson's A
Select Collection of Scottish Airs ran to six volumes. He even managed
to persuade others, such as Beethoven and Weber, to contribute. By far
the most prolific and inspired input, though, came from Haydn.
That's the impassioned view of the eminent Haydn scholar and senior
lecturer at Glasgow University, Professor Marjorie Rycroft. For the
past ten years, she and her colleagues, Dr. Warwick Edwards and Dr.
Kirsteen McCue, have painstakingly sought the original source material
for Haydn's Thompson arrangements, scrutinised and prepared them for
publication, and now -- with the help of the internationally acclaimed
Haydn Trio Eisenstadt -- helped establish them in the repertory.
Scots singers Jamie MacDougall and Lorna Anderson are currently in
Eisenstadt with the Eisenstadt Trio recording the last of three
box-sets which feature the complete Thompson commissions on the Dutch
label Brilliant Classics. To mark such a crucial stage in the project
-- including the publication of the Haydn-Thompson editions -- the
same musicians will be centre-stage next week in Scotland, when
Glasgow University hosts an Austria Day Celebration on 26-28 October.
Of all the composers Thompson used, Haydn was the one to "hit the nail
on the head", Rycroft says. "Rarely does he get it wrong." That was an
astonishing achievement, given that Thompson never provided him with
the actual text -- only the melody and a general description.
Are they really any more than triflings of an ageing and ailing
composer who perhaps saw Thompson's offer of two ducats per song
(about £50 in today's money) -- doubled when Thompson learned Haydn
was getting four ducats from rival publisher Napier -- as an easy
boost to his pension? After all, there's evidence to suggest Haydn
passed on the task to a couple of his pupils, Sigismund von Neukomm
and Friedrich Kalkbrenner.
Rycroft detects genuine genius in the songs. "It wasn't just a case of
being able to swallow a brief and deliver the goods," she says. "These
are wonderful miniature dramas that Haydn no doubt tossed off quickly,
but he clearly found the melodies inspiring. Kozeluch and Beethoven
were too fussy in what they wrote. Haydn's are beautifully written for
piano trio, but always maintain an essential simplicity."
It was that quality of writing -- Haydn, more than anyone, perfected
the piano trio genre -- that attracted the Eisenstadt Trio. "Back in
2002, they had just completed recording Haydn's entire output for
piano trio, and were looking for a new project," Rycroft explains. At
first they tried the songs with Austrian singers, but ultimately found
a far more appropriate partnership in Scots duo MacDougall and
Anderson. The recording project will ultimately extend beyond
Thomson's commissions to include those of fellow 18th-century Scots
publishers Napier and William White -- 400 songs in all. Each year
will see a new release until 2009.
The songs so far committed to disc are truly fascinating. Some are
familiar -- such as "Scots Wha Ha'e" or "My Love She's But a Lassie
Yet" -- even with the burnished veneer Haydn's style affords them.
Others contain familiar words set to unfamiliar tunes. They are
arguably something of a stylised curiosity, but in our fuller
understanding of Haydn, they are a fresh and invaluable insight into
the last years of one of history's most influential composers. In
1802, Haydn wrote to Thompson, saying: "I am proud of this work". Two
years later, when Thompson asked him to simplify his version of "Johny
Faw", Haydn was not at all well, and had all but given up composing.
"The revision he provided could possibly have been the last thing he
ever wrote," Rycroft says. How important is that?
The Haydn Trio Eisenstadt, with Jamie MacDougall and Lorna Anderson,
perform at Glasgow University's Austrian Day Celebrations on 27
October.
Haydn's Scottish Songs for George Thomson, Vols. 1 and 2 are available
on Brilliant Classics at [16]www.brilliantclassics.com.
Related Articles:
featured concert:
* [18]naïve: Beethoven - Irish & Scottish songs
Sophie Daneman, Paul Agnew, Peter Harvey, Jérôme Hantaï
* [19]Salzburg Easter Festival, 14 April 2001: Beethoven's 25
Scottish Songs
Angelika Kirchschlager (mezzo-soprano), Philip Langridge (tenor),
Maurizio Pollini (piano).
References
16. http://www.brilliantclassics.com/
17. http://www.andante.com/article/articleList.cfm?type=4
18. http://www.andante.com/article/article.cfm?id=23898&highlight=1&highlightterms=&lstKeywords=
19. http://www.andante.com/article/article.cfm?id=15604&highlight=1&highlightterms=&lstKeywords=