Music in Scotland during three centuries (1450-1750) : being contributions towards the history of music in Scotland
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Date
1945Author
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Abstract
"“What is your unity?”, asked a French professor, when a student
presented a dissertation upon an historical subject and, if by
a unity the French professor meant a binding thread by which
the scattered pages of some aspect of history might be held
together, his question had a useful and penetrating quality. His
question seemed to demand continuity in the narrative of the
matter in hand, the rejections, maybe, of irrelevant excursions and
the achievement of some formal plan. If one seeks for such a
unity in the story of music in Scotland, it will be found that a
stern continuity does not appear. There were periods, when the
cultivation of music was prevalent all over the land and amongst
all classes: but there were also stretches of time when musical
creation seemed to have dried up and music had an insignificant
place in the artistic and social life of the country. Of the
antiquity of Scottish songs and dances, there can be no doubt for,
as will be seen, many of our melodies, familiar to-day, date before
the Union of the Crowns and may go back to the 15th century and
the few pieces of music, composed for the Scottish Church
during the half century before the Reformation
establishment was firmly
set, are bright spots in our history. But they are few in number, and the story of music in Scotland is of a sporadic character both in performance and in creation ... This survey suffers from the same defect as many others through
its incompleteness. The music of the Highlands and the Hebridean
melodies have been left unexplored and, what is very regrettable,
precautions, incident to the war, have caused the best musical MSS.
to be unavailable in the places of safety in which they are placed.
All that can be expected is that the period from 1450 to 1750 will
be explored with considerable fullness and the 17th century in
particular be brought into contribution for the early melodies in.
our national store. What follows is not truly a history but
provides contributions towards an exhaustive history. The
17th century musical MSS have been almost all examined and in some cases
copied or translated into modern notation. The contents in many
cases have been traced to their origins wherever possible and
examples of widely varying versions of different tunes have been
included." -- From the Preface.
Type
Thesis, PhD Doctor of Philosophy
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