Church music in Scotland
In the early Middle Ages, ecclesiastical music was dominated by monophonic plainchant, which led to the development of a distinct form of liturgical Celtic chant.
Survivals of works from the first half of the sixteenth century indicate the quality and scope of music that was undertaken at the end of the Medieval period.
The outstanding Scottish composer of the first half of the sixteenth century was Robert Carver, who produced complex polyphonic music.
James VI attempted to revive the song schools, however, the triumph of the Presbyterians in the National Covenant of 1638 led to and end of polyphony.
In the second half of the eighteenth century these innovations became linked to a choir movement that included the setting up of schools to teach new tunes and singing in four parts.
The American Evangelists Ira D. Sankey and Dwight L. Moody helped popularise accompanied church music in Scotland.
These limitations are the result of factors including a turbulent political history, the destructive practices of the Scottish Reformation, the climate[1] and the relatively late arrival of music printing.
[1] Neither does Scottish music have an equivalent of the Bannatyne Manuscript in poetry, giving a large and representative sample of Medieval work.
[3] The most important collection is the mid-thirteenth century Wolfenbüttel 677 or W1 manuscript, which survives only because it was appropriated from St Andrews Cathedral Priory and taken to the continent in the 1550s.
The Sarum rite continued to be the basis of Scottish liturgical music in Scotland until the Reformation and where choirs were available, which was probably limited to the great cathedrals, collegiate churches and the wealthier parish churches it would have been used in the main ingredient of divine offices of vespers, compline, matins, lauds, mass and the canonical hours.
[1] The proliferation of collegiate churches and requiem masses in the later Middle Ages would have necessitated the training of large numbers of choristers, marking a considerable expansion of the song school system.
[8] They were designed to provide masses for their founders and their families, who included the nobility and the emerging orders of the Lords of Parliament and the wealthy merchants of the developing burghs.
[9] The Wolfenbüttel 677 manuscript contains a large number of French compositions, particularly from Notre Dame de Paris, beside inventive pieces by unknown Scottish composers.
His complex polyphonic music could only have been performed by a large and highly trained choir such as the one employed in the Scottish Chapel Royal.
[13] Much of what survives of church music from the first half of the sixteenth century is due to the diligent work of Thomas Wode (d. 1590), vicar of St Andrews, who compiled a part book from now lost sources, which was continued by unknown hands after his death.
[15] The Lutheranism that influenced the early Scottish Reformation attempted to accommodate Catholic musical traditions into worship, drawing on Latin hymns and vernacular songs.
The most important product of this tradition in Scotland was The Gude and Godlie Ballatis (1567), which were spiritual satires on popular ballads composed by the brothers James, John and Robert Wedderburn.
Because whole congregations would now sing these psalms, unlike the trained choirs who had sung the many parts of polyphonic hymns,[16] there was a need for simplicity and most church compositions were confined to homophonic settings.
[18] Polyphony was incorporated into editions of the Psalter from 1625, but usually with the congregation singing the melody and trained singers the contra-tenor, treble and bass parts.
[16] However, the triumph of the Presbyterians in the National Covenant of 1638 led to the end of polyphony and a new psalter in common metre, but without tunes, was published in 1650.
[19] This movement had its origins in the influence of English psalmondist and hymnodist Isaac Watts (1674–1748) and became and attempt to expand psalmondy in the Church of Scotland to include hymns the singing of other scriptural paraphrases.
[19] In the second half of the eighteenth century these innovations became linked to a choir movement that included the setting up of schools to teach new tunes and singing in four parts.
A corrected version was licensed for private use in 1751 and some individual congregations petitioned successful for their use in public worship and they were revised again and published 1781.
Two years later the city council was petitioned to allow it to be moved into the church, but they deferred to the local presbytery, who decided, after much deliberation, that they were illegal and prohibited their use within their jurisdiction.
Around the same time James Steven published his Harmonia Sacra: A Selection of the Most Approved Psalm and Hymn Tunes, provocatively printed a frontispiece showing a small organ.
[35] Furthermore, as both a musical accompaniment for Low Mass and as an alternative to Calvinist worship - particularly the 17th-century practice of unaccompanied Gaelic psalm singing and precenting the line - Fr.
MacDonald also composed a series of sung Gaelic paraphrases of Catholic doctrine about what is taking place during the Tridentine Mass.
These paraphrases continued to be routinely sung during Mass upon Benbecula, Barra, South Uist and Eriskay until the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council.
[36] The sung liturgical texts and the tunes were both transcribed based on recordings made during the 1970s at St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church in Daliburgh, South Uist.
[38] The visit of American Evangelists Ira D. Sankey (1840–1908), and Dwight L. Moody (1837–99) to Edinburgh and Glasgow in 1874–75 helped popularise accompanied church music in Scotland.
