Music: An Appreciation 13e Edition

Roger Kamien
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 Page i

THIRTEENTH EDITION

Music

An Appreciation

Roger Kamien
Zubin Mehta Chair in Musicology, Emeritus
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
with Anita Kamien
 Page ii

MUSIC: AN APPRECIATION, THIRTEENTH EDITION

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Kamien, Roger, author. | Kamien, Anita, author.

Title: Music : an appreciation / Roger Kamien with Anita Kamien.

Description: Thirteenth edition. | New York : McGraw Hill, 2021. |

Identifiers: LCCN 2020033166 | ISBN 9781260719345 (hardcover)

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 Page iii

For Anita, David, Joshua, and Adina

About the Author
Page iv

Joshua Kamien

ROGER KAMIEN was born in Paris and raised in the United States. He received his BA in
music from Columbia College in New York, and his MA and PhD in musicology from
Princeton University. He studied piano with his mother—composer-conductor Anna Kamien
—and with Nadia Reisenberg and Claudio Arrau. He returned to Paris as a Fulbright scholar
for research on eighteenth-century music.

Professor Kamien taught music history, theory, and literature for two years at Hunter
College and then for twenty years at Queens College of the City University of New York,
where he was coordinator of the music appreciation courses. During this time he was active
as a pianist, appearing both in the United States and in Europe. In 1983, he was appointed
to the Zubin Mehta Chair of Musicology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

In addition to Music: An Appreciation, Dr. Kamien was the editor of The Norton Scores, one
of the coauthors of A New Approach to Keyboard Harmony, and a contributor to The
Cambridge Companion to Beethoven. He has written articles and reviews for journals
including Music Forum, Beethoven Forum, Musical Quarterly, Journal of Music, The Music
Theory Spectrum, Journal of Musicology, and Journal of the American Musicological Society.
Roger Kamien has been honored as a “musician, theorist and teacher” by the volume Bach
to Brahms: Essays on Musical Design and Structure, edited by David Beach and Josef
Goldenberg (University of Rochester Press: 2015).
Professor Kamien has appeared as a piano soloist in thirty-two countries on five continents.
He frequently performs together with his wife, the conductor-pianist Anita Kamien, who has
contributed immeasurably to Music: An Appreciation. The Kamiens have three children and
eight grandchildren.
Contents
Page v
Listening Outlines and Vocal Music Guides Listed by Composer xxv
Preface xxviii
 PART I Elements 3

1 Sound: Pitch, Dynamics, and Tone Color 6

Pitch: Highness or Lowness of Sound 6
Dynamics 8
Tone Color 8
Listening Outlines, Vocal Music Guides, and the Properties of Sound 9
Lohengrin, Prelude to Act III (1848), by Richard Wagner 9
Listening Outline 10
The Firebird, Scene 2 (1910), by Igor Stravinsky 10
Listening Outline 10
C-Jam Blues (1942), by Duke Ellington and His Famous Orchestra 11
Listening Outline11

2 Performing Media: Voices and Instruments 12

Voices 12
Musical Instruments 13
String Instruments 15
Woodwind Instruments 18
Brass Instruments 22
Percussion Instruments 23
Keyboard Instruments 27
Electronic Instruments 29

The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, Op. 34 (1946), by Benjamin Britten
31
Listening Outline 31
The Stars and Stripes Forever (1897), by John Philip Sousa 32
Listening Outline 33

3 Rhythm 33
Beat 34
Meter 35
Accent and Syncopation 36
Tempo 36
I Got Rhythm (1930), by George Gershwin 37
Page vi

4 Music Notation 37
Notating Pitch 38
Notating Rhythm 39
Notating Silence (Rests) 40
Notating Meter 40
The Score 41

5 Melody 42
Over the Rainbow (1938), by Harold Arlen 43
Melody and Words 44

6 Harmony 45
Consonance and Dissonance 46
The Triad 46
Broken Chords (Arpeggios) 47
Prelude in E Minor for Piano, Op. 28, No. 4 (1839), by Frédéric Chopin 47
Listening Outline 48
Performance Perspectives:
Roger Kamien, Pianist, Playing Chopin’s Prelude in E Minor 48

7 Key 49
The Major Scale 49
The Minor Scale 51
Major and Minor Keys 51
The Chromatic Scale 52
Modulation: Change of Key 52
Tonic Key 52

8 Musical Texture 53
Monophonic Texture 53
Polyphonic Texture 53
Homophonic Texture 54
Changes of Texture 55
Farandole from L’Arlésienne Suite No. 2 (1879), by Georges Bizet 55
Listening Outline 56

9 Musical Form 57
Techniques That Create Musical Form 57
Repetition 57
Contrast 57
Variation 57
 Page vii
Types of Musical Form 58
Three–Part (Ternary) Form: A B A 58

Dance of the Reed Pipes from Nutcracker Suite (1892), by Peter Ilyich
Tchaikovsky 58
Listening Outline 59
Two–Part (Binary) Form: A B 60

Bourrée from Suite in E Minor for Lute (probably around 1710), by Johann
Sebastian Bach 60
Listening Outline 61
Listening for Form 62

10 Performance 62
The Performer 63
The Conductor 63
Recorded and Live Performance 65
Judging Performance 65

11 Musical Style 66
Elements: Summary 67
 PART II The Middle Ages 71
TIME LINE Middle Ages (450–1450) 72
The Middle Ages (450–1450) 73

1 Music in the Middle Ages (450–1450) 75

2 Gregorian Chant 75
The Church Modes 76
Alleluia: Vidimus stellam (We Have Seen His Star) 76
Vocal Music Guide 78
O successores (You successors), by Hildegard of Bingen 79
Vocal Music Guide 80

3 Secular Music in the Middle Ages 81

Troubadour and Trouvère Song 81
A Chantar (I Must Sing), by Beatriz, Countess of Dia (Late Twelfth Century) 82
Vocal Music Guide 82

Minstrels 83
Estampie (Thirteenth Century) 84

4 The Development of Polyphony: Organum 84

Page viii
School of Notre Dame: Measured Rhythm 84
Alleluia: Nativitas (The Birth; 1200?), by Perotin 85
 5 Fourteenth-Century Music: The “New Art” in Italy
and France 86
Francesco Landini 86
Ecco la primavera (Spring has come; Fourteenth Century) 86
Vocal Music Guide 87
Guillaume de Machaut 87
Puis qu’en oubli sui de vous (Since I am forgotten by you; c. 1363) 88
Vocal Music Guide 89
Notre Dame Mass (Mid-Fourteenth Century) 89
Agnus Dei 90

Vocal Music Guide 90

The Middle Ages: Summary 91
 PART III The Renaissance 95
TIME LINE Renaissance (1450–1600) 96
The Renaissance (1450–1600) 97

