Mary's Dream, Scottish traditional, arr. Franz Josef Haydn (1732-1809)

Описание: Mary’s Dream, Scottish traditional, arr. Franz Josef Haydn (1732-1809)

Cecilia Duarte, mezzo-soprano

AGAVE
Anna Washburn and Aaron Westman, violins
Katherine Kyme, viola
William Skeen, cello
Kevin Cooper, guitar
Henry Lebedinsky, piano

The final few decades of the 18th century saw a heightened interest in folk music from what the educated elite classes in major European capitals considered the dark and mysterious corners of the world, with their air of exoticism and romanticism. The top three exotic destinations, in the minds of these folks, were Turkey, Russia, and...Scotland. Variations on Russian folk songs, Turkish marches (think Mozart's Rondo alla Turca and the Turkish variation in the last movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony), and especially Scottish songs were all the rage, and flew off publishers' shelves onto the music stands of enthusiastic amateurs across Europe.

Among the many continental composers who published sets of Scots songs were Beethoven, Geminiani, Barsanti, and Franz Josef Haydn, whose heartbreaking and (literally) haunting Mary's Dream we feature today. Haydn published 150 (!) Scots songs in two volumes (1792 and 1795) with figured bass accompaniment and a part for a violin or flute, much in the style of earlier publications by native Scotsman James Oswald and Italians Domenico Corri and Francesco Geminiani, with whose works he was likely familiar. Both Scots poetry by writers like Robert Burns and Walter Scott, often very sentimental and evoking an idealized and romanticized version of carefree life in the Highlands, remained extremely popular through the 19th century and occupied a prominent place in the personal song collections of Queen Lili'uokalani and her sister, Princess Miriam Likelike. The Scots parlor song style found its way into the original works of both sisters, seeking solace in music at a time when both their kingdom and their way of life was changing quickly and irreparably.
-Henry Lebedinsky


Recorded live at the Whidbey Island Music Festival, June 22, 2025

Videography by Scribe Studio, Audio by Aaron Westman