By Jennifer Oates
When I stumbled upon a CD of Hamish MacCunn’s music as a young graduate student, I was entranced by the excerpts from his opera Jeanie Deans, whose combination of folk-like music evoking the Scottish countryside, juxtaposed with the surprisingly modern sounding arias, suggested a composer with great range and depth. Most of what has been written about MacCunn and his music has focused on his Scottish artistic persona from 1887 through 1894 and on the Scottish-styled compositions that had cemented this persona and established his career. But while I enjoyed MacCunn’s overtly Scottish compositions, they did not have the range and emotional depth of the music from Jeanie Deans that I had heard on that recording long ago. Where, I wondered, was the dynamic musical style that had so vividly captured my attention? I found the MacCunn of Jeanie Deans in his works for solo instruments (particularly those piano, cello, and violin), partsongs—and especially in his songs.