1 Music in the Renaissance (1450–1600) 100

Characteristics of Renaissance Music 100
Words and Music 100
Texture 101
Rhythm and Melody 101

2 Sacred Music in the Renaissance 101

Josquin Desprez and the Renaissance Motet 102
Ave Maria . . . virgo serena (Hail, Mary . . . serene virgin; c. 1475) 102
Vocal Music Guide 103
Palestrina and the Renaissance Mass 104
Pope Marcellus Mass (1562–1563) 104
Kyrie 106
Vocal Music Guide 106

3 Secular Music in the Renaissance 107

Vocal Music 107
As Vesta Was Descending (1601), by Thomas Weelkes 108
Vocal Music Guide 108
The Renaissance Lute Song 109
Page ix
 Flow My Tears (c. 1600), by John Dowland (1563–1626) 109
Vocal Music Guide 110
Instrumental Music 111
Passamezzo and Galliard, by Pierre Francisque Caroubel, from Terpsichore
(1612), arranged by Michael Praetorius 113

4 The Venetian School: From Renaissance to

Baroque 114
Giovanni Gabrieli and the Polychoral Motet 114
Plaudite (Clap Your Hands; 1597) 115
Vocal Music Guide 115
The Renaissance: Summary 116
 PART IV The Baroque Period 119
TIME LINE Baroque Period (1600–1750) 120
The Baroque Style (1600–1750) 121

1 Baroque Music (1600–1750) 124

Characteristics of Baroque Music 124
Unity of Mood 124
Rhythm 125
Melody 125
Dynamics 125
Texture 125
Chords and the Basso Continuo 125
Vocal Music 126

The Baroque Orchestra 127

Baroque Forms 127

2 Music in Baroque Society 128

3 The Concerto Grosso and Ritornello Form 130

Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D Major (c.1721), by Johann Sebastian Bach 131
First Movement: Allegro 131

Listening Outline 132

4 The Fugue 133

Organ Fugue in G Minor (Little Fugue; c. 1709), by Johann Sebastian Bach 135
Listening Outline 135

Page x

5 The Elements of Opera 136

6 Opera in the Baroque Era 140

7 Claudio Monteverdi 142

Orfeo (Orpheus; 1607) 142
Act II: Recitative: Tu sé morta (You are dead) 143

Vocal Music Guide 144

8 Henry Purcell 144

Ground Bass 145
Dido and Aeneas (1689) 145
Act III: Dido’s Lament 145

Vocal Music Guide 146

9 The Baroque Cantata 147

10 Barbara Strozzi 147

Che si può fare (What can be done?; 1664) 148

Vocal Music Guide 148

 11 Elizabeth Jacquet de la Guerre 149
Le sommeil d’Ulisse (The Sleep of Ulysses; about 1715) 150

Aria: La Têmpete (The Storm) 150

Vocal Music Guide 150

12 The Baroque Sonata 151

13 Arcangelo Corelli 152

Trio Sonata in A Minor, Op. 3, No. 10 (1689) 152

14 Antonio Vivaldi 153

La Primavera (Spring), Concerto for Violin and String Orchestra, Op. 8, No. 1, from
The Four Seasons (1725) 154
First Movement: Allegro 154

Listening Outline 155

Second Movement: Largo e pianissimo sempre (very slow and very soft
throughout) 156
Third Movement: Danza pastorale (Pastoral Dance) 156

15 Johann Sebastian Bach 157

Bach’s Music 158
Prelude and Fugue in C Minor, from The Well–Tempered Clavier, Book I (c. 1722)
159
Prelude in C Minor 159
Page xi
 Listening Outline 160
Fugue in C Minor 161

Listening Outline 161

Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D Major (c. 1721) 162
Second Movement: Affettuoso (affectionately, tenderly) 162
Third Movement: Allegro 163

16 The Baroque Suite 164

Suite No. 3 in D Major (1729–1731), by Johann Sebastian Bach 165
First Movement: Overture 165
Second Movement: Air 165
Third Movement: Gavotte 165
Fourth Movement: Bourrée 165
Fifth Movement: Gigue 165

17 The Chorale and Church Cantata 165

The Church Cantata 166
Cantata No. 140: Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme (Awake, a Voice Is Calling Us;
1731), by Johann Sebastian Bach 166
First Movement: Chorus and Orchestra 168

Vocal Music Guide 169

Fourth Movement: Tenor Chorale 171

Vocal Music Guide 171

Seventh Movement: Chorale 172

Vocal Music Guide 172

18 The Oratorio 173

 19 George Frideric Handel 173
Handel’s Music 175
Giulio Cesare (Julius Caesar, 1724) 175
Act III, Scene 3: Piangerò la sorte mia (I shall mourn my fate) 176

Vocal Music Guide 176

Messiah (1741) 177
Sinfonia for Strings and Continuo (French Overture); Grave; Allegro moderato
(moderate allegro)
Comfort Ye, My People; Accompanied recitative for tenor, strings, and
continuo; Larghetto (slow, but less so than largo) 178

Vocal Music Guide 179

Ev’ry Valley Shall Be Exalted; Aria for tenor, strings, and continuo; Andante 180

Vocal Music Guide 180

For unto Us a Child Is Born; Chorus, strings, continuo 181

Vocal Music Guide 182

Hallelujah Chorus 183

Vocal Music Guide 183

The Baroque Period: Summary 185

Page xii
 PART V The Classical Period 189
TIME LINE Classical Period (1750–1820) 190
The Classical Era (1750–1820) 191

1 The Classical Style (1750–1820) 194

Characteristics of the Classical Style 194
Contrast of Mood 194
Rhythm 194
Texture 195
Melody 195
Dynamics and the Piano 195
The End of the Basso Continuo 195

The Classical Orchestra 195

Classical Forms 196

2 Composer, Patron, and Public in the Classical

Period 197
Vienna 198

3 Sonata Form 199

Exposition 200
Development 200
Recapitulation 200
Coda 200
 Symphony No. 40 in G Minor, K. 550 (1788), by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 201
Fourth Movement: Allegro assai (very fast) 201

Listening Outline 202

4 Theme and Variations 203

Symphony No. 94 in G Major (Surprise; 1791), by Joseph Haydn 203
Second Movement: Andante 203

Listening Outline 204

5 Minuet and Trio 205

Eine kleine Nachtmusik (A Little Night Music; 1787), K. 525, by Wolfgang
Amadeus Mozart 206
Third Movement: Minuet (Allegretto) 206

Listening Outline 206

6 Rondo 207
String Quartet in C Minor, Op. 18, No. 4 (1798–1800), by Ludwig van Beethoven
207
Fourth Movement: Rondo (Allegro) 207

