goblet from must readings which make the establishment of his text peculiarly difficult shows abundant traces of deliberation and the labor of the file. In the following song, the first four lines of which are old, it is interesting to note that, though he preserves admirably the tone of the fragment which gave him the impulse and the idea, the twelve lines which he added are in the effects produced by manipulation of the consonants and vowels and in the use of internal rhyme a triumph of conscious artistic skill. The interest in technique which this implies is exhibited farther in many passages of his letters, especially those to George Thomson. GO FETCH TO ME A PINT O' WINE Go fetch to me a pint o' wine, Fu' loud the wind blaws frae the ferry, The trumpets sound, the banners fly, The shouts o' war are heard afar, The battle closes thick and bloody; But it's no the roar o' sea or shore CHAPTER III BURNS AND SCOTTISH SONG ITH song-writing Burns began his WITH poetical career, with song-writing he closed it; and, brilliant as was his achievement in other fields, it is as a song-writer that he ranks highest among his peers, it is through his songs that he has rooted himself most deeply in the hearts of his countrymen. The most notable and significant fact in connection with his making of songs is their relation to the melodies to which they are sung. In the vast majority of cases these are old Scottish tunes, which were known to Burns before he wrote his songs, and were singing in his ear during the process of composition. The poet was no technical musician. Murdoch, his first teacher, says that Robert and Gilbert Burns "were left far behind by all the rest of the school" when he tried to teach them a little church music. "Robert's ear, in particular, was remarkably dull, and his voice untunable. It was long before I could get them to distinguish one tune from another." Either Murdoch exaggerated, or the poet's ear developed later (Murdoch is speaking of him between the ages of six and nine); for he learned to fiddle a little, once at least attempted to compose an air, could read music fairly easily, and could write down a melody from memory. His correspondence with Johnson and Thomson shows that he knew a vast number of old tunes and was very sensitive to their individual quality and suggestion.1 Such a sentence as the following from 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 one of his Commonplace Books shows how important his responsiveness to music was for his poetical composition. "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." 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 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.) |