Scottish Fiddle Music in the 18th Century : David Johnson : Scotland Trad Music

Scottish Fiddle Music in the 18th Century : A Music Collection and Historical Study

By David Johnson

Published by John Donald, Edinburgh, 1984. First Edition. LArge hardback in dust jacket. Book measures 28.5 x 22.5cm. 257 pages.

Following his ground-breaking book Music and Society in Lowland Scotland in the Eighteenth Century (1982), Johnson turned to look specifically at the fiddle.  The impact of the European late baroque / early classical style, he argued, transformed an indigenous tradition into a new, hybrid ‘Scots Drawing Room Style’.  The theme and variation principal found in Scottish ceòl mòr merged with period theme and variation forms, using melodies derived from pibroch repertoire to create variation sonatas.  Traditional ceòl mòr, he argued, transferred readily into light fiddle dance tunes, now clearly differentiated by meter and tempi as reels, strathspeys, jigs, etc. Continental European techniques such as scordatura (non-standard tuning of the 4 fiddle strings) were also incorporated into Scottish playing, facilitating brisker tempi as well as more virtuosic playing.  This, argued Johnson, created a new species of hybrid art music, one that combined elements of native Scottish and European practice.

Johnson’s ideas have been influential in bagpipe studies as well.  Attention to the contents of published collections of fiddle music suggests that what we now think of as ‘traditional’ tunes were collected and published by Scottish music entrepreneurs who realised that their “national” repertoire, newly up-cycled with the fashionable Italianate styles, presented them with commercial musical opportunities.  Based on the evidence of the music books, this seems to be uncontroversial.  However, while Johnson’s findings are true of literate, middle class Scotland and its music making, oral circulation clearly persisted of music in rural contexts outside of this essentially urban culture, and this may have been different in ways that are – by definition – much more difficult to recover.

CONDITION
A very good first edition in a very good unclipped dust jacket. Pages clean throughout. No names or writing. A very good copy.

(Shelf: Music & Song)