Listening Outline 208

Page xiii

7 The Classical Symphony 208

8 The Classical Concerto 209

 9 Classical Chamber Music 210

10 Joseph Haydn 211

Haydn’s Music 213
Symphony No. 94 in G Major (Surprise; 1791) 213
First Movement: Adagio (slow introduction); Vivace assai (very lively) 214
Second Movement: Andante 215
Third Movement: Minuet (Allegro molto) 215
Fourth Movement: Finale (Allegro di molto) 215

Trumpet Concerto in E Flat Major (1796) 216

Third Movement: Allegro 216

Listening Outline 216

Performance Perspectives:
Wynton Marsalis, Trumpeter, Playing the Third Movement of Haydn’s Trumpet
Concerto in E Flat Major 218

11 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 219

Mozart’s Music 220
Don Giovanni (1787) 221
Overture 222
Act I: Introduction 222

Vocal Music Guide 222

Act I: Leporello’s catalog aria (Madamina) 226

Vocal Music Guide 226

Act I: Duet: Là ci darem la mano (There you will give me your hand) 227

Vocal Music Guide 228

Act II: Finale 229
Symphony No. 40 in G Minor, K. 550 (1788) 229
First Movement: Molto allegro 230

Listening Outline 231

Second Movement: Andante 232
Third Movement: Menuetto (Allegretto) 233
Fourth Movement: Allegro assai 233

Piano Concerto No. 23 in A Major, K. 488 (1786) 233

First Movement: Allegro 234

Listening Outline 234

Second Movement: Adagio 236
Third Movement: Allegro assai 237

Requiem in D Minor, K. 626 (1791) 237

Page xiv
Dies irae 238

Vocal Music Guide 239

12 Ludwig van Beethoven 240

Beethoven’s Music 242
Piano Sonata in C Minor, Op. 13 (Pathétique; 1798) 244
First Movement: Grave (solemn, slow introduction); Allegro molto e con brio
(very fast and brilliant) 244
Second Movement: Adagio cantabile (lyrical adagio) 246
Third Movement: Rondo (Allegro) 246

Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67 (1808) 246

First Movement: Allegro con brio (allegro with vigor) 247

Listening Outline 248

Second Movement: Andante con moto (moderately slow, with movement) 250

Listening Outline 251

 Third Movement: Allegro (scherzo) 252
Fourth Movement: Allegro 253

The Classical Period: Summary 255

 PART VI The Romantic Period 259
TIME LINE Romantic Period (1820–1900) 260
Romanticism (1820–1900) 261

1 Romanticism in Music (1820–1900) 265

Characteristics of Romantic Music 265
Individuality of Style 265
Expressive Aims and Subjects 265
Nationalism and Exoticism 266
Program Music 266
Expressive Tone Color 266
Colorful Harmony 267
Expanded Range of Dynamics, Pitch, and Tempo 267
Form: Miniature and Monumental 267

2 Romantic Composers and Their Public 268

3 The Art Song 271

Song Forms 271
The Song Cycle 271

4 Franz Schubert 272

Schubert’s Music 273
Erlkönig (The Erlking; 1815) 273
Vocal Music Guide 274
Page xv
Die Forelle (The Trout; 1817) 276
Vocal Music Guide 277
Piano Quintet in A Major (Trout; 1819) 277
Fourth Movement 277

Listening Outline 278

5 Robert Schumann 279

Schumann’s Music 280
Fantasiestücke for Piano, Op. 12 (Fantasy Pieces for Piano; 1837) 280
Aufschwung (Soaring; 1837) 281
Listening Outline 281
Warum? (Why? 1837) 282
Listening Outline 282

6 Clara Wieck Schumann 283

Trio for Violin, Cello, and Piano in G Minor, Op. 17 (1846) 284
Listening Outline 284

7 Frédéric Chopin 285

Chopin’s Music 286
Nocturne in E Flat Major, Op. 9, No. 2 (1830–1831) 286
Listening Outline 287
Étude in C Minor, Op. 10, No. 12 (Revolutionary; 1831?) 288
Listening Outline 289
 Polonaise in A Flat Major, Op. 53 (1842) 289

8 Franz Liszt 290

Liszt’s Music 291
Transcendental Étude No. 10 in F Minor (1851) 292
Listening Outline 293

9 Felix Mendelssohn 294

Mendelssohn’s Music 295
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in E Minor, Op. 64 (1844) 295
First Movement: Allegro molto appassionato (very impassioned allegro) 295

Listening Outline 296

Performance Perspectives:
Hilary Hahn, Violinist, Playing the First Movement of Mendelssohn’s Violin
Concerto in E Minor, Op. 64 298

10 Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel 299

String Quartet in E Flat Major (1834) 299
Second Movement: Allegretto 300
Listening Outline 300

Page xvi

11 Program Music 301

12 Hector Berlioz 302

 Berlioz’s Music 303
Symphonie fantastique (Fantastic Symphony; 1830) 304
First Movement: Reveries, Passions Largo (slow introduction); Allegro agitato e
appassionato assai (agitated and very impassioned allegro) 305
Second Movement: A Ball Allegro non troppo 305
Third Movement: Scene in the Country Adagio 306
Fourth Movement: March to the Scaffold Allegretto non troppo 306

Listening Outline 307

Fifth Movement: Dream of a Witches’ Sabbath Larghetto; Allegro 302

Listening Outline 309

13 Nationalism in Nineteenth-Century Music 311

The Russian Five 312
Pictures at an Exhibition (1874), by Modest Mussorgsky; Arranged for Orchestra
by Maurice Ravel (1922) 313
The Great Gate of Kiev 313

Listening Outline 314

14 Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky 315

Tchaikovsky’s Music 316
Romeo and Juliet, Overture-Fantasy (1869) 316
Listening Outline 317

15 Bedřich Smetana 319

The Moldau (1874) 320
Listening Outline 321
 16 Antonin Dvořák 322
Symphony No. 9 in E Minor (From the New World; 1893) 323
First Movement: Adagio (slow introduction); Allegro molto 323

Listening Outline 323

17 Johannes Brahms 325

Brahms’s Music 326
Symphony No. 3 in F Major, Op. 90 327
Third Movement: Poco Allegretto 327

Listening Outline 328

Page xvii
Ein Deutsches Requiem (A German Requiem; 1868) 330
Fourth Movement: How Lovely Is Thy Dwelling Place Chorus and Orchestra
324

Vocal Music Guide 331

18 Georges Bizet 332

Carmen (1875) 333
Habañera 334
Vocal Music Guide 337
Toreador Song 337
Vocal Music Guide 337

19 Giuseppe Verdi 339

Verdi’s Music 340
Rigoletto (1851) 341
 Act III: La donna è mobile and Quartet 341

