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The Revival of Music in the Post-Reformation Catholic Church in Scotland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 February 2015

Shelagh Noden
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Abstract

This article presents a narrative description of the state of music in the Scottish Catholic Church from the Reformation up to the publication of George Gordon’s collection of church music c.1830. For the first two hundred years after the Reformation, Scottish Catholics worshipped in virtual silence owing to the oppressive penal laws then in force. In the late eighteenth century religious toleration increased and several members of the clergy and other interested parties attempted to reintroduce singing into the worship of the Scottish Catholic Church. In this they were thwarted by the ultra-cautious attitude of the Vicar-Apostolic for the Lowland District, Bishop George Hay, who refused to allow any music in Catholic churches in case it should inflame Protestant opinion. Only after his retirement could the reintroduction take place, and the speed at which it was achieved bears witness to the enthusiasm and commitment of Scottish clergy and laity for church music. Research in this area is long overdue, and it is hoped that this article will form a basis for further investigations.

Type
Articles
Information
British Catholic History , Volume 31 , Issue 2 , October 2012 , pp. 239 - 260
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 2012

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References

Notes

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2 Information from James Darragh, ‘The Catholic Population of Scotland 1878–1977’ in Modern Scottish Catholicism 1878–1978, ed. David McRoberts (Glasgow 1979), pp. 211–247

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9 Dilworth, Mark, Roman Catholic Worship in Scotland, p. 141 Google Scholar. The Rituale contains all the services performed by a priest that are not in the Missal and Breviary and has also, for convenience, some that are in those books. Information from the Catholic Encyclopedia online http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13088b.htm Accessed 13/05/2012

10 This remark was made by David Downie, an Edinburgh goldsmith, who was later transported to a penal colony in Australia for his part in planning an armed insurrection in Edinburgh in support of a republican movement called ‘Friends of the People.’ Information from Anson, Peter, Underground Catholicism in Scotland (Montrose 1973), p. 212 Google Scholar

11 The oldest surviving post-Reformation chapel in Scotland, St Ninians, Tynet, was built in 1755 and originally designed to look like a farm building. Indeed, sheep were kept in it for the first year of its existence to allay suspicion.

12 Rev James Stothert, ‘Memoir of Bishop George Hay’ in Gordon, J. F. S., The Catholic Church in Scotland (Edinburgh 1867), p. 23 Google Scholar The ‘humble Chapel’ to which he refers was St Ninian’s in the Enzie.

13 Quoted in Gordon, J. F. S., The Catholic Church in Scotland, p. 23 Google Scholar

14 He did, however, make a valuable contribution to Church ceremony. After losing a leg as the result of an accident he turned his attention to embroidering church vestments, an activity which he carried out with considerable skill.

15 Letter from John Geddes to John Thomson 5th July 1789 Blairs Letters, Scottish Catholic Archive. BL

16 Letter from John Geddes to Rev. George Mathison, 21st December 1778, BL

17 The library catalogue wrongly states that these are in bass clef.

18 It forms part of Rev. George Gordon’s compilation Sacred Music Calculated for Small Choirs (Edinburgh c1828) and also appears in a manuscript of c.1808 from Aquhorties College.

19 A demonstration of the power of this organ can be found at http://mypipeorganhobby.blogspot.com/2008/10/organ-cathedral-de-segovia-spain.html A second, identically cased, organ was added in 1772 on the Gospel side of the nave.

20 Letter from John Gordon to Bishop Geddes, 17th May 1789, BL

21 Letter from George Mathison to Bishop Geddes, 18th July 1789, BL

22 Vesperale Novum, Scottish Catholic Archive LS/11/1. The Eastern District was one of three, Northern, Eastern and Western created in 1827 to replace the earlier Highland/Lowland division.

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33 Letter from Bishop Hay to Bishop Geddes, 3rd January 1790, BL

34 Letter from Lachlan MacIntosh to Bishop Hay 15th March 1791, BL

35 Letter from Bishop Geddes to Bishop Hay, quoted in Gordon, J. F. S., The Catholic Church in Scotland, p. 299 Google Scholar

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37 Gordon, J. F. S., The Catholic Church in Scotland, pp. 53–54 Google Scholar

38 Letter from Fr Gallus Robertson OSB to Bishop Hay, 1st January 1798, BL

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40 Letter from Fr Gallus Robertson to Bishop Hay, 18th January 1798, BL

41 Letter from Rev Charles Gordon to Bishop Cameron 3rd August 1804, BL

42 There had been a sung Mass at Holyrood during the reign of James II and VII but this was not technically a High Mass owing to the absence of a deacon and subdeacon. It is also possible that Abbot Quintin Kennedy might have celebrated a High Mass with his monks at Crossaquel after 1560, but nothing of the sort is documented.

