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One of the earliest documented Scottish song collectors actually to go 'into the field' to gather his specimens, was the Highlander Joseph Macdonald. Macdonald emigrated in 1760 - contemporaneously with the start of James Macpherson's famous but much disputed Ossian project - and it fell to the Revd. Patrick Macdonald to finish and subsequently publish his younger brother's collection. Karen McAulay traces the complex history of Scottish song collecting, and the publication of major Highland and Lowland collections, over the ensuing 130 years. Looking at sources, authenticity, collecting methodology and format, McAulay places these collections in their cultural context and traces links with contemporary attitudes towards such wide-ranging topics as the embryonic tourism and travel industry; cultural nationalism; fakery and forgery; literary and musical creativity; and the move from antiquarianism and dilettantism towards an increasingly scholarly and didactic tone in the mid-to-late Victorian collections. Attention is given to some of the performance issues raised, either in correspondence or in the paratexts of published collections; and the narrative is interlaced with references to contemporary literary, social and even political history as it affected the collectors themselves. Most significantly, this study demonstrates a resurgence of cultural nationalism in the late nineteenth century.
Wassail songs are part of Welsh folk culture, but what exactly are they? When are they sung? Why? And where do stars and pretty ribbons fit in? This study addresses these questions, identifying and discussing the various forms of winter wassailing found in Wales in times past and present. It focuses specifically on the Welsh poetry written over the centuries at the celebration of several rituals – most particularly at Christmas, the turn of the year, and on Twelfth Night – which served a distinct purpose. The winter wassailing aspired to improve the quality of the earth’s fertility in three specific spheres: the productivity of the land, the animal kingdom, and the human race. This volume provides a rich collection of Welsh songs in their original language, translated into English for the first time, and with musical notation. It also provides a comprehensive analysis of these poems and of the society in which they were sung.
Welsh traditional music has, until now, been the 'Cinderella' of world music studies. Over the years, few English-language writers have paid it any attention, largely because the majority of the songs of Wales are in the Welsh language. Now, at last, that gap has been filled by an American. Phyllis Kinney's book, Welsh Traditional Music, will both delight and inform anyone with an interest in the subject, be they a general reader, an academic, or a performer. It covers the traditional music of Wales from its beginnings through to the present day and contains an extensive selection of more than 200 musical examples. The book not only includes musical analysis of many of the examples, but also places the songs firmly in their social and historical context. Among the many different forms of Welsh traditional music discussed are seasonal music (including wassail songs, Christmas and May carols and Plygain carols), folk drama, ballad-singing, the relevance of the eisteddfod and the musical journals of the nineteenth century,. In addition, it includes a history of collecting from the eighteenth century to the establishment and on-going activities of the Welsh Folk-Song Society in the twentieth. Both the the instrumental and the vocal traditions are examined and there is a section dealing with the uniquely Welsh tradition of 'cerdd dant'. Overall, the value of the book lies not only in its ground-breaking nature and the quality of its scholarship, but in its discussion of Welsh traditional music in the context of the Welsh musical tradition generally. Phyllis Kinney is an American who has steeped herself in the culture, and become fluent in the language, of her adopted country. She is an acknowledged authority on the traditional music of Wales and has produced a book which will become a classic.