Vocal Music Guide 342

20 Giacomo Puccini 346

La Bohème (1896) 347
Act I: Scene between Rodolfo and Mimi 348

Vocal Music Guide 348

21 Richard Wagner 356

Wagner’s Music 357
Die Walküre (The Valkyrie; 1856) 358
Act I, Love scene (conclusion) 358

Vocal Music Guide 360

22 Gustav Mahler 363

Mahler’s Music 364
Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer; Composed 1883–1885,
Orchestrated 1891–1896) 364
Ging heut’ Morgen über’s Feld (This Morning I Went through the Fields) 364

Vocal Music Guide 365

The Romantic Period: Summary 367
 PART VII The Twentieth Century and
Beyond 371
TIME LINE Twentieth Century and Beyond (1900–2016 ) 372
Twentieth-Century Developments 373

1 Musical Styles 1900–1945 377

1900–1945: An Age of Musical Diversity 377
Page xviii
Characteristics of Twentieth-Century Music 379
Tone Color 379
Harmony 380
Alternatives to the Traditional Tonal System 381
Rhythm 382
Melody 383

2 Music and Musicians in Society since 1900 384

3 Impressionism and Symbolism 385

French Impressionist Painting 385
French Symbolist Poetry 386

4 Claude Debussy 386

Debussy’s Music 387
Prélude à l’Après-midi d’un faune (Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun; 1894) 389
Listening Outline 390
Voiles (Sails), from Preludes for Piano, Book I (1910) 391

5 Maurice Ravel 392

Boléro (1928) 393
Listening Outline 394

6 Lili Boulanger 395

Psaume 24 (Psalm 24; 1916) 396
Vocal Music Guide 396

7 Primitivism 398

8 Igor Stravinsky 398

Stravinsky’s Music 399
Le Sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring; 1913) 401
Part I: Introduction 402
Part I: Omens of Spring—Dances of the Youths and Maidens 402
Part I: Ritual of Abduction 402

Listening Outline 403

Part II: Sacrificial Dance 405

9 Neoclassicism 405

10 Sergei Prokofiev 406

Classical Symphony in D Major, Op. 25 (1917) 407
First Movement: Allegro 407
Page xix

Listening Outline 408

11 Expressionism 409

12 Arnold Schoenberg 409

Schoenberg’s Music 411
Atonality 411
The Twelve-Tone System 412

Pierrot lunaire, Op. 21 (Moonstruck Pierrot; 1912) 413

Mondestrunken (Moondrunk) 413

A Survivor from Warsaw, Op. 46 (1947) 413

13 Alban Berg 415

Wozzeck (1917–1922) 415
Act III: Scenes 4 and 5 416

14 Anton Webern 417

Webern’s Music 417
Five Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 10 (1911–1913) 418
Third Piece: Very slow and extremely calm 418

Listening Outline 418

15 Béla Bartók 419

 Bartók’s Music 420
Concerto for Orchestra (1943) 420
First Movement: Introduction; Andante non troppo; Allegro vivace 421

Listening Outline 421

Second Movement: Game of Pairs; Allegretto scherzando 422

Listening Outline 423

16 Dmitri Shostakovich 424

Symphony No. 5 in D Minor 425
Second Movement: Allegretto 425

Listening Outline 426

17 Music in America 427

Colonial America 427
Music in Nineteenth-Century America 427
Nationalism in American Music 428
Music in America after 1900 429

18 Charles Ives 430

Ives’s Music 431
Putnam’s Camp, Redding, Connecticut (1912), from Three Places in New England
(1908?–1914) 432
Page xx
Listening Outline 433

19 George Gershwin 434

Rhapsody in Blue (1924) 435
Listening Outline 436

20 William Grant Still 437

Afro-American Symphony (1931) 438
Third Movement: Animato 438

Listening Outline 439

21 Aaron Copland 439

Appalachian Spring (1943–1944) 441
Section 7: Theme and Variations on Simple Gifts 442

Listening Outline 442

22 Alberto Ginastera 443

Estancia Suite, Op. 8a (1941) 444
Final Dance: Malambo 444

Listening Outline 445

23 Musical Styles since 1945 446

Characteristics of Music since 1945 446
Increased Use of the Twelve-Tone System 447
Extensions of the Twelve-Tone System: Serialism 448
Chance Music 448
Minimalist Music 449
Musical Quotation 450
Polystylism 451
 Tonal Music and a Return to Tonality 451
Electronic Music 451
“Liberation of Sound” 452
Mixed Media 453
Rhythm and Form 453

24 Music since 1945: Ten Representative Pieces 454

Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano (1946–1948), by John Cage 454
Sonata II 456

Poème électronique (Electronic Poem; 1958), by Edgard Varèse 456

Listening Outline 457
Ancient Voices of Children (1970), by George Crumb 458
From Where Do You Come, My Love, My Child? (Dance of the Sacred Life-
Cycle); 1970 458
Page xxi
Vocal Music Guide 459
Libertango (1974), by Astor Piazzolla 460
Listening Outline 461
Performance Perspectives:
Yo-Yo Ma, Cellist, Playing Piazzolla’s Libertango 462
Einstein on the Beach (1978), by Philip Glass 462
Knee Play 1 463

Listening Outline 464

Short Ride in a Fast Machine (1986), by John Adams 464
Listening Outline 465
Lux Aurumque (Light and Gold; 2000, for a cappella chorus), by Eric Whitacre
466
Vocal Music Guide 467
Performance Perspectives:
Eric Whitacre Conducting his Lux Aurumque, performed by the Virtual Choir 468
L’amour de loin (Love from Afar; 2000), by Kaija Saariaho 469
Act IV, Scene 3: Tempest 469

City Scape (2002), by Jennifer Higdon 470

Third Movement: Peachtree Street 470

Listening Outline 471

Inura (2009), by Tania León 472
Section 2: The Sharing 472

Listening Outline 473

The Twentieth Century and Beyond: Summary 474
 PART VIII Jazz 477
Jazz 478

1 Jazz Styles: 1900–1950 480

Roots of Jazz 480
Characteristics of Jazz 481
Tone Color 481
Improvisation 482
Rhythm, Melody, and Harmony 482

2 Ragtime 483
Scott Joplin 483
Maple Leaf Rag (1899) 484

3 Blues 483
Lost Your Head Blues (1926) by Bessie Smith 486
Vocal Music Guide 487
Page xxii
Performance Perspectives:
Bessie Smith Singing Lost Your Head Blues 488

4 New Orleans Style 488

Dippermouth Blues (1923), by King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band 490
Listening Outline 492
Louis Armstrong 491
Hotter Than That (1927), by Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five 492
Listening Outline 492

5 Swing 493
Duke Ellington 494

6 Bebop 495
Bebop Style 496
Dizzy Gillespie 496
A Night in Tunisia (composed 1942), by Dizzy Gillespie 497
Listening Outline 497

