Robert Burns: How To Know Him

by William Allan Neilson

“These old Scottish airs are so nobly sentimental that when one would compose to them, to south the tune, as our Scottish phrase is, over and over, is the readiest way to catch the inspiration and raise the Bard into that glorious enthusiasm so strongly characteristic of our old Scotch Poetry.”

[1] ] The question of the nature and extent of Burns's musical abilities may be summed up in the words of the latest and most thorough student of his melodies:—“His knowledge of music was in fact elemental; his taste lay entirely in melody, without ever reaching an appreciation of contra-puntal or harmonious music. Nor, although in his youth he had learned the grammar of music and become acquainted with clefs, keys, and notes at the rehearsals of church music, which were in his day a practical part of the education of the Scottish peasantry, did he ever arrive at composition, except in the case of one melody which he composed for a song of his own at the age of about twenty-three, and this melody displeased him so much that he destroyed it and never attempted another. In the same way, although he practised the violin, he did not attain to excellence in execution, his playing being confined to strathspeys and other slow airs of the pathetic kind. On the other hand, his perception and his love of music are undeniable. For example, he possessed copies of the principal collections of Scottish vocal and instrumental music of the eighteenth century, and repeatedly refers to them in the Museum and in his letters. His copy of the Caledonian Pocket Companion (the largest collection of Scottish music), which copy still exists with pencil notes in his handwriting, proves that he was familiar with the whole contents. At intervals in his writings he names at least a dozen different collections to which he refers and from which he quotes with personal knowledge. Also he knew several hundred different airs, not vaguely and in a misty way, but accurately as regards tune, time, and rhythm, so that he could distinguish one from another, and describe minute variations in the several copies of any tune which passed through his hands.... Many of the airs he studied and selected for his verses were either pure instrumental tunes, never before set to words, or the airs (from dance books) of lost songs, with the first lines as titles.”—(James C. Dick, The Songs of Robert Burns, 1903, Preface, pp. viii, ix.)

Again, once when Thomson had sent him a tune to be fitted with words, he replied:

“Laddie lie near me must lie by me for some time. I do not know the air; and until I am complete master of a tune in my own singing (such as it is), I never can compose for it. My way is: I consider the poetic sentiment correspondent to my idea of the musical expression; then choose my theme; begin one stanza; when that is composed, which is generally the most difficult part of the business, I walk out, sit down now and then, look out for subjects in nature around me that are in unison and harmony with the cogitations of my fancy and workings of my bosom, humming every now and then the air with the verses I have framed. When I feel my muse beginning to jade, I retire to the solitary fireside of my study, and then commit my effusion to paper; swinging at intervals on the hindlegs of my elbow chair, by way of calling forth my own critical strictures as my pen goes on. Seriously, this at home is almost invariably my way.” [September, 1793.]

His wife, who had a good voice and a wide knowledge of folk-song, seems often to have been of assistance, and a further interesting detail is given by Sir James Stuart-Menteath from the evidence of a Mrs. Christina Flint.

“When Burns dwelt at Ellisland, he was accustomed, after composing any of his beautiful songs, to pay Kirsty a visit, that he might hear them sung by her. He often stopped her in the course of the singing when he found any word harsh and grating to his ear, and substituted one more melodious and pleasing. From Kirsty's extensive acquaintance with the old Scottish airs, she was frequently able to suggest to the poet music more suitable to the song she was singing than that to which he had set it.”

Kirsty and Jean were not his only aids in the criticism of the musical quality of his songs. From the time of the Edinburgh visit, at least, he was in the habit of seizing the opportunity afforded by the possession of a harpsichord or a good voice by the daughters of his friends, and in several cases he rewarded his accompanist by making her the heroine of the song. Without drawing on the evidence of parallel phenomena in other ages and literatures, we can be sure enough that this persistent consciousness of the airs to which his songs were to be sung, and this critical observation of their fitness, had much to do with the extraordinary melodiousness of so many of them.

We have seen that Burns received an important impulse to productiveness through his cooperation in the compiling of two national song collections. James Johnson, the editor of the first of these, was an all but illiterate engraver, ill-equipped for such an undertaking; and as the work grew in scale until it reached six volumes, Burns became virtually the editor—even writing the prefaces to several of the volumes. George Thomson, the editor of the other, A Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs, was a government clerk, an amateur in music, of indifferent taste and with a preference for English to the vernacular. In his collection the airs were harmonized by Pleyel, Kozeluch, Haydn, and Beethoven; and he had the impudence to meddle with the contributions both of Burns and of the eminent composers who arranged the melodies. Nothing is more striking than the patience and modesty of Burns in tolerating the criticism and alterations of Thomson. The main purpose in both The Scots Musical Museum and the Select Collection was the preservation of the national melodies, but when the editors came to seek words to go with them they found themselves confronted with a difficult problem. To understand its nature, it will be necessary to extend our historical survey.

In addition to the effects of the Reformation in Scotland already indicated, there was another even more serious for arts and letters. The reaction against Catholicism in Scotland was peculiarly violent, and the form of Protestantism which replaced it was extremely puritanical. In the matter of intellectual education, it is true, Knox's ideas and institutions were enlightened, and have borne important fruit in making prevail in his country an uncommonly high level of general education and a reverence for learning. But on the artistic side the reformed ministers were the enemies not only of everything that suggested the ornateness of the old religion, but of beauty in every form. Under their influence, an influence extraordinarily pervasive and despotic, art and song were suppressed, and Scotland was left a very mirthless country, absorbed in theological and political discussion, and having little outlet for the instinct of sport except heresy-hunting.

Such at least seemed to be the case on the surface. But human nature is not to be totally changed even by such a force as the Reformation. Especially among the peasantry occasions recurred—weddings, funerals, harvest-homes, New-Year's Eves, and the like—when, the minister being at a safe distance and whisky having relaxed the awe of the kirk session, the “wee sinfu' fiddle” was produced, and song and the dance broke forth. It was under such clandestine conditions that the traditional songs of Scotland had been handed down for some generations before Burns's day, and the conditions had gravely affected their character. The melodies could not be stained, but the words had degenerated until they had lost most of whatever imaginative quality they had possessed, and had acquired instead only grossness.