Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1998. Vol. 2. Eger Journal of English Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 26)

Studies - Jan Smaczny: The stuff of life' - aspects of folksong in the fabric of art music in the British Isles

4 An important development where folksong as an emblem of nation within the art music tradition is concerned occurred in the realms of early romantic music. The Scottish Highlands became a favoured place of tourism and a resort for the romantic imagination partly through the enormous popularity of Ossian's Fingal (a favourite of Napoleon) and the novels of Walter Scott; the latter provided the subject matter for a number of early romantic Italian operas. To an extent this projection of the Highlands as a place of romance, complete with tartan-clad clansmen was a manufactured image. Though certainly beautiful, the Highlands still suffered from the depredations of the clearances. The most famous musical results involved the German composers Felix Mendelssohn and Max Bruch: the first wrote a fine 'Scottish' symphony with imitations of Highland folksongs and, it seems, the quotation of the melody 'Scots wha hae' ('Scots will have') at the conclusion of the finale; for his part. Max Bruch wrote a Scottish Fantasy for violin and orchestra in which for much of its length the thematic material is based on Highland melodies (including, once again in the finale, 'Scots wha hae'). More locally, the effect of Highland myth and melody can be found in the work of a remarkable Scottish composer, Hamish MacCunn (1868-1916). Born into a privileged, ship-owning family, MacCunn had great musical gifts which enabled him to win a scholarship to the Royal College of Music in London, only recently opened. Many of his works reflect an interest in Scotland and the Highlands in particular. His most famous work is an overture called The Land of the Mountain and the Flood, the title of which is taken from Walter Scott's poem 'The Lay of the Last Minstrel'. But this was only one of several overtures, cantatas, and even two operas which celebrated the history and mythology of the Highlands in much the way that the symphonic poems and operas of Smetana, Dvorák and Fibich celebrated the glories of the Czech past real or imagined. The remarkable aspect of MacCunn is his level of musical success and integrity; the fact that he does not appear to be popular today probably reflects ignorance, or possibly some kind of froideur about the programmatic content of his work rather than its musical substance. MacCunn's musical idiom reflects the preoccupations of his contemporaries; Mendelssohn, Brahms, Wagner and Dvorák are all perceptible influences on his music, as indeed they were in the compositions of nearly all British composers towards the end of the nineteenth century. But beyond these influences there is a melodic accent which is among the most distinctive in British music in the nineteenth century. Part of its success is based on an openness to the characteristics of Scottish rhythmic 36