David Young: Copyist, Collector, and Composer by Rosemary Coupe (Vancouver)
Young and His Patrons
The original instructions for The Collonel, one of Young's dances reconstructed in RSCDS Leaflet 33. Reproduced from the original manuscript held in The Bodleian Library, University of Oxford (MS. Don. d. 54, fol.7r)
Let us imagine a concert of the Edinburgh Musical Society in the late 1730s. Professional and amateur musicians are playing together for their mutual enjoyment. Today’s piece is William McGibbon’s latest variation on a traditional Scottish tune, written in the fashionable classical style. McGibbon himself plays leading violin. Also playing are Charles McLean and James Oswald, both classically trained musicians who will soon publish collections of Scottish tunes in classical settings. Significantly, Oswald is a former dancing master. A supporting violinist is Walter McFarlane, a clan chief spending the winter in Edinburgh. McFarlane collects material related to Scottish history and culture, and is also an amateur musician. With him is the young Duke of Perth, newly arrived in Scotland after a childhood spent at the Jacobite court in St. Germain. Both these men are Jacobites, and the Duke of Perth will lose his life to his politics in 1746. The last member of the circle is a professional man of many parts. David Young graduated from Marischal College, Aberdeen, in 1726 and now teaches at Haddington Grammar School just east of Edinburgh. He is a fine copper-plate scribe and a music copyist. Like other 18th-century writing masters, he also calls himself an ‘accomptant’ or accountant—he keeps a neat ledger.Young has other talents: he plays the violin, has a knowledge of pipe music, and like the other musicians he composes elaborate variations to Scottish tunes.
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While the scene described is imaginary, these men were indeed linked by a series of patronage networks and by a common aim: the production of work which was both ‘aggressively nationalistic and aggressively fashionable’, in David Johnson’s words. An example is the magnificently ornamented manuscript written by Young and commissioned by the Duke of Perth, entitled A COLLECTION of Countrey Dances. Written for the use of his Grace the Duke of PERTH. 1737. By Dav. Young. Following the political Union of 1707, the Edinburgh upper classes had taken up the English fashion of country dancing with enthusiasm, but the dances in this manuscript are set to popular Scottish tunes. A second section of the manuscript is called A Collection of the Best Highland Reels. Written by David Young, W.M. & Accomptant. It gives violin settings for 45 pipe tunes, many with pages of variations in the classical style. Three years later, Young produced another handsome manuscript, called A Collection of the newest Countrey Dances Perform’d in Scotland, Written at Edinburgh by Da. Young, W.M. 1740. This contains a further 48 dances, and musical settings ‘adapted to the Violin, or Hautboy, and for the most part within the Compass of the German Flute’. These ‘newest’ country dances are again paired with traditional tunes, including eight from Young’s own collection of Highland reels. Since the orchestra at the Edinburgh Assembly Rooms in the 1740s included four violins and two oboes, Young designed his settings for practical use. The year 1740 was busy for David Young, as he was also carrying out a major commission for Walter McFarlane, an anthology of music entitled A Collection of Scotch Airs, with the latest Variations. Written for the use of Walter McFarlan of that ilk. By David Young, W.M. in Edn. This collection’s two surviving volumes contain a staggering 535 tunes, including 45 of the tunes in Young’s two dance manuscripts. They range from minuets and song tunes to reels with Gaelic titles, and the variations are attributed to McGibbon, McLean, Forbes of Disblair, and ‘D.Y.’ or David Young himself. So here Young is not merely a copyist but one composer among others. Also in 1740, Young’s interest in furthering the cause of Scottish music led him to cross the class divide and adopt a patron-
like role himself. When James Oswald published his Curious Collection of Scots Tunes, containing traditional tunes in classicized settings, the name ‘Mr. David Young, Schoolmaster in Haddington’ appears on the list of subscribers together with those of the Duke of Perth, Walter McFarlane, and William McGibbon. After Culloden, Young returned to Aberdeen, where he again took an active role in the musical community. In 1748 he became one of the seven founding members of the Aberdeen Musical Society. The group included gentlemanly amateurs (the Professor of Medicine at King’s College and Professor of Divinity at Marischal College) and musical professionals (the organist Andrew Tait and the dancing master Francis Peacock). All played an instrument; Young is recorded as a violin player. According to the rules of the Society, they met to play for their ‘mutual entertainment’. When Peacock published Fifty Favourite Scotch Airs in 1762,Young’s name appears again as a subscriber.
Young as Collector and Editor Young’s dance manuscripts are remarkable for several reasons. They are the earliest surviving Scottish country dance manuscripts except for the informal Holmains manuscript. They are the only Scottish sources of their period to include music as well as dance instructions. Their decorative flourishes invest the dances with dignity and splendour in the same way that variations may give dignity to a simple tune. Young himself played the role of a collector and editor. Differences in style and terminology within each manuscript (for example, sometimes the 1740 manuscript refers to ‘couples’ and sometimes to ‘pairs’) indicate that he obtained the dance instructions from other sources. However, his musical knowledge enabled him to develop a consistent system for showing the phrasing of the dances. His prefatory note to the 1740 manuscript reads, ‘Note THAT in the following Figures, the Directions for dancing the first Strain of the Tune play’d twice over, begin always with red Print Capitals; and the 2d strain with small red characters.’ Since most of the accompanying tunes have two repeated four-bar ‘strains’ (AABBAABB), this means that the first words of the first and third eight bars are in red upper-case, and the first words of the second and fourth eight bars in red lower-case. The 1737 manuscript uses the same system in a
