C18 published Scottish folk music

[LeMartinPecheur]

A slightly loosely-phrased presenter comment on In Tune tonight set me thinking(?). IIRC this rather implied that Beethoven made money out of publishing his Scottish folksong arrangements. Well, of course he got paid by his Edinburgh commissioner-publisher George Thomson, and Thomson surely pocketed the profits.

But how far did these arrangements reach? They were presumably intended for domestic music-making in Scotland, and in London where Grove says Thomson also published them, but did he shift copies to mainland Europe? Did they in any way latch onto, or even generate, a wider taste for Scottish folk music? (I see that LvB's Op 108 collection found a Berlin publisher in 1822, but for all I know this could have been a one-off attempt enjoying no particular success.)

I'm aware that Haydn and Weber had done similar arrangements somewhat earlier (Weber's apparently just for Leipzig publication), and In Tune told me that Barsanti had had a go at pushing Scottish folk music c.1742 (Edinburgh publisher again). Did any of this make a European splash that might perhaps connect with the wider literary impact of Burns and 'Ossian'? Schubert of course went pretty big (and often long) on Ossian just a few years later...

In short, how early and how deeply did Scottish folk music make its mark in mainland Europe?

[Roehre: thou shouldst be posting at this hour...] Mangerton???

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

There was a huge enthusiasm for things Scottish at the beginning of the 19th Century in mainland Europe - the novels of Walter Scott, as well as Burns and the fake poems of Ossian were part of it. Beethoven also made (unpublished) arrangements of Irish and Welsh folksongs, too - but only the Op 108 Scottish set you mention was published in Germany, four years after its British editions.

http://www.raptusassociation.org/beethfolksongarr.html

I've always presumed that, this being Beethoven, the Thomson publications reached Germany (at least) - but I don't know this.

[usher]

I have a CD of folk-based music by Barsanti and others (Geminiani, Veracini, Bocchi among others) called "Mungrel Stuff." The players are Concerto Caledonia and it is on the Linn label.

[LeMartinPecheur]

There was a huge enthusiasm for things Scottish at the beginning of the 19th Century in mainland Europe - the novels of Walter Scott, as well as Burns and the fake poems of Ossian were part of it. Beethoven also made (unpublished) arrangements of Irish and Welsh folksongs, too - but only the Op 108 Scottish set you mention was published in Germany, four years after its British editions.

http://www.raptusassociation.org/beethfolksongarr.html

I've always presumed that, this being Beethoven, the Thomson publications reached Germany (at least) - but I don't know this.

fhg: I remembered Scott after I'd posted!<doh> Have just been doing a little research on early Scott operas. We all know a good few Italian ones, but there are some pretty early German, French and even Danish ones too. I may post a little list later if Wiki or Grove come up with the necessary dates. I've already found some splendid and splendidly obscure names: how about one Johann Vesque von Püttlingen who managed a Donna del Lago (cribbing Rossini's libretto) in 1829?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

fhg: I remembered Scott after I'd posted!<doh>

Ooh! Don't you just hate it when that happens!

I had presumed that the European enthusiasm for things Scottish was a late 18th/early 19th Century thing (with the wildswept landscapes reflecting the vogue for the Sublime) - so usher's mentioning of works from Geminiani, fifty and more years earlier, is greatly intriguing. Sadly, Mungrel Stuff is "Not Currently Available" from Amazon! (But quite a discography from Concerto Caledonia, which I hadn't previously known about - so not an entirely wasted journey.)

It occurs to me - an idle speculation, therefore - is there some connection between the Scottish vogue in Germany at least with the establishment of the Hanoverian dynasty in Britain? (The Georges coinciding with the vogue at its height - and hence the Geminiani connection at the start; and the Victoria/Mendelssohn connection, too?)