7 Jazz Styles since 1950 498

Cool Jazz 499
Free Jazz: Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane 499
Jazz Rock (Fusion) 500
Miles Runs the Voodoo Down (1969), by Miles Davis 500
Jazz: Summary 502
 PART IX Music for Stage and Screen 505
Music for Stage and Screen 506

1 Musical Theater 507

Characteristics of the Musical 507
Development of the Musical 507
Sources of the Musical 507
The Golden Era of the American Musical (1920–1960) 507
The Musical after 1960 508

2 Leonard Bernstein 509

West Side Story (1957) 510
America 510
Tonight Ensemble 511

Listening Outline 512

3 Lin-Manuel Miranda 512

Hamilton: An American Musical (2015), by Lin-Manuel Miranda 513
My Shot 513

Page xxiii

4 Music in Film 514

Early Film Music 514
 Functions and Styles of Film Music 514
Creating Film Music 514
Music and Image 515
Raiders of the Lost Art (1981), Directed by Stephen Spielberg, Music by John Willi
ams 515
Desert Chase Scene 516
Music for Stage and Screen: Summary 518
 PART X Popular Music Genres 521
Popular Music Genres 522

1 Elements of Popular Music 522

2 Music Genres and Star Performers from the 1950s

to the Present 523
1950s 523

1960s 524

Blowin’ in the Wind (1962), by Bob Dylan 526

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds (1967), by The Beatles 527

Performance Perspectives:

Carlos Santana 528

1970s 528

1980s and 1990s 529

Purple Rain (1984), by Prince and members of The Revolution 530

2000s 531

Irreplaceable (2006), by Beyoncé, Shaffer “Ne Yo” Smith, Tor Erik Hermansen, Mi
kkel Eriksen, Espen Lind, and Amund Bjorklund 532

Shake It Off (2014), by Taylor Swift, Max Martin, and Shellback 533

GOD (2017), by Kendrick Lamar 534

Popular Music Genres: Summary 535

Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Edinburgh
sketches & memories
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Title: Edinburgh sketches & memories

Author: David Masson

Release date: October 30, 2023 [eBook #71958]

Language: English

Original publication: London: Adam and Charles Black, 1892

Credits: Richard Tonsing, Susan Skinner, and the Online

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EDINBURGH

SKETCHES & MEMORIES ***
Transcriber’s Note:
New original cover art included with this eBook is
granted to the public domain.
 EDINBURGH
SKETCHES & MEMORIES
BY

DAVID MASSON
PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF
EDINBURGH

LONDON AND EDINBURGH

ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK
1892
 PREFATORY NOTE

The following Papers, though in their collected state they have a

certain continuity of general subject, were written at different times
and for different purposes. One is a modified reprint of an article
which appeared in the Westminster Review as long ago as 1856.
Seven of the others were contributed, at intervals within the last
twelve years, to Macmillan’s Magazine, The Scotsman, or The Scots
Observer, and are reprinted now with courteous permission. The
remaining five are from manuscript of various dates since 1867, and
are now published for the first time. An occasional small recurrence
of fact or of phrase in the series may be excused in consideration that
the Papers, thus written separately, may still be read separately.
Edinburgh: March 1892.
 CONTENTS

PAGE
I. Queen Mary’s Edinburgh:—
1. Queen Mary’s Return to Scotland, August 1561 1
2. Plan and Fabric of Edinburgh in 1561 9
3. The Edinburgh Population in 1561 20
II. Robert Rollock and the Beginnings of Edinburgh
University 35
III. King James’s Farewell to Holyrood 61
IV. Proposed Memorial to Drummond of Hawthornden 76
V. Allan Ramsay 88
VI. Lady Wardlaw and the Baroness Nairne 110
VII. Edinburgh through the Dundas Despotism 141
VIII. The Last Years of Sir Walter Scott 204
IX. Carlyle’s Edinburgh Life:—
Part I.—1809–1818 226
Part II.—1818–1822 262
Part III.—1822–1828 302
X. Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe 359
XI. John Hill Burton 372
XII. Dr. John Brown of Edinburgh 384
XIII. Literary History of Edinburgh: a General Review 417
 QUEEN MARY’S EDINBURGH[1]

