Tune Req: Sir Walter Scott tune query

Subject: Tune Req: Sir Walter Scott tune query
From: Dunlace
Date: 14 Dec 04 - 04:16 AM

In Newcastle's Robinson library I saw the 12 volume collected edition of Scott's "Poetical Works", published 1833. There are some tunes notated there, for example an "Ancient Tune" for Thomas the Rhymer, all of which come with a piano accompaniment. Unfortunately there is no information in the book about how Scott got the tunes, or who transcribed them. Scott died in 1832 and 1833 is as far as I know the only edition with tunes. Scott said himself that he was extremely unmusical, so somebody else must have added the music.

Any clues, anybody?

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Sir Walter Scott tune query
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 15 Dec 04 - 01:48 AM

It doesn't seem clear. Bronson (I, 324) prints the tune and comments "The single tune which has been preserved in two variants for this ballad" [the other being in the Blaikie MS] "may well be, as Scott calls it, 'ancient.' Scott, or his musical editor, writes as if a modern tune was also current in his day; but, if so, it has not been recorded, any more than recent texts that might accompany it."

The 1833 Minstrelsy was edited by J G Lockhart, but I don't know if that included sourcing musical examples (I have an earlier edition). Scott himself was no musician, though given his background I'd expect him to have been musically literate. Perhaps someone will have better information.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Sir Walter Scott tune query
From: Dunlace
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 01:48 AM

Lockhart was Scott's son-in-law, who wrote the "Life of Scott" available online at Project Gutenberg. Chapter 1 of the Life is Scott's autobiography. Below I will cut 'n paste from it Scott's own very funny description of his musical (in)abilities. I haven't yet found out anything about Dr Clarke who he says set his words to music.

" My mother was anxious we should at least learn Psalmody; but the incurable defects of my voice and ear soon drove my teacher to despair.* It is only by long practice that I



*   The late Alexander Campbell, a warm-hearted man, and an * enthusiast in Scottish music, which he sang most beautifully, had * this ungrateful task imposed on him. He was a man of many * accomplishments, but dashed with a bizarrerie of temper which * made them useless to their proprietor. He wrote several books -- * as a Tour in Scotland, &c.; -- and he made an advantageous marriage, * but fell nevertheless into distressed circumstances, which I * had the pleasure of relieving, if I could not remove. His sense of * gratitude was very strong, and shewed itself oddly in one respect. * He would never allow that I had a bad ear; but contended, that * if I did not understand music, it was because I did not choose to * learn it. But when he attended us in George's Square, our neighbour, * Lady Cumming, sent to beg the boys might not be all flogged * precisely at the same hour, as, though she had no doubt the punishment * was deserved, the noise of the concord was really dreadful. * Robert was the only one of our family who could sing, though my * father was musical, and a performer on the violoncello at the gentlemen's * concerts. -- 1826.



have acquired the power of selecting or distinguishing melodies; and although now few things delight or affect me more than a simple tune sung with feeling yet I am sensible that even this pitch of musical taste has only been gained by attention and habit, and, as it were, by my feeling of the words being associated with the tune. I have therefore been usually unsuccessful in composing words to a tune, although my friend Dr Clarke, and other musical composers, have sometimes been able to make a happy union between their music and my poetry.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Sir Walter Scott tune query
From: Dunlace
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 03:29 AM

I found out a little bit about Dr Clarke.

John Clarke MUSD (later Clarke Whitfeld) 1794 - 1797 set some of Scott's poetry to music. And his song "Bird of the Wilderness," written to a poem by James Hogg, the "Ettrick Shepherd" was a hit.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Sir Walter Scott tune query
From: Dunlace
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 03:39 AM

So, does anybody know how I can find out if Dr Clarke was the one who inserted tunes into the posthumous 1833 Scott "Poetical Works", and if so, where did he get them from? Clarke wasn't from the Borders, he was a Herefordshire man.