‘Land of Heart’s Desire’ – Marjory Kennedy-Fraser (1857–1930) and the Songs of the Hebrides
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31265/0r0etb10Keywords:
Gaelic songs, Songs of the Hebrides, Celtic Revival, Art songs, Folksong collectingAbstract
Marjory Kennedy-Fraser (1857–1930), daughter of famous Scots tenor David Kennedy, was a Scottish pianist, music teacher, suffragette, and collector of Gaelic songs. She toured the world as her father’s accompanist, studied singing in Milan and Paris, and read music at the University of Edinburgh. Widowed with two children to support, she taught piano and singing in Edinburgh, becoming part of the city’s avant-garde Celtic Revival circles. After visiting Eriskay in 1905, she collected, arranged, and published the Songs of the Hebrides, in collaboration with Gaelic editor Kenneth Macleod. With English composer Granville Bantock, she created The Seal Woman: A Celtic Folk Opera, premiered in Birmingham in 1924. Maligned after her death for exploiting and misinterpreting Gaelic culture, her oeuvre vanished from recital programmes, but her consummate art song versions of Gaelic traditional songs would merit their place in the standard art song repertoire, giving presence to both Gaelic Scotland among the Late-Romantic voices from all corners of Europe and a remarkable Scotswoman among British composers.
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