Robert Burns and the Discovery and Re-Creation of Scottish Song

Robert Burns and the Discovery and Re-Creation of Scottish Song examines specific aspects of Burns’s process of composition and of his environment as it related to traditional song. Several case-studies are presented, including the song ‘Westlin Winds’, and new light is shed on the Bard’s working methods as well as on some of the people with whom he interacted in his song-writing quest. The book utilises musicological, historical and archival research and is the culmination of many years of investigation which began with the publication by Katherine Campbell and Emily Lyle of a booklet and CD in 2000, entitled ‘Burns and Scottish Fiddle Tradition’.

Twenty Online Audio Files associated with this book are available on the YouTube channel: Katherine Campbell – Songs of Robert Burns

Katherine Campbell specialises in performing the songs of Burns, and continues to enjoy learning about, and being challenged by, the Bard’s legacy. She studied cello and piano at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, Glasgow, and has a PhD in ethnomusicology from the University of Edinburgh. She has been singing the songs of Burns since childhood.

Emily Lyle is an Honorary Fellow in the department of Celtic and Scottish Studies in the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures at the University of Edinburgh. She studied English language and literature at the University of St Andrews and has a PhD from the University of Leeds. Her publications include Fairies and Folk: Approaches to the Scottish Ballad Tradition. Lyle and Campbell collaborated on the editing of volume 8 of The Greig-Duncan Folk Song Collection (2002).

Contents:

• Preface and Acknowledgements

• List of Figures

• List of Examples

• List of Abbreviations

• Chapter 1: Introduction

• Chapter 2: Song Acquisition and Composition in the Ayrshire Years

• Chapter 3: Burns as Oral Source: The Letter to William Tytler

• Chapter 4:The Journey to the North

• Chapter 5: The Interface with Gaelic Song

• Chapter 6: Songs Below the Belt and Under the Rose

• Chapter 7: Stephen Clarke: Reluctant Pioneer

• Chapter 8: The Collaboration of Burns and Clarke in Nithsdale

• Chapter 9: Matching Words to Music: 'Robin Adair' and the Absent Starting Note

• Chapter 10: 'Westlin Winds' and its Eighteenth-Century Tunes

• Bibliography

• Index of People

• Index of Songs, Poems and Tunes