I.—QUEEN MARY’S RETURN TO SCOTLAND,

AUGUST 1561
On a clear day the inhabitants of Edinburgh, by merely
ascending the Calton Hill or any other of the familiar heights in or
around their city, can have a view of nearly the whole length of their
noble estuary, the Firth of Forth. To the right or east, its entrance
from the open sea, between the two shires of Fife and Haddington, is
marked most conspicuously on the Haddingtonshire side by a distant
conical mound, called Berwick Law, rising with peculiar distinctness
from the northward curve of land which there bounds the horizon. It
is thither that the eye is directed if it would watch the first
appearance of steamers and ships from any part of the world that
may be bound up the Firth for Edinburgh by its port of Leith. Moving
thence westward, the eye can command easily the twenty miles more
of the Firth which these ships and steamers have to traverse. The
outlines of both shores, though the breadth between them averages
twelve miles, may be traced with wonderful sharpness, pleasingly
defined as they are by their little bays and promontories, and by the
succession of towns and fishing villages with which they are studded.
Of these, Musselburgh on the near side marks the transition from the
shire of Haddington to that of Edinburgh; after which point the Firth
begins to narrow. Just below Edinburgh itself, where its port of Leith
confronts the Fifeshire towns of Kinghorn and Burntisland, with the
island of Inchkeith a little to the right between, the breadth is about
six miles. There the main maritime interest of the Firth ceases, few
ships going farther up; but, for any eye that can appreciate scenic
beauty, there remains the delight of observing the continued course
of the Firth westward to Queensferry and beyond, a riband of
flashing water between the two coasts which are known prosaically
as those of Linlithgowshire and West Fifeshire, but which, in their
quiet and mystic remoteness, look like a tract of some Arthurian
dreamland.
While something of all this is to be seen on almost any day from
any of the eminences in or near Edinburgh, it is only on rare
occasions that it can be all seen to perfection. Frequently, even in
sunny weather, when the sky is blue above, a haze overspreads the
Firth, concealing the Fifeshire shore, or blurring it into a vague
cloud-like bank. Sometimes, on the other hand, when there is little
sunshine, and the day seems rather sombre in the Edinburgh streets,
the view of the Firth and of the other surroundings of the city from
any of the higher spots is amazingly distinct to the utmost possible
distance, though with the distinctness of a drawing in pen and ink.
Worst of all the atmospheric conditions for a survey of the Firth, or
of the scenery generally, from Edinburgh, is that of the thick, dull,
drizzling, chilling, and piercing fog or mist, called locally a haar,
which the easterly wind brings up at certain seasons from the sea. Up
the Firth this haar will creep or roll, converting the whole aerial gap
between the opposed shores into a mere continuous trough of
seething and impenetrable mist, or of rain and mist commingled,
drenching the Fifeshire hills on the one side, enveloping all
Edinburgh on the other, and pushing itself still westward and inland
over the higher and narrower reaches of the estuary, till the aforesaid
tract of gleaming Arthurian scenery is absorbed into the long foggy
gloom, and even Alloa and Stirling feel the discomfort. No chance
then, from any height near Edinburgh, of seeing the ships and
steamers in any part of their course from the mouth of the Firth to
the port of Leith. If any there be, they are down in the vast abysm of
mist, at anchor for safety, or piloting their Leithward course slowly
and cautiously through the opaque element, with bells ringing, horns
blowing, and now and then a boom from the cannon on the deck to
warn off other vessels or ascertain their own whereabouts. So even
during the day; but, when the haar lasts through the night, and the
opaque gray of the air is deepened into an equally opaque black or
umber, the confusion is still greater. The sounds of fog-signals from
the bewildered vessels are incessant; the shore-lights from the piers
and landing-places can throw their yellow glare but a little way into
the turbid consistency; and, if any adventurous vessel does manage
to warp herself into port in such circumstances, it is with excited
vociferation and stamping among those on board, and no less hurry-
skurry among the men ashore who assist in the feat. Happily, an
Edinburgh haar at once of such dense quality and of long duration is
a rare occurrence. April and May are the likeliest months for the
phenomenon, and it passes usually within twenty-four hours. It may
come later in the year, however, and may last longer.
Just after the middle of August 1561, as we learn from
contemporary records, there was a haar of unusual intensity and
continuance over Edinburgh and all the vicinity. It began on Sunday
the 17th, and it lasted, with slight intermissions, till Thursday the
21st. “Besides the surfett weat and corruptioun of the air,” writes
Knox, then living in Edinburgh, “the myst was so thick and dark that
skairse mycht any man espy ane other the lenth of two pair of butts.”
It was the more unfortunate because it was precisely in those days of
miserable fog and drizzle that Mary, Queen of Scots, on her return to
Scotland after her thirteen years of residence and education in
France, had to form her first real acquaintance with her native shores
and the capital of her realm.
She had left Calais for the homeward voyage on Thursday the
14th August, with a retinue of about 120 persons, French and
Scottish, embarked in two French state galleys, attended by several
transports. They were a goodly company, with rich and splendid
baggage. The Queen’s two most important uncles, indeed,—the great
Francis de Lorraine, Duke of Guise, and his brother, Charles de
Lorraine, the Cardinal,—were not on board. They, with the Duchess
of Guise and other senior lords and ladies of the French Court, had
bidden Mary farewell at Calais, after having accompanied her thither
from Paris, and after the Cardinal had in vain tried to persuade her
not to take her costly collection of pearls and other jewels with her,
but to leave them in his keeping till it should be seen how she might
fare among her Scottish subjects. But on board the Queen’s own
galley were three others of her Guise or Lorraine uncles,—the Duke
d’Aumale, the Grand Prior, and the Marquis d’Elbeuf,—with M.
Damville, son of the Constable of France, and a number of French
gentlemen of lower rank, among whom one notes especially young
Pierre de Bourdeilles, better known afterwards in literary history as
Sieur de Brantôme, and a sprightly and poetic youth from Dauphiné,
named Chastelard, one of the attendants of M. Damville. With these
were mixed the Scottish contingent of the Queen’s train, her four
famous “Marys” included,—Mary Fleming, Mary Livingstone, Mary
Seton, and Mary Beaton. They had been her playfellows and little
maids of honour long ago in her Scottish childhood; they had
accompanied her when she went abroad, and had lived with her ever
since in France; and they were now returning with her, Scoto-
Frenchwomen like herself, and all of about her own age, to share her
new fortunes.
It is to Brantôme that we owe what account we have of the
voyage from Calais. He tells us how the Queen could hardly tear
herself away from her beloved France, but kept gazing at the French
coast hour after hour so long as it was in sight, shedding tears with
every look, and exclaiming again and again, “Adieu, ma chère
France! je ne vous verray jamais plus!” He tells us how, when at
length they did lose sight of France, and were on the open sea
northward with a fair wind, there was some anxiety lest they should
be intercepted, and the Queen taken prisoner by an English fleet. In
the peculiar state of the relations between England and Scotland at
the time, this was not an impossibility, and would hardly have been
against the law of nations. There had been some angry
correspondence between Elizabeth and Mary respecting the non-
ratification by Mary of a certain “Treaty of Edinburgh” of the
previous year, stipulating that she would desist from her claim to
Elizabeth’s throne of England. Elizabeth had consequently refused
Mary’s application for a safeguard for her homeward journey; and
there was actually an English squadron in the North Sea available for
the capture of Mary if Elizabeth had chosen to give the word. But,
though the English squadron does seem to have waylaid the French
galleys, and one of the transports following the galleys was taken and
detained for some reason or other, the galleys themselves, by rapid
sailing or by English sufferance, threw that danger behind, and
approached the Scottish coast in perfect safety. What then
