Classical music in Scotland is all art music in the Western European classical tradition, between its introduction in the eighteenth century until the present day. The development of a distinct tradition of art music in Scotland was limited by the impact of the Scottish Reformation on ecclesiastical music from the sixteenth century. Concerts, largely composed of "Scottish airs", developed in the seventeenth century and classical instruments were introduced to the country. Music in Edinburgh prospered through the patronage of figures including Sir John Clerk of Penicuik. The Italian style of classical music was probably first brought to Scotland by the cellist and composer Lorenzo Bocchi, who travelled to Scotland in the 1720s. The Musical Society of Edinburgh was incorporated in 1728. Several Italian musicians were active in the capital in this period and there are several known Scottish composers in the classical style, including Thomas Erskine, 6th Earl of Kellie, the first Scot known to have produced a symphony.
In the mid-eighteenth century a group of Scottish composers including James Oswald and William McGibbon created the "Scots drawing room style", taking primarily Lowland Scottish tunes and making them acceptable to a middle class audience. In the 1790s Robert Burns embarked on an attempt to produce a corpus of Scottish national song contributing about a third of the songs of the Scots Musical Museum. Burns also collaborated with George Thomson in A Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs, which adapted Scottish folk songs with "classical" arrangements. However, Burns' championing of Scottish music may have prevented the establishment of a tradition of European concert music in Scotland, which faltered towards the end of the eighteenth century.
From the mid-nineteenth century classical music began a revival in Scotland, aided by the visits of Chopin and Mendelssohn in the 1840s. By the late nineteenth century, there was in effect a national school of orchestral and operatic music in Scotland, with major composers including Alexander Mackenzie, William Wallace, Learmont Drysdale and Hamish MacCunn. Major performers included the pianist Frederic Lamond, and singers Mary Garden and Joseph Hislop. After World War I, Robin Orr and Cedric Thorpe Davie were influenced by modernism and Scottish musical cadences. Erik Chisholm founded the Scottish Ballet Society and helped create several ballets. The Edinburgh Festival was founded in 1947 and led to an expansion of classical music in Scotland, leading to the foundation of Scottish Opera in 1960. Important post-war composers included Ronald Stevenson,Gasser, M., "Ronald Stevenson, Composer-Pianist : An Exegetical Critique from a Pianistic Perspective" (Edith Cowan University Press, Western Australia, 2013) Francis George Scott, Edward McGuire, William Sweeney, Iain Hamilton, Thomas Wilson, Thea Musgrave, John McLeod CBE and Sir James MacMillan. Craig Armstrong has produced music for numerous films. Major performers include the percussionist Evelyn Glennie. Major Scottish orchestras include: Royal Scottish National Orchestra (RSNO), the Scottish Chamber Orchestra (SCO) and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra (BBC SSO). Major venues include Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, Usher Hall, Edinburgh and Queen's Hall, Edinburgh.
Origins
The development of a distinct tradition of art music in Scotland was limited by the impact of the Scottish Reformation on ecclesiastical music from the sixteenth century, which replaced complex polyphony and organ music with monophonic congregational psalmody. The lack of a need for professional musicians to compose and perform liturgical music meant that there was not a group of trained musicians who could easily participate in the Italian-inspired idiom of classical music that developed almost everywhere else in Europe in the seventeenth century.J. R. Baxter, "Culture, Enlightenment (1660–1843): music", in M. Lynch, ed., The Oxford Companion to Scottish History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), , pp. 140–1. From the late seventeenth century music became less an accomplishment of the gentle classes and more a skill pursued by professionals. It was increasingly enjoyed in otherwise silent concert rooms, rather than as incidental entertainment in the houses of royalty and nobles.E. Lee, Music of the People: a Study of Popular Music in Great Britain (London: Barrie & Jenkins, 1970), p. 53. Much of these concerts consisted of "Scottish Airs", native Scottish tunes developed for the lute or the fiddle. The German flute was probably introduced into Scotland towards the end of the seventeenth centuryP. Holman, "A little light on Lorenzo Bocchi: an Italian in Edinburgh and Dublin", in R. Cowgill and P. Holman, eds, Music in the British Provinces, 1690–1914 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), , p. 79. and the classical violin, which replaced older fiddles, in the early eighteenth century.J. Porter, "Introduction" in J. Porter, ed., Defining Strains: The Musical Life of Scots in the Seventeenth Century (Peter Lang, 2007), , p. 35. Music in Edinburgh prospered through the patronage of figures including Sir John Clerk of Penicuik (1676–1755), who was also a noted composer, violinist and harpsichordist. He studied in Europe with Bernardo Pasquini (1637–1710) and Arcangelo Corelli (1653–1713). The St. Cecilia's Society was founded in Edinburgh 1695 to promote musical performances.
