The Art of Robert Burns
The Musicians of Edinburgh, David Johnson
60'18''
Scotstown Music

The Art of Robert Burns
Is a quality CD by Scotstown Music and the superb selection of the music and songs of Robert Burns is present in twenty-five enjoyable tracks. Under the artists direction of Dr. David Johnson a picture of genuine Burns and his music emerges. With Hilary Bell - Soprano, Paul Rendall - Tenor, Geoff Davidson-Baritone, Bonnie Rideout -Violin (Guest Artist), Kevin McCrae - Cello, Philip Sawyer - Harpsichord/Fortepiano, Edna Arthur - Violin (Guest appearance) the mastery of music is achieved.

This is not a collection of instrumentalists and singers being gathered together to record "Burns". The drive and energy behind the CD has gone deeper into the real music and songs of Burns than anyone has previously achieved.

The "Scots Musical Museum" publication, which is so associated with The Bard, was consulted and with the leading authority on historical Scots Music - Dr David Johnson - to direct the production there does emerge something, which is both excellent and unique.

To have such fine artistes is in itself an achievement but this is taken a step further and the recordings within Rosslyn Chapel breathe and enhance the authenticity that takes you back in a strange and wonderful way to the times of Burns. The echo within the Chapel is there and at the end of the track appears to shut like a velvet curtain trapping the vanishing sound to reopen again when the next track plays.

Here are the popular songs and music of Burns but the CD introduces the listener to other music and songs that are not so well known. That is on the first playing of this magnificent CD - very soon you can become acquainted and entranced with those that intrigue and create so much enjoyment.

It is all here on this CD. Quality that is worth listening to and Quantity - without doubt a fine selection of tracks.

"Burns Chronicle" Winter 2003
A Robert Burns World Federation Publication

This refreshingly authentic treatment of settings of songs by one of the most famous composers of Scots lyrics, Robert Burns, is ably directed by David Johnson, musicologist and the leading expert in Scottish music in the 18th century. He is very well served by an excellent ensemble of classical and traditional instrumentalists using a happy blend of modern and period instruments, and a trio of engaging vocalists. Soprano Hilary Bell achieves a pleasing legato which finds a very musical route through the songs she sings, while Paul Rendall's buoyant tenor and Geoff Davidson's full baritone prove expressive vehicles for some of Burns' livelier lyrics. If it could be argued that perhaps Burns' Scots pronunciation would have been broader than suggested by the orthography, the singers pronunciation never sounds less than totally natural, while the fusion of 'traditional' ornamentation and phrasing and classical structure is very successful, both in the accompaniments and in the perceptively selected contemporary repertoire. This disc is a very important antidote to the many partial and tired misrepresentations of Burns which crowd the market, and it is to be hoped that it will restore Burns to his rightful place, as a gifted and highly versatile lyricist.

D.James Ross
Early Music Review ---94--- October 2003.

Beautifully sung and presented, The Art Of Robert Burns, a new CD from Scotstown, is a feast of music. Recorded in historic Rosslyn Chapel and featuring Hilary Bell (soprano), Paul Rendall (tenor) and Geoff Davidson (baritone) ably accompanied by Bonnie Rideout, Kevin McCrae and Philip Sawyer plus a guest appearance by Edna Arthur, The Art Of Robert Burns aims to showcase Burns' songs, once more, as they were known to his 18th-century contemporaries.

Alongside classic favourites such as "Ae Fond Kiss" there are songs at present unknown to the public, the accuracy of which has been achieved with the aid of The Scots Musical Museum, the six-volume collection published in Edinburgh between 1787 and 1804. This unique and distinguished CD....

The Scots Magazine October 2003.

Burns CD spearheads new Scottish label
Jeremy Barlow

A new Edinburgh-based CD label, Scotstown Music, makes its debut with he Art of Robert Burns. The album mixes favourites such as Contented wi' little, Green grow the rashes,O and A man's a man for a' that with less-familiar songs, including two written in English. The artistic director for the recording is 18th-century Scottish music expert David Johnson. 'Burns's songs are not just romantic but reach out into injustice, frustrated sex, guilt, fear and brilliant parody of the social conventions of the time,' he explains.
Johnson has based his arrangements for the disc on the simple settings in The Scots Musical Museum (1787-1804), using harpsichord, fortepiano, cello and violin as appropriate. Performers are the Musicians of Edinburgh, who interleave the songs with instrumental versions of the melodies; these have been selected from contemporary MSS and collections published by Neil Gow, Robert Petrie and others.
Singers Hilary Bell, Paul Rendall and Geoffrey Davidson bring an intimate drawing-room quality to the disc and demonstrate Burns's sensitivity to the Scots tunes that he used for most of his lyrics. Johnson is keen to dispel the received notion that the poet lacked musical awareness, writing that "his knowledge of traditional tunes was unsurpassed by anyone of his generation.'

Early music today October/November 2003

" Dear David,

...
It's a wonderful achievement, well worth waiting for, though I wish I'd had it when I was teaching courses on Music in Britain. Many of the songs are really moving. It's partly the texts, no doubt, but another reason is that although you have been careful not to do anything that offends our sense of what we think might have been done in the 18th century, there is none of the pedantry of many "early music" performances and you have let the performers be guided by their natural feelings and musical instincts. And the tunes have a sharply distinct flavour, even the "art music" ones.

My own favourites are "Contented wi' little" (familiar from The Beggar's Opera), "Here awa" (a wonderful melody; the major harmonies in the opening lines are beautiful though one wonders whether they were truly implied), Schetky's "Clarinda", and the Gow's "Lamentation". I have never heard this splendid piece, though you call it famous. Both string settings work well, and Geoff davidson makes a brave effort to encompass it, confirming what I think about singers being more accustomed to changing register in that period than they are now. "Ae fond kiss and then we sever" is reminiscent of "One kind kiss before we part" which I've written about in the book I sent you the other day (see p. 184, ex. 53(a)); there was another setting of the same words by Oswald. Perhaps Burns took his first line from that, but the resemblance goes no further, as far as I can see.

Best wishes,
Nicholas"

Professor Emeritus Nicholas Temperley, University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign
author of Bound for America: Three British Composers, 2003.

" It's done as Burns originally published the songs in The Scots Musical Museum (with some of David's customary excellent adaptation of arrangements totally in keeping with the style and likely performance practices). It really was about *** time someone recorded them authentically as Baroque artsong, rather than as "folk" with guitars and woolly cardigans, finger-in-ear, real ale mode! ;-) Well worth a spin. Don't get me wrong, though - Burns is also a traditional songster, but that wasn't all he was by a long, long chalk. as his original chosen publication medium demonstrates screamingly clearly. I love the folk rendition in a pub that makes the whole bar go silent in awe as much as the next man (Burns did that himself anyhow), but while the Redpath et al side of things is all fine and dandy and I am sure Burns would be chufft with the mair leirit pairts o't, it's an utter outrage that the other, scholarly/antiquarian/artsy Burns has barely hit vinyl to date, especially when it's how the *** stuff was edited and published by the man himself in the first place. So this is a totally crucial recording for anyone who wants to know both sides of Rabbie and get the haill pictur richt.

...

Ultimately, what I'd like to see is the complete "Scots Musical Museum" (all 600 songs of the ***!) on a massive boxed set with nothing else. Then we'd be talking, and then we'd really start getting to know the real Burns! But regardless, this album's one enormously important *** good start on the road to giving Rabbie his full voice. :-) Anyhow, overall, de Man from Cairnpapple say, "BUY IT" :-)"

Dr. Steve Sweeney-Turner
Former lecturer in music, University of Leeds, England