Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 3.djvu/453

Rh him and his successioun' (ed. 1728). All this was afterwards abolished; but in 1612 its restoration was ordered by James VI., its place of residence to be at 'Halyrudhous'—'the palace of the sumyn, and the Chappell not to be called the Chappell royall of Striveling as heretofore but his majesties Chappell Royall of Scotland, and the members to attend his majesty in whatever part of Scotland he may happen to be.' In 1629 Charles I. granted an annual pension of 2000 to the musicians of the Chapel, and preparations were made for the celebration of religious service according to the forms of the Church of England. The nature of these arrangements is very fully given in an 'Information to the King by E. Kellie' (1631): among other things he was appointed 'to see that none but properly qualified persons should have a place there, and that they should all be kept at daily practise, and for that effect your Majestie appointed mee ane chambre within your pallace of Halyrudhous wherein I have provided and sett up, ane organe, two flutes, two pandores, with violls and other instruments, with all sorts of English, French, Dutch, Spaynish, Latine, Italian, and music, vocall and instrumentall.' The capitals are Mr. Dauney's, who says, 'There can be no doubt that this last expression referred to the popular national music of Scotland. That sacred music was here not meant is sufficiently obvious; the metrical psalmody of the Reformed Church was not old, and the music of the Church in Scotland before the Reformation was identical with that of Rome, and therefore not Scottish.' Here Mr. Dauney surely applies to the music what can only be said of the words of the service; the latter were the same throughout all Roman Catholic countries, while the music, on the contrary, varied in every locality, being frequently the composition of the chapel-master or of the organist of the church where it was performed. Without insisting on the fact already stated, that James I. of Scotland wrote sacred music—'cose sacre compose in canto'—reference may be made to the Scotish composers mentioned by Dr. David Laing as having written music for the church before the Reformation. Among these are Andrew Blackhall, a canon of Holyrood; David Peblis, one of the canons of St. Andrews, who in 1530 set the canticle 'Si quis diliget me' in five parts; and Sir John Futhy ('the Sir denotes he was a priest'), who wrote a moral song, 'God abufe,' in four parts, 'baith letter and not,' that is, both words and music—as well as others whose names it is unnecessary to mention. Besides, there need not be a doubt that their predecessors were occasional composers from the time when James I. in 1424 set up organs in churches. That this is the music called Old Scotish in Kellie's 'Information' seems to be the only reasonable explanation of these words. For though the members of Kellie's choir in fitting time and place might sing to the king 'to hold him merrie,' this would not be the music which they were called upon to practise twice a week in preparation for the next service.

It is to the reign of Charles I. that we owe the first certain glimpse of early Scotish folk-music. All that was known of it had come down by tradiion, till the discovery—only in the present century—of two MSS. of this date, which establish the existence of a number of tunes whose age and form were previously entirely conjectural. These are the Straloch and Skene MSS. The first was written by Robert Gordon of Straloch, Aberdeenshire, in 1627–29. It was presented to Dr. Burney in 1781, but the present possessor is not known. Fortunately it was in 1839 submitted to G. Farquhar Graham, who, by permission, made an excerpt from it of all that was worthy of preservation, and presented this to the Advocates' Library. The copy was of course exact, and contained all the errors of the original, which were numerous: these make a translation from the Lute Tablature—in which it is written—into the usual notation a very arduous task, requiring much patience, knowledge, and ingenuity.

The second is a much more important MS. It was formed by or for John Skene of Hallyards, Midlothian, and has no date; but its seven parts, now bound together, seem from internal evidence to have been written at various times up to about 1635. In general it is much more correct than the last, its versions are occasionally excellent; its Scotish airs, after rejecting dances and everything else not of home growth, are not fewer than forty. Above all, it contains the ancient original melody of 'The flowers of the forest'; whose simple pathos forbids our believing it to be the expression of any but a true sorrow, the wail of a mourner for those who would never return—and which no doubt is nearly coeval with Flodden. The MS. was published in 1838 by Mr. Wm. Dauney, with a Dissertation, excellent in many respects, on the subject of Scotish music. He was greatly assisted by G. Farquhar Graham, who not only translated the MS. from Lute Tablature, but contributed much musical and other information. In order to give some idea of the style of writing in Tablature a woodcut of a small portion of the MS. is inserted.



As these MSS. had not been discovered in