These arrangements of Scottish traditional melodies are among the little-known gems of Haydn’s later years. Nearing the end of his long career but still at the height of his powers – these settings are contemporary with 'Die Jahreszeiten' and his last two masses – Haydn responded to the commission with arrangements full of life and wit.
The process of adapting the airs for drawing-room performance was not limited to the provision of new words: early 18th-century anthologies usually equipped the melodies with a figured bass to enable keyboard accompaniment, with optional cello support. By the end of the century, it had become customary to add an obbligato violin part too. This was the scoring Haydn used in his first arrangements of Scottish songs, made for William Napier. According to his biographers, Griesinger and Dies, the composer provided the first batch of 100 settings free of charge to help the publisher out of serious financial difficulties [most un-Scottish, Ed.]. The present disc, however, offers a selection from the more ambitious arrangements, 208 in all, that Haydn made for George Thomson (1757-1841), an ardent collector of old Scots airs who published them fully scored for piano trio. These he commissioned not from minor local musicians, but from the foremost European composers of the day; just as the new poetic texts, when he judged these were required, were sought from leading Scottish writers. Burns began to write for him in 1792, and continued till his death in 1796, the collections from first to last containing about 120 of his songs.
George Thomson relates that he was first inspired to dedicate his life’s work to these national melodies when he heard them sung by two Italian artists: Signora Corri and the celebrated castrato Tenducci. Hence their execution here by a distinguished team of lieder and historically-informed performance specialists, who introduce artful variations (birdsong imitations, pizzicato, drone effects) into the settings much as their most accomplished predecessors would have done.