astonished Brantôme, and what he seems to have remembered all his
life with a kind of horror in association with his first introduction to
Queen Mary’s native climate and kingdom, was the extraordinary
fog, the si grand brouillard, in which they suddenly found
themselves. “On a Sunday morning, the day before we came to
Scotland,” he says, “there rose so great a fog that we could not see
from the stern to the prow, much to the discomfiture of the pilots
and crews, so that we were obliged to let go the anchor in the open
sea, and take soundings to know where we were.” Brantôme’s
measure of time becomes a little incoherent at this point; and we
hardly know from his language whether it was outside the Firth of
Forth altogether, or inside of the Firth about Berwick Law, that the
fog caught them, if indeed he remembered that there was such a
thing as an estuary at all between the open sea and Leith. He
distinctly says, however, that they were a whole day and night in the
fog, and that he and the other Frenchmen were blaspheming
Scotland a good deal on account of it before they did reach Leith.
That, as other authorities inform us, was about ten o’clock in the
morning of Tuesday the 19th.
The Leith people and the Edinburgh people were quite
unprepared, the last intimation from France having pointed to the
end of the month as the probable time of the Queen’s arrival, if she
were to be expected at all. But the cannon-shots from the galleys, as
they contrived to near Leith harbour, were, doubtless, a sufficient
advertisement. Soon, so far as the fog would permit, all Leith was in
proper bustle, and all the political and civic dignitaries that chanced
to be in Edinburgh were streaming to Leith. Not till the evening,
according to one account, not till next morning, according to
another, did the Queen leave her galley and set foot on shore. Then,
to allow a few hours more for getting her Palace of Holyrood, and her
escort thither, into tolerable readiness, she took some rest in the
house in Leith deemed most suitable for her reception, the owner
being Andrew Lamb, a wealthy Leith merchant. It was in the
afternoon of Wednesday, the 20th of August, that there was the
procession on horseback of the Queen, her French retinue, and the
gathered Scottish lords and councillors, through the two miles of
road which led from Leith to Holyrood. On the way the Queen was
met by a deputation of the Edinburgh craftsmen and their
apprentices, craving her royal pardon for the ringleaders in a recent
riot, in which the Tolbooth had been broken open and the
Magistrates insulted and defied. This act of grace accorded as a
matter of course, the Queen was that evening in her hall of Holyrood,
the most popular of sovereigns for the moment, her uncles and other
chiefs of her escort with her, and the rest dispersed throughout the
apartments, while outside, in spite of the fog, there were bonfires of
joy in the streets and up the slopes of Arthur Seat, and a crowd of
cheering loiterers moved about in the space between the palace-gate
and the foot of the Canongate. Imparting some regulation to the
proceedings of this crowd, for a while at least, was a special company
of the most “honest” of the townsmen, “with instruments of musick
and with musicians,” admitted within the gate, and tendering the
Queen their salutations, instrumental and vocal, under her chamber-
window. “The melody, as she alledged, lyked her weill, and she willed
the same to be continewed some nightis after.” This is Knox’s
account; but Brantôme tells a different story. After noting the
wretchedness of the hackneys provided for the procession from Leith
to Holyrood, and the poorness of their harnessings and trappings,
the sight of which, he says, made the Queen weep, he goes on to
mention the evening serenade under the windows of Holyrood as the
very completion of the day’s disagreeables. The Abbey itself, he
admits, was a fine enough building; but, just as the Queen had
supped and wanted to go to sleep, “there came under her window
five or six hundred rascals of the town to serenade her with vile
fiddles and rebecks, such as they do not lack in that country, setting
themselves to sing psalms, and singing so ill and in such bad accord
that there could be nothing worse. Ah! what music, and what a
lullaby for the night!” Whether Knox’s account of the Queen’s
impressions of the serenade or Brantôme’s is to be accepted, there
can be no doubt that the matter and intention of the performance
were religious. Our authentic picture, therefore, of Queen Mary’s
first night in Holyrood after her return from France is that of the
Palace lit up within, the dreary fog still persistent outside, the
bonfires on Arthur Seat and other vantage-grounds flickering
through the fog, and the portion of the wet crowd nearest the Palace
singing Protestant psalms for the Queen’s delectation to an
accompaniment of violins.
Next day, Thursday the 21st, this memorable Edinburgh haar of
August 1561 came to an end. Arthur Seat and the other heights and
ranges of the park round Holyrood wore, we may suppose, their
freshest verdure; and Edinburgh, dripping no longer, shone forth, we
may hope, in her sunniest beauty. The Queen could then become
more particularly acquainted with the Palace in which she had come
to reside, and with the nearer aspects of the town to which the Palace
was attached, and into which she had yet to make her formal entry.
 II.—PLAN AND FABRIC OF THE TOWN IN 1561
Then, as now, the buildings that went by the general name of
Holyrood were distinguishable into two portions. There was the
Abbey, now represented only by one beautiful and spacious fragment
of ruin, called the Royal Chapel, but then, despite the spoliations to
which it had been subjected by recent English invasions, still
tolerably preserved in its integrity as the famous edifice, in Early
Norman style, which had been founded in the twelfth century by
David I., and had been enlarged in the fifteenth by additions in the
later and more florid Gothic. Close by this was Holyrood House, or
the Palace proper, built in the earlier part of the sixteenth century,
and chiefly by James IV., to form a distinct royal dwelling, and so
supersede that occasional accommodation in the Abbey itself which
had sufficed for Scottish sovereigns before Edinburgh was their
habitual or capital residence. One block of this original Holyrood
House still remains in the two-turreted projection of the present
Holyrood which adjoins the ruined relic of the Abbey, and which
contains the rooms now specially shown as “Queen Mary’s
Apartments.” But the present Holyrood, as a whole, is a construction
of the reign of Charles II., and gives little idea of the Palace in which
Mary took up her abode in 1561. The two-turreted projection on the
left was not balanced then, as now, by a similar two-turreted
projection on the right, with a façade of less height between, but was
flanked on the right by a continued chateau-like frontage, of about
the same height as the turreted projection, and at a uniform depth of
recess from it, but independently garnished with towers and
pinnacles. The main entrance into the Palace from the great outer
courtyard was through this chateau-like flank, just about the spot
where there is the entrance through the present middle façade; and
this entrance led, like the present, into an inner court or quadrangle,
built round on all the four sides. That quadrangle of chateau,
touching the Abbey to the back from its north-eastern corner, and
with the two-turreted projection to its front from its north-western
corner, constituted, indeed, the main bulk of the Palace. There were,
however, extensive appurtenances of other buildings at the back or at
the side farthest from the Abbey, forming minor inner courts, while
part of that side of the great outer courtyard which faced the
entrance was occupied by offices belonging to the Palace, and
separating the courtyard from the adjacent purlieus of the town. For
the grounds of both Palace and Abbey were encompassed by a wall,
having gates at various points of its circuit, the principal and most
strongly guarded of which was the Gothic porch admitting from the
foot of the Canongate into the front courtyard. The grounds so
enclosed were ample enough to contain gardens and spaces of
plantation, besides the buildings and their courts. Altogether, what
with the buildings themselves, what with the courts and gardens, and
what with the natural grandeur of the site,—a level of deep and
wooded park, between the Calton heights and crags on the one hand
and the towering shoulders of Arthur Seat and precipitous
escarpment of Salisbury Crags on the other,—Holyrood in 1561 must
have seemed, even to an eye the most satiated with palatial
splendours abroad, a sufficiently impressive dwelling-place to be the
metropolitan home of Scottish royalty.
