Four
Scottish Dances Op. 59
Arnold’s Four Scottish Dances Op. 59 were
composed in January 1957 for the BBC Light Music Festival. There are four dances
or movements based on original melodies except one, the melody of which was
composed by Robert Burns. This work was written two years after the composition
of Tam o' Shanter Op. 51 (1955) and retains some of the vitality of that
exuberant work.
The first dance is in the style of a strathspey
- a slow Scottish dance in 4/4 meter – with frequent use of dotted
notes, frequently in the inverted arrangement of the “Scotch snap.” It
captures the atmosphere of the Highlands from the very first bar, a bagpipe
drone (imitated by trombones) accompanying a melody which has the characteristic
slow pace. The brass section plays a wonderful fanfare in semi-quaver triplets.
The movement ends with a flurry of notes followed by a comic conclusion.
The second movement is derived from the music
scored for the documentary film 'The Beautiful County of Ayr.' This dance
begins quite gently. The movement begins in E-flat and with each repetition it
rises a semitone. It is easy to
picture a drunk staggering down a street when the basson plays its solo at half
the tempo of the main theme. This has some affinity with Tam O' Shanter
and also a well-known passage from Offenbach's Gaité Parisienne.
When the interlude is over the clarinet enters quietly for a few bars and then
the movement ends with a woodwind polytonal slide up the scale.
In the Allegretto Arnold has succeeded in producing music that is more “Scottish” than the Scots would write. He himself, in programme notes, has written that it is in the style of a Hebridean Song. Those movie fans that have enjoyed films like ‘I Know where I am going’ and perhaps ‘Whisky Galore’ know what this movement is all about. It is two lovers looking across the sea to a beautiful land of lost content. The melody is pentatonic, exactly in the “received” style. It is a beautiful reflection on the Scottish Landscape especially the “sea and mountains on a calm summer’s day in the Hebrides.” It is perhaps one of the finest tunes that Malcolm Arnold has composed.
The last movement is a Con Brio. This is in similar mood to the opening movement and comes as quite a contrast to the previous dream movement. It is a “Highland fling”. It is in 2/4 time and has a tremendous energy. Only occasionally stopping for breath. All the time we hear the woodwinds being extremely busy. This dance makes a great deal of the use of the open-string pitches of the violin. John Paynter, the arranger, notes that the violin part referenced in the last dance is played in the band edition by the saxophones. The horn players are called on to perform a succession of “grace” notes that give a sense of “wildness” to this dance. However it is a very short movement being over in a mere one minute and sixteen seconds. It comes as a fitting epilogue to these most effective of all the “dances” composed by Malcolm Arnold.