'Music about Scotland is as worthy of attention as European canon'

The Bubblyjock Collective is Neil Sutcliffe, a classical accordionist from Stirling (www.neilsutcliffe.scot); Rosie Lavery, sometimes known as “The Ginger Soprano”, an opera singer and conductor born and raised in Glasgow (thegingersoprano.com), and Anna Michels, a Scottish-Dutch pianist currently based in Glasgow (www.annamichelspiano.com).

The name is taken from the Scots word for the turkey, and Hugh MacDiarmid’s poem tells us of the significance of the bird’s music-making:

The Bubblyjock

It’s hauf like a bird and hauf like a bogle
And juist stands in the sun there and bouks.
It’s a wunder its heid disna burst
The way it’s aye raxin’ its chouks.
Syne it twists its neck like a serpent
But canna get oot a richt note
For the bubblyjock swallowed the bagpipes
And the blether stuck in its throat.

My own experience of The Bubblyjock Collective is that it does in fact most certainly “get out ALL the right notes”! But there’s a wonderful thought there – here’s a bird that is in itself a musical instrument, and not afraid of using its throat to come out with a whole range of unpredicted sounds that startle and alert as well as confirm and approve.

Alan Riach: Neil, could you tell us a little about how the Bubblyjock operation got started, who you are, what you aim to do, are doing, and where you draw your strengths from most?

Neil Sutcliffe: The Bubblyjock Collective grew out of conversations between myself, Anna and Rosie. We had all studied at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow. We were frustrated with the lack of recognition, performance, or even general knowledge about Scottish classical and contemporary composers within the local and international music scene.

And so we decided to set up a collective dedicated to bringing forgotten or rarely performed works by Scottish composers out of the archives, and back into performance. There have of course been many others before us who have promoted this music – John Purser, Ronald Stevenson, Martyn Brabbins, David McGuinness and The White Rose Ensemble spring to mind – but somehow it is still not widely known.

Alan: What do you prioritise in your own concert programmes?

Neil: In our performances, we typically present programmes of Scottish “art song” and instrumental music, some arranged for the ensemble, some transcribed for classical accordion.

Sometimes we focus on individual composers, as we did last Friday with Buxton Orr, and sometimes we present mixed programmes of several different composers. Our definition of “Scottish” composers is not a nationalistic one, rather we focus on composers who have spent a portion of their lives living and working in Scotland, whether they were born here or elsewhere.

Alan: And this is all based in scholarly research? There’s a great hinterland of history as well as the contemporary scene to draw from … Neil: Alongside performing and working with other musicians and ensembles, we conduct our own research into the composers we perform, and we collaborate with researchers and archivists to learn about their lives and work.

This enables us to share stories and history with audiences alongside the music itself, bringing to life the people and places that have inspired the music.

Alan: That sounds like a “collective” enterprise indeed.

Neil: All three of us have found in this repertoire a sense of “home” which is perhaps missing from the wider classical canon. A lot of this music sets Scots texts – language that feels right in our mouths. Some of it relates to Scottish places, history, and culture, or draws on traditional music and idioms. And much of it is also hugely international, not in the least bit parochial or inward-looking, but looking out on the world at large.

Discovering a new repertoire, searching through the archives, meeting acquaintances and family members of composers – it often feels like one big treasure hunt, and there’s always more to discover.

Alan: Why is Scotland’s classical music not more familiar in the mainstream repertoire of classical concerts in Scotland?

Neil: This is the question that sparked off The Bubblyjock Collective in the first place and we’re still pondering it.

When we first began, we had a handful of names that we could call to mind of Scottish composers and now, if you visit our website, you’ll find an ever-growing list of more than 50 people who have worked and lived and written classical/contemporary music in Scotland.

Alan: Sebastian, you’ve been working on Buxton Orr’s compositions and researching his story but considering him in the larger context, why do we not hear more Scottish classical music?

Sebastian Schneeberger: I think to a degree it is due to a lack of general advocacy from Scotland’s largest performing companies. When last was an opera by a Scottish composer performed in Scotland on a big stage?

Some might perform the occasional piece by James MacMillan but I think it’s no secret that much more could be done by the larger companies in Scotland to represent Scottish composers of varied styles, such as Thea Musgrave, Ronald Stevenson, Neil and Nathaniel Gow.

I’M hoping that Edinburgh Studio Opera, of which I was recently president, might continue in building up its savings and put on one of Buxton Orr’s operas at the Fringe in the coming years.

Alan: Which composers and which pieces of music do you think should be introduced into the repertoire, and secured there, for future performances?

Seb: In terms of which of Orr’s pieces would fit well into mainstream classical Scottish music, I think that many of the pieces in Bubblyjock’s programme would fit well. They have a broader appeal than some of his music and they’re mostly tone row free (apart from a sneakily inlaid one in the Celtic Suite). I would certainly add some of his operas, including The Wager, Unicorn, and Ring In The New. His Canzona for tenor, clarinet and string trio would also fit well into more mainstream Scottish classical music.

In slightly less mainstream performance, I think his tonal-serial chamber music is an excellent untapped well of challenging music for Conservatoire students (notably his Piano Trios).

Generally, I believe all of Orr’s music should be considered, both Scottish and English. So far it seems to have been excluded from both national repertoires. This isn’t a problem unique to Orr, but others such as Kenneth Leighton (though still under-performed) seem to have at least negotiated an acknowledgement from at least one of their home nations. Orr has yet to really receive that acknowledgement since his passing.

Alan: Neil, what are your thoughts on why Scotland’s classical music is not better known?

Neil: Well, there’s the “Scottish cringe”, the idea that Scottish culture is not taken seriously by us as Scots.

