My lovely new book sits on the piano looking, frankly, grand. Diagonal tartan paper on top of cloth-bound covers, the red cloth spine and corners peeping out tantalisingly, and a gold-embossed title. It does indeed look like the advertisement’s promise of being a great gift for a music-loving friend.
I have my own set of questions that I always ask when I open a new book of Scottish songs, and I’ll apply the same tests to “Morven” as I would any other book. But first, I played a couple of tunes from “Morven” this evening. My heart sank. Then Himself called through to me, “What on earth’s THAT you’re playing?” And with reason! The arrangements aren’t bad, technically, but they’re unbelievably prosaic. To be fair, they aren’t too demanding, so they’re accessible at least.
Listen to the introduction of Oh for the bloom of my own native heather, and you’ll see what I mean:- https://soundcloud.com/karen…/oh-for-the-bloom-of-my-own
My next step is to see how long Mozart Allan went on advertising it! It was first published in the 1890s, and my advertising leaflet with ‘An ideal gift for your musical friend’ is from the mid 1920s – but it would appear my copy of the vocal score was owned by someone in 1951. It’s in good condition, so perhaps it WAS still being sold then. (The address could place it anywhere between the late 1920s and the mid 1960s.)
I’m just a little bit sorry for all those countless musical friends who, nearly a century ago, eagerly opened their new book of Scottish songs, and found a batch of well-known songs in plain, unimaginative settings! You know that feeling?
Karen McAulay, Musicologist 