Eighteenth century The Italian style of classical music was probably first brought to Scotland by the cellist and composer Lorenzo Bocchi, who travelled to Scotland in the 1720s, introducing the cello to the country and then developing settings for Lowland Scots songs. He possibly had a hand in the first Scottish Opera, the pastoral The Gentle Shepherd (1725), with libretto by Allan Ramsay (1686–1758).R. Cowgill and P. Holman, "Introduction: centres and peripheries", in R. Cowgill and P. Holman, eds, Music in the British Provinces, 1690–1914 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), , p. 4. The growth of a musical culture in the capital was marked by the incorporation of the Musical Society of Edinburgh in 1728 as the successor to the St. Cecilia's Society.E. G. Breslaw, Doctor Alexander Hamilton and Provincial America (Louisiana State University Press, 2008), , p. 41. By the mid-eighteenth century there were several Italians resident in Scotland, acting as composers and performers. These included Nicolò Pasquali, Giusto Tenducci and Fransesco Barsanti.M. Gelbart, The Invention of "Folk Music" and "Art Music" (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), , p. 36. Scottish composers known to be active in this period include Alexander Munro (fl. c. 1732), James Foulis (1710–73) and Charles McLean (fl. c. 1737). Thomas Erskine, 6th Earl of Kellie (1732–81) was one of the most important British composers of his era, and the first Scot known to have produced a symphony.N. Wilson, Edinburgh (Lonely Planet, 3rd edn., 2004), , p. 33. The Edinburgh Musical Society was so successful in this period that it was able to build its own oval concert hall, St Cecilia's, in 1762. According to Jamie Baxter, by 1775 Edinburgh was a minor, but functioning European musical centre, with foreign and native resident composers and professional musicians.
In the mid-eighteenth century a group of Scottish composers began to respond to Allan Ramsey's call to "own and refine" their own musical tradition, creating what James Johnson has characterised as the "Scots drawing room style", taking primarily Lowland Scottish tunes and adding simple figured basslines and other features from Italian music that made them acceptable to a middle class audience. It gained momentum when major Scottish composers like James Oswald (1710–69) and William McGibbon (1690–1756) became involved around 1740. Oswald's Curious Collection of Scottish Songs (1740) was one of the first to include Gaelic tunes alongside Lowland ones, setting a fashion common by the middle of the century and helping to create a unified Scottish musical identity. However, with changing fashions there was a decline in the publication of collections of specifically Scottish collections of tunes, in favour of their incorporation into British collections.M. Gelbart, The Invention of "Folk Music" and "Art Music" (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), , p. 30.
In the 1790s Robert Burns (1759–96) embarked on an attempt to produce a corpus of Scottish national song, building on the work of antiquarians and musicologists such as William Tytler (1711–92), James Beattie (1735–1803) and Joseph Ritson (1752–1803).H. Matherson, "Robert Burns and national song", in D. Duff and C. Jones, eds, Scotland, Ireland, and the Romantic Aesthetic (Associated University Presse, 2007), , p. 77. Working with music engraver and seller James Johnson, he contributed about a third of the eventual songs of the collection known as the Scots Musical Museum, issued between 1787 and 1803 in six volumes.Donald A. Low, ed., The Songs of Robert Burns (London: Routledge, 1993), , p. 1054. Burns collaborated with George Thomson (1757–1851) in A Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs, published from 1793 to 1818, which adapted Scottish folk songs with "classical" arrangements. Thompson was inspired by hearing Scottish songs sung by visiting Italian castrati at the St Cecilia Concerts in Edinburgh. He collected Scottish songs and commissioned musical arrangements from the best European composers, who included Joseph Haydn (1732–1809) and Ludwig van Beethoven (1732–1809). Burns was employed in editing the lyrics. A Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs was published in five volumes between 1799 and 1818. It helped make Scottish songs part of the European cannon of classical music,D. A. Low, ed., The Songs of Robert Burns (London: Routledge, 1993), , pp. 16–18. while Thompson's work brought elements of Romanticism, such as harmonies based on those of Beethoven, into Scottish classical music.M. Gardiner, Modern Scottish Culture (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005), , pp. 195–6. However, J. A. Baxter has suggested that Burns' championing of Scottish music may have prevented the establishment of a tradition of European concert music in Scotland, which faltered towards the end of the century. The Edinburgh Musical Society gave its last concert in 1798 and was wound up in 1801, with its concert hall sold off to become a Baptist church.
Nineteenth century Also involved in the collection and publication of Scottish songs was Walter Scott (1771–1832), whose first literary effort was Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, published in three volumes (1802–03). This collection first drew the attention of an international audience to his work, and some of his lyrics were set to music by Franz Schubert (1797–1828), who also created a setting of Ossian.A. E. Hull, Music; Classical, Romantic & Modern (Ayer Publishing, 1927), , p. 99.