Prelude or Introduction to Bruce’s Address
Wrote by a Gentleman.
Of all the Battles which in former days,
added to Caledonia’s warlike praise,
None e’er so bold, so rout e’er so complete,
as when at Bannockburn the hosts did meet?
No day so fatal to the English name
so prosp’rous[?] none to Scottish freedom’s flame.
Proud Edward’s hosts came on in fierce array,
while Bruce address’d his troops and thus did say.
(Segue Aria.)
Bruce’s Address to his Army
By R. Burns.
Scots! wha hae wi’ Wallace bled;
Scots, wham Bruce has often led,
Onward to your gory bed,
Or to glorious victorie!
Now’s the day, and now’s the hour!
See the front o’ battle lour!
See approach proud Edward’s power,
Edward, chains and slaverie!
Wha will be a traitor knave?
Wha can fill a coward’s grave?
Wha sae base as be a slave?
Traitor, Coward, Let him turn and flie!
Wha for Scotland’s King and Law,
Freedom’s sword will boldly draw,
Freeman stand, or Freeman fa;
Caledonian, on wi’ me!
GRAND CHORUS
Wrote by a Gentleman.
May Scotia’s sons, as Bruce be free
And always hail sweet Liberty!
As Britons, still more happy be,
By freedom guarded and the sea.
There's nought but care on ev'ry han',
In ev’ry hour that passes, O:
What signifies the life o' man,
An' 'twere not for the lasses, O.
Chorus
Green grow the Rashes, O;
Green grow the rashes, O;
The sweetest hours that e'er I spend,
Are spent among the lasses, O.
The warly race may riches chase,
An' riches still may fly them, O;
An tho' at last they catch them fast,
Their hearts can ne'er enjoy them, O.
Green grow, &c.
But gie me a canny hour at e'en,
My arms about my dearie, O,
An' warly cares, an' warly men,
May a' gae tapsalteerie, O!
Green grow, &c.
Auld Nature swears, the lovely Dears
Her noblest work she classes, O:
Her prentice han' she try'd on man,
An' then she made the lasses, O.
Green grow, &c.
no. 77 in The Scots Musical Museum, vol. 1 (1787)
A bonus short album of music by Robert Burns’s musical collaborators, Pietro Urbani and Christoph Schetky, with guest appearances from Michael Marra and James Gilchrist.
In the final concert of our 2009 concert series at the Edinburgh International Festival, there were a few things that for one reason or another didn’t make it onto the live album, but were just too good to leave abandoned in the archives. So here they are – some music by two of Robert Burns’s Edinburgh collaborators, the Italian tenor Pietro Urbani, and the Hungarian cellist Christoph Schetky.
Michael Marra narrates the Battle of Bannockburn as depicted by Urbani, with tenor James Gilchrist as William Wallace in ‘Scots Wha Hae’. Michael also sings his own celebrated arrangement of Burns’s Green Grow the Rashes, and there’s the full three-movement version of Christoph Schetky’s quartet in E flat. Finally, recorded in Switzerland a few months later, Schetky’s set of piano variations on the strathspey The Indian Queen is played on a Viennese-style piano from 1830, with an outrageous janissary pedal that sets off snare and bass drum effects and a bell tree.
Robert Burns gave song lyrics to Schetky and Urbani to set to music, but apparently with different motivations in each case. Schetky, who was from a Hungarian family but also had a Gaelic-speaking Mackenzie grandmother, had been hired from Darmstadt by the Edinburgh Musical Society to be its principal cellist. He became a good friend and drinking companion of Burns, who presumably hoped that his setting of ‘Clarinda’ would be just the thing to win the heart of Agnes Maclehose, writing to her in January 1788:
"Schetki has sent me the song set to a fine air of his composing. I have called the song ‘Clarinda’. I have carried it about in my pocket and hummed it over all day."
The tenor and impresario Pietro Urbani was less of a friend, but Burns still found him useful for his own advancement in Edinburgh’s artistic circles, as he noted to George Thomson in 1793:
“Urbani is, entre nous, a narrow, contracted creature; but he sings so delightfully, that whatever he introduces must have immediate celebrity.”
So with all that in mind, enjoy some more of what we got up to on a Wednesday night in August 2009, at the Hub in the shadow of Edinburgh Castle.
credits
released June 30, 2023
- Concerto Caledonia -
David Greenberg, violin 1
Sarah Bevan-Baker, violin 2
Nicolette Moonen, viola
Alison McGillivray, cello
David McGuinness, fortepiano, glockenspiel (2), director
with
James Gilchrist, tenor (1)
Michael Marra, narrator (1), voice & fortepiano (2)
Paul Rendall, tenor (chorus) (1)
Produced by David McGuinness
Tracks 1-3 recorded live in The Hub, Castlehill, Edinburgh, Scotland on 26 August 2009 by Steve Portnoi
Track 4 recorded in PianoFort’ino, Basel, Switzerland on 26 April 2010 by Catherine Motuz
Mixed in 2023 by David Donaldson
Cover image by Joe Davie
Notes by David McGuinness
Thanks to Peggy Marra, James Gilchrist, and to Sandy Matheson for the reminder to revisit these recordings
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