43 Not to be confused with the Rev. John Gordon, vice-Rector of the Valladolid College owner of the music book mentioned above.

44 Johnson, Christine, Developments in the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, 1789–1829 (Edinburgh 1983), p.164 Google Scholar

45 Letter from Andrew Scott to Bishop Cameron 5th April 1813 Scottish Catholic Archive, PL

46 Johnson, Christine, Developments in the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, 1789–1829, p. 212 Google Scholar

47 Letter from Charles Gordon to James Kyle at Aquhorties 27th September 1807, PL

48 Zon, Bennett, The English Plainchant Revival (Aldershot 1999), pp. 89–96 Google Scholar

49 Shelfmarks: BCL.AA228 and BCL.D7668 Blairs College Library is now held at the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh.

50 Introduction to ECPC, p. 2

51 Zon, Bennett, The English Plainchant Revival, p. 92 Google Scholar. He states that the composed chants are ‘accompanied diatonically by an unfigured lower voice… and always conform to a metrical pattern.’

52 Cinq Messes en plein-chant musical. 1660. Later reprinted as Messes Royales en plain-chant. 1701

53 Page numbers have been added in pencil by an unknown hand at a later date. They take no account of missing or blank pages.

54 Karl-Werner Gumpel, ‘Cantus Eugenianus – Cantus Melodicus’. Report of the 12th Congress of the IMS, Berkeley 1977. Daniel Heartz and Bonnie Wade, ed (London 1981), pp. 407–13 A conversation with Dr John Purser at Musica Scotica Conference, Glasgow, April 28th 2012 established that the grace notes are not of the type associated with Scottish traditional music.

55 Letter from Alexander Badenoch to Bishop Paterson, 22nd November 1820, BL

56 Johnson, Christine, Developments in the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, 1789–1829, p. 165 Google Scholar. The three chapels without lay choirs were Dumfries, Huntly and Perth. The Highland region, which was not so prosperous, took longer. By 1820 in that region there were choirs only at Braemar and Glengairn.

57 Memoir of Charles Gordon, quoted in Constance Davidson, , Priest Gordon (Aberdeen n.d.), p. 51 Google Scholar

58 George Mathison, undated letter to unnamed recipient, BL

59 Anon, ‘Music in Scotland: A Brief Historical Survey. Musical Times, November 1901, p. 725

60 Ibid.

61 Charles Gordon, quoted in Roberts, Alasdair, Aberdeen’s Hidden Gem: The History of St Peter’s Church (Aberdeen 2004), p. 17 Google Scholar The original handwritten memoir has been lost.

62 Charles Gordon, quoted in Canon Sandy McWilliam, St Peter’s Church, Aberdeen, 1804— 1979, Scalan News http://www.scalan.co.uk/StPeters.htmAccessed 10/03/2011

63 Dawson, Aeneas McDonell, The Catholics of Scotland (Ontario and London 1890), Addenda p. 3 Google Scholar

64 ‘… Marshall was not versed in the rules of harmony, and this part of the work was done for him by the priest at Dufftown, the Rev. George Gordon (1776–1856), a first rate musician who published “A Collection of Church Music” [sic] in two volumes.’ John Malcolm Bulloch, ‘William Marshall, The Scots Composer,’ Highland Handbooks, no. 7 (Inverness 1933)

65 Information taken from George Gordon’s obituary, first printed in the Scottish Catholic Directory of 1857 and then included in Gordon, J. F. S. Rev., Catholic Church in Scotland, p. 555 Google Scholar

66 Robert Home, 10 High Terrace, Edinburgh. Address from Humphries, Charles and Smith, William C., Music Publishing in the British Isles (Oxford 1970), p. 185 Google Scholar

67 Address given in 1828 Edinburgh postal directory as Walker & Co, music publishers, 42 High St.

68 There are in fact only nine Masses included in the two volumes.

69 Happy Mary in volume II is derived from Richard Farrant’s Lord for thy tender mercy’s sake.

70 Letter from George Gordon to John Forbes, 17th February 1821, BL

71 Letter from Alexander Badenoch to Bishop Paterson 22nd November 1820, BL

72 Letter from James Grant to Mrs Grant, 10th August 1812, PL