The town itself, of which Holyrood was but the eastward
terminus, corresponded singularly well. Edinburgh even now is,
more than almost any other city in Europe, a city of heights and
hollows, and owes its characteristic and indestructible beauty to that
fact. But the peculiarity of Old Edinburgh was that it consisted
mainly of that one continuous ridge of street which rises, by gradual
ascent for a whole mile, from the deeply-ensconced Holyrood at one
end to the high Castle Rock at the other, sending off on both sides a
multiplicity of narrow foot-passages, called closes, with a few wider
and more street-like cuttings, called wynds, all of which slope
downward from the main ridge in some degree, while many descend
from it with the steepness of mountain gullies into the parallel
ravines. Whoever walks now from Holyrood to the Castle, up the
Canongate, the High Street, and the Lawnmarket, walks through that
portion of the present “Old Town” which figures to us the main
Edinburgh of Queen Mary’s time, and is in fact its residue. But
imagination and some study of old maps and records are necessary
to divest this residue of its acquired irrelevancies, and so to reconvert
it into the actual Edinburgh of three hundred years ago. The
divisions of the great ridge of street from Holyrood to the Castle were
the same as now, with the same names; but objects once conspicuous
in each have disappeared, and the features of each have been
otherwise altered.
The first part of the long ascent from Holyrood was the
Canongate. Though occupying nearly half of the whole, and in
complete junction with the Edinburgh proper up to which it led, it
was a separate “burgh of regality,” which had formed itself, as its
name implies, under the protection of the abbots and canons of
Holyrood. By virtue of that original, it was not yet included in the
municipal jurisdiction of the Edinburgh Magistrates and Town
Council, but held out under a magistracy of its own. Hence some
characteristics distinguishing this lower part of the ascent from the
rest. The old Canongate was by no means the dense exhibition of
dingy picturesqueness now known as the Canongate of Edinburgh,
with repulsive entries and closes on both sides, leading to cages of
crammed humanity of the poorer sort, or to inner recesses of bone-
yards, pipe-clay yards, and the like. It had the sparseness and
airiness of a suburb of the Court. The houses, whether of stone or
partly of wood, were pretty thickly put together, indeed, along the
immediate street-margins, with the inevitable access to many of
them by entries and closes, but did not go so deeply back on either
side as not to leave room for pleasant gardens and tracts of vacant
ground behind. A paved and causewayed street, ascending
continuously between two rows of houses, of irregular forms and
varying heights, but few of them of more than three storeys; other
houses at the backs of these to some little depth all the way, reached
by closes from the street, and generally set gablewise to those in
front; and, behind these again, garden grounds and grassy slopes and
hollows: such was the ancient Canongate. In token of its claims to be
a separate burgh, it had its own market cross, and, near this, its own
Tolbooth or prison and council-house. The present Canongate
Tolbooth, though an antique object, is only the successor of the older
Canongate Tolbooth of Queen Mary’s time.
The ending of the Canongate and beginning of the High Street of
Edinburgh proper was at a cross street, the left arm of which,
descending from the ridge into the ravine on that side, was called St.
Mary’s Wynd, while the arm to the right was called Leith Wynd.
Here, to mark more emphatically the transition from the smaller
burgh into the greater, one encountered the separating barrier of the
Nether Bow Port. It has left no trace of itself now, but was a
battlemented stone structure, spanning the entire breadth of the
thoroughfare, with an arched gateway in the middle and gates for
admission or exclusion. That passed, one was in the lower portion of
the High Street, called specifically the Nether Bow. Here, it was not
merely the increasing breadth of the thoroughfare and the increasing
height of the houses that showed one had come within the
boundaries of the real civic and commercial Edinburgh. No such
sparseness of building now as in the Canongate; no mere double
fringe of houses to a short depth, with entries and closes ending in
gardens and vacant ground; but a sense of being between two masses
of densely-peopled habitations, clothing the declivities from the
ridge to their lowest depths on both sides, and penetrable only by
those courts and wynds of which one saw the mouths, but the
labyrinthine intricacy of which in the course of their descent baffled
conception.
The same sensation accompanied one on advancing still
upwards into the middle and broadest part of the High Street. Here
the street had much the same striking appearance as now. One saw a
spacious incline of oblong piazza, rather than a street, lined by
buildings, some of solid stone throughout and very tall, others lower
and timber-fronted, all of quaint architecture from their basements
to their peaked roofs and chimneys, and not a few with “fore-stairs,”
or projecting flights of steps from doors on the first floor down to the
causeway. It was here, too, that the lateral fringes of habitation down
the steep alleys were of greatest width. That on the right was stopped
only at the bottom of the ravine on that side by a lake called the
North Loch, while that on the left, after reaching the bottom of the
other ravine, mingled itself there with an independent and very
aristocratic suburb that had grown up in the ravine itself, under the
name of the Cowgate, as a southern parallel of relief to the main
Edinburgh of the ridge above. This low-lying, aristocratic suburb,
though accessible from the piazza of the High Street by the wynds
and closes on the southern side, did not come easily into the
cognisance of a stranger that might be exploring the piazza itself. He
had enough to arrest his attention where he was. One difference
between the old High Street and the present, despite their general
resemblance, consisted in a huge obstruction, now removed, which
interrupted the old High Street at its very midmost point,
immediately above the Town Cross. Just above the spot now marked
in the causeway as the site of this Town Cross, and beginning exactly
where the great church of St. Giles protrudes its complex pile on the
left and raises into the sky its remarkable tower and open octagonal
crown of stonework, there stood in the old High Street a stack of lofty
masonry, stretching up the centre of the street for a considerable
way, and leaving only a gloomy and tortuous lane for pedestrians
along the buttresses of the church on one side, and a somewhat wider
channel,—called the Luckenbooths,—for shops and traffic, on the
other. The lower portion of this obstructive stack of masonry
belonged to the Luckenbooths, and was included in the name, the
basement being let out in shops or stalls for goods, while the upper
floors were parcelled out as dwellings. The higher and larger portion,
separated from the lower by a narrow suture called “The Kirk Stile,”
was nothing less than the famous Heart of Midlothian itself, or Old
Tolbooth, which had served hitherto as the prætorium burgi, at once
the jail of Edinburgh, its Town Council House, the seat of the
Supreme Courts of Justice for Scotland, and the occasional meeting-
place of a Scottish Parliament. Little wonder if one lingered round
this core of the High Street and of the whole town. The channel of the
Luckenbooths on one side of the street, the lane between the
Tolbooth and St. Giles’s on the other, and the cross passage or Kirk
Stile, were worth more than one perambulation, if only on account of
their amusing interconnection; at the back of St. Giles’s Church,
overhanging the Cowgate, was St. Giles’s Churchyard, the chief
cemetery of the town; and the Tolbooth alone might well detain one
by its look and the interest of its associations. In 1561 they were
voting it to be too old and decayed, if not too unsightly, for the
various and important purposes which it had hitherto served; and
within a few months from our present date there was to be an order
for its demolition, and for the erection of another building more
suitable for those purposes, and especially for the accommodation of
the Lords of Council and Session. But, though they did then begin to
take it down, and though a “New Tolbooth” or “Council House” was
built near it in the same part of the High Street, the old or original
Tolbooth escaped its doom, and was left standing after all. A little re-
edified, it was to survive its more modern substitute, and to be
known till 1817 as at least the Jail of Edinburgh and real old Heart of
Midlothian. Some persons still alive can remember it.