Alan: It’s almost a cliché to say that but in fact I think you’re right.

IT’S a seriously debilitating component of Scotland’s cultural identity, this cringe away from enquiring honestly into what Scots composers have achieved, and you can see it in some of the highest realms of cultural institutions and powerful individuals.

And you could extend that to writers, artists, creative people and thinkers of all kinds. I’m remembering someone once saying that the most peculiar phenomenon of modern history in this country is the story of Scotland’s self-suppression … Neil: For a variety of historical, social, and political reasons, this sense of the Scottish cringe feels prevalent throughout our society.

In particular, in relation to “art music” or “fine art” culture (although I find these terms problematic), I think there is resistance to the idea that music written in and about Scotland is as worthy and deserving of attention as the conventional European classical canon.

The suppression, lack of support for and understanding of Scottish Gaelic and Scots has fed into a certain sense that these languages do not or cannot convey deep artistic expression and feeling, and so song settings of Scottish poetry are not thought of in the same category of German Lieder and French art song, as perhaps they should be.

I think there is often also a sense that Scottish classical music is in some way parochial, a local curiosity and small-minded, whereas in fact many Scottish composers have had international careers – often by necessity of there not being enough work or opportunity in Scotland – and this is reflected in their music.

Alan: Would you say there’s a disconnection in public perception between folk music or traditional music and popular song, on the one hand, and on the other hand, classical or serious or concert, “art” music, maybe a conflict within Scotland’s musical identity?

Neil: Perhaps you could say that. When most people think of Scottish music, they find themselves inevitably thinking of traditional music and – particularly in the modern music industry – the “Celtic” brand.

Scotland has a rich, diverse, traditional music culture, from Gaelic psalm singing to “Celtic rock”, from bothy ballads to Shetland fiddling. And for most people, perhaps, these sounds and images are to the fore when they think of broadly “Scottish music”.

IN contrast, classical music has never really been thought of as a strong part of Scottish identity or culture. Of course, many classical composers working in Scotland have been inspired by traditional idioms and aesthetics, and you can find strathspey rhythms and pibroch-esque ornamentation across many of these works.

And yet, to think of classical and traditional as mutually exclusive is to misunderstand music itself.

Music, at its heart, is about storytelling, community and expression through sound. And traditional, classical, jazz, punk, pop genres can co-exist, blend, grow, according to taste and context. I think musicians are growing more aware of this now and while still specialising and dedicating time to a specific genre or style, we see the boundaries and barriers between genres as less prohibitive and the connections across them more clearly.

Alan: How about promoters or ensembles who may be trapped by the canon, and audience expectations?

Neil: I have heard this a lot from promoters, lecturers, fellow musicians, and it remains the standard form for a lot of programming: “Our audiences are still fairly conservative, we need to play something they’ll know – and then maybe squeeze a new piece in alongside the well-known stuff”, or words to that effect.

Understandably, this reflects the immense financial pressures on the music scene in Scotland at the moment. Promoters and performers need to be sure people will turn up and it’s true that generally the conventional classical audiences are less likely to come out to a concert of entirely “new” works, than, say, Beethoven, Brahms, Mahler, Mozart.

Alan: But there is always an appetite for the new, isn’t there? I’m remembering Norman MacCaig’s phrases, “the honey of memory” and “the vinegar of perception” – or words to that effect. It’s wonderful to hear again the music of the great canonical composers, to hear it more deeply, and that’s partly “the honey of memory”.

But there’s also the challenge of the new, or the neglected, or the retrieved work, regenerated in fresh performances. I’m thinking now of the marvellous music of John Blackwood McEwen, or Erik Chisholm, both radically undervalued and underperformed.

At any rate, I’d like to hope there’s a sufficient number of people who wouldn’t be satisfied with a small dose of the old “Eine Kleines” now and then, or the slumbering tradition that I think could all come under the generic title of “Brahms’s lullaby babies”. I do think it’s a credit to Scottish audiences though that Sibelius and Mahler and Prokofiev and Shostakovich are reliable favourites in the concert hall.

Neil: We need to think radically about how to broaden the contemporary classical audience and it comes back to this question, “What is the music for?”. Art and music should comfort, yes, but also challenge us. We should live in a society where people want to be challenged and provoked to think in new ways and listen with different ears.

One question I have for The Bubblyjocks, which we will only discover in time, is whether this Scottish classical repertoire, that speaks in Scottish voices and of Scottish place and history, will connect with new audiences, and open up the world of classical music for them.

Alan: So which composers, and which pieces of music, do you think should be introduced into that repertoire, and secured there, for future performances, what are the priorities?

Neil: The list is endless! This goes to the heart, for me, of the question, “How do we value music?” I do not think it is for us, performers and researchers, to assign status or value to composers and their compositions.

In The Bubblyjock Collective, we aim to approach every new work we find with curiosity and treat it all as serious, valid, and relevant music. We will do our best to interpret and present the music and we will let audiences decide if it resonates with them or not.

Having said that, some of our favourite composers, who we think deserve a spotlight, are: Marie Dare (1902-76) from Newport-on-Tay; Ronald Center (1913-73) from Aberdeen; Claire Liddell (b.1937) from Glasgow, and Ronald Stevenson (1928-2015).

We are focused on chamber music and art song but it would be wonderful to see Scottish Ballet reviving Eddie McGuire’s Peter Pan, Erik Chisholm’s The Forsaken Mermaid (is that the first Scottish ballet?), or Marie Dare’s children ballets Thumbeline or Pied Piper of Hamlin.

Alan: Now that’s a concert programme for the Edinburgh Festival I would sign up for immediately. Here’s hoping!