Plaints & Airs

Many of the melodies in this piece come from Patrick McDonald’s A Collection of Highland Vocal Airs, published in 1784, and the others sound as if they might. Some of the tunes in his collection resemble other tunes, notably the last melody borrowed for Plaints and Airs,  “Tha mulad, tah fg‘íos orm”, which has much in common with the Appalachian folksong, “Star of the County Down”, and the hymn tune “Kingsfold”, as adapted by Ralph Vaughn Williams. These associations are to be expected, because the same tunes were used as vehicles for a wide variety of texts by singers, and because the pentatonic modes on which they are based limited the number of possible melodic patterns.

            Some of the songs in McDonald’s collection have titles in English, others in Scots Gallic. The translation of the Gallic titles was quite difficult. Several knowledgeable individuals looked over the phrases and concluded that they are good examples of the non-standard quality of old Scots, and offered helpful hints about some of the words. The score contains the following printed titles as a guide for the performers:

The Turning Sky

The Reluctant Suitor

Chiu-ri-ruo (The Bird's Song)

Theid, 'sgun d' theid mi thairis (Walk; I'll walk until I'm there)

The Pipe and the Drum

Tha mulad, tah fg‘íos orm ('Tis sad, my fate)

            The piece is less a collection of folksongs than it is a reflection on the process of transformation brought about by emigration, wandering and foreign context, and the enduring qualities of culture that can be carried without weight in the body of a song.