Phoebe Anna Traquair

Dublin-born Phoebe Anna Traquair's "The Progress of a Soul" is a central work of the Scottish Arts & Crafts movement. William B. Yeats' 'little singing bird', she is but one of many connections between Ireland and Edinburgh around 1900. Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, from a family where 'Home Rule' was frequently discussed, worked with the eager Celtic Revivalist Patrick Geddes in the 1890s, and was deeply influenced by Yeats' œuvre – 'Land of Heart's Desire' is a well-known song of hers. William Sharp (Fiona MacLeod) met Yeats in London and raved about his work, but Yeats was less enthusiastic, and, with Oscar Wilde, he made witty comments about Sharp. Nonetheless, in 1905, Yeats cast Sharp's horoscope, at the request of his widow, Elizabeth A. Sharp, "Lyra Celtica"'s editor. Yeats' Dundee-lecture in 1905 was organised by Scottish romantic poet Rachel Annand Taylor and her husband – friends of Kennedy-Fraser and of Symbolist painter John Duncan, instrumental to the Celtic Revival in Scotland. On Eriskay, they had all immersed themselves in things Celtic, meeting Fr Allan McDonald, the priest and Celtic scholar. Together with most Edinburgh literati, they also frequented the salon of André Raffalovich, whose sister married Irish MP William O'Brien – Parnell spoke at their wedding – and whose friend, Fr John Gray, once part of the bohemian circles of Oscar Wilde and Yeats in London, was priest to Irish immigrants in Edinburgh. My paper will focus on the connections between Scotland and Ireland around 1900 by discussing a circle of then well-known and influential individuals.

Scottish musician Marjory Kennedy-Fraser (née Kennedy, 1857–1930) is known mostly for her "Songs of the Hebrides". From the publication of the first volume in 1909, her popularity and fame grew – in Scotland and England as well as abroad; her work received official recognition in the 1920s, when she was awarded both the CBE and an honorary Mus.D. (Edinburgh). After her death in 1930, her songs were still widely performed, but her work was increasingly exposed to criticism. While appreciated as a respected, albeit somewhat unfashionable, arranger of songs among musicians generally, both in Britain and beyond, Marjory Kennedy-Fraser was virulently attacked by trendsetting Scottish intellectuals, who accused her of having misrepresented Gaelic songs, publishing what was by then considered romanticized drawing-room arrangements, lacking in authenticity. Though still frequently maligned, her songs have been subject of a renewed interest in recent years, and have slowly begun to find their place among European art songs of the period, a repertoire which is largely based on, or at least influenced by, vernacular folk-songs from the different nations.

Apart from her memoirs from 1929, "A Life of Song", no biography has so far been published of Marjory Kennedy-Fraser. The aim of this thesis is to provide a detailed survey of Dr Kennedy-Fraser's professional life, and, furthermore, by relating her life and œuvre to her own time, to place her in context. It draws extensively on her own, hitherto unpublished working material, held by Edinburgh University Library, a multitude of newspaper articles and biographical publications, as well as letters from a wide range of sources. It thus offers as complete and nuanced a picture as possible of a long, comprehensive, and indeed impressive, career. Following an introductory overview of the Arts & Crafts movement, the mainly chronological biography explores her family background, international concert tours, and music studies in Milan and Paris. Her rôles as performer, teacher, lecturer, and author are assessed, as is her work as a suffrage activist and a parish councillor. The second phase of her career, when a collector and arranger of Gaelic songs, her publication of the "Songs of the Hebrides", as well as her numerous Hebridean recitals, given both throughout Britain and abroad, are all covered in detail. Her interaction with several important individuals of her time, including Sir Patrick Geddes, Dr Frederick Niecks, Dr Kenneth Macleod, Sir Granville Bantock, and Dame Ellen Terry, is also discussed.

The recent upsurge of interest in early twentieth-century cultural nationalisms has raised the profile of the Scottish rôle in the cultural and nationalist revival movements of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Especially during the key period between the 1890s and the First World War, the Scottish Celtic Revival movement witnessed a flowering of artistic, literary, and cultural activities that helped to shape incipient political and cultural nationalisms, both Scottish and pan-Celtic.

This interdisciplinary conference (1-3 May 2014) will be organised by the University of Edinburgh's department of Celtic and Scottish Studies and part-hosted by the National Galleries of Scotland. It will be supported by the Modern Humanities Research Fund and co-sponsored by the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH), and the Centre for Theology and Public Issues (CTPI), University of Edinburgh. The conference will bring together scholars working on the art, music, folklore collection, literary production, scholarship, politics, Gaelic linguistic revival, architecture, and material culture of the period, in order to reassess the role played by the Celtic Revival in the creation of modern Scottish identities. Through an examination of the roots, rise, and withering of the Celtic Revival in Scotland, the conference will reassess the successes - and failures - of the movement in its widest context.

Scottish musician Marjory Kennedy-Fraser (née Kennedy, 1857–1930) is mainly known for the several volumes of "Songs of the Hebrides" she brought out in collaboration with Kenneth MacLeod (1871–1955), based on her years of painstaking work collecting Gaelic songs. Increasingly popular and famous since the publication of the first volume in 1909, her work received official recognition in the 1920s, when she was awarded both the CBE and an honorary Mus.D. (Edinburgh). Gaelic songs were Kennedy-Fraser's second career, however, having previously travelled the world as her father's accompanist, studied music in Milan, in Paris, and – as one of its first women students – at the University of Edinburgh, subsequently building up a flourishing music teaching practice in the Scottish capital. Widowed at an early age, with two small children to support, in the 1890s, the young professional was busy teaching, performing and lecturing in Edinburgh, where she soon became part of the city's artistic avant-garde circles and met with Alexander Carmichael, Patrick Geddes, John Duncan and Phoebe Traquair – leading lights of the Arts & Crafts movement in Scotland. My paper will ask what sparked Dr Kennedy-Fraser's passion for Gaelic music and culture, outline her multifarious undertakings in public life generally, and discuss how her œuvre became increasingly exposed to criticism after her death, particularly in Scotland, where she was virulently attacked by trendsetting intellectuals, who accused her of having misrepresented Gaelic songs. I will conclude by considering the place of the "Songs of the Hebrides" in today's song recital repertoire.