his first few years in Scotland being spent in the less prestigious musical centre of Glasgow, before he settled in Edinburgh in 1784. Both published volumes of Scots songs under their own publishing labels–Corri publishing only two, while Urbani's popularity as a singer created the market for his six. Burns was one of the many who admired Urbani's abilities as a singer, but he strongly disapproved of Urbani's efforts to 'harmonize and improve' Scots songs, although it is clear that Urbani himself considered that he had 'acquired the true national taste'.
If Corri's works of this type–some variation sets, some rondos–are less demanding than those by Urbani, the distinction is very slight. Corri, formerly a pupil of Nicola Porpora (1686-1768) in Naples, was an accomplished composer and moreover an entrepreneur with an excellent eye for a business opportunity (though little of the acumen required to make a success of any of his projects). His works were not dedicated to any specific person, but instead were published with amazing rapidity by his son's company, Corri & Sutherland, in sheet music form.This, together with his high profile in Edinburgh's musical life as conductor of the Edinburgh Musical Society, manager of several other enterprises and teacher of keyboard and singing, guaranteed almost continuous sales for as long as the company was in business. Like Urbani, Corri had a tendency to ornament the original airs somewhat more than many purist Scots would have liked. Unlike Urbani, however, Corri also favoured rhythm-based alterations, which distil the essence of the melody or incorporate the famous dotted rhythm known as a 'Scotch-snap'. His rondo on The Banks of Doon, better known as the song 'Ye banks and braes' (perhaps one of the most famous songs for which Burns wrote the lyrics) is one of Corri's simplest works. Here motifs derived from the theme are re-worked in the interludes between statements of the melody. Corri, like Ross, utilising a shift to the relative minor in the middle of the work.The variation set on Loch Erroch Side, on the other hand, shows quite a different aspect to Corri's abilities. Based on a tune originally composed by the famous Scottish fiddle player Niel Gow of Dunkeld, Corri (like Urbani) has utilised increasingly rapidly executed scalic passages and various combinations of arpeggiated figures. The extended closing flourish is surprisingly virtuosic and seemingly foreign to his otherwise
In common with many of their contemporaries, both Italians wrote rondos as well as variation sets on Scottish airs. Rondo movements had become increasingly popular from the 1770s onwards, particularly in Britain, and even the most established composers, such as Mozart and Haydn, included rondos based on popular melodies in their sonatas and symphonies. Audiences loved the episodic structure, in which the opening melody was revisited up to eight times in the course of the piece, and although originally incorporated in sonatas, many of these movements became popular in their own right. Urbani's rondos, such as that on Sic' a wife asWillie had, were very much in the tradition of his contemporaries, but they also display his characteristically over-ornamented themes combined with clearly virtuosic passage-work. Between relatively simplistic re-statements of the theme, Urbani intersperses almost continuous, dynamically-detailed, rapid chromatic movement, which only occasionally pauses for a brief, quasiimprovisatory flourish. Whether the pianistic abilities of the young ladies to whom these works are dedicated matched the aspirations of their teacher can only be imagined. 5
My love she's but a Lassie yet
Awake, sweet muse! The breathing spring With rapture warms; awake and sing! Awake and join the vocal throng, Who hail the morning with a song; To Nanny raise the chearful lay, O! bid her haste and come away; In sweetest smiles herself adorn, And add new graces to the morn!
My love she's but a lassie yet, My love she's but a lassie yet, We'll let her stand a year or twa, She'll no be half sae saucy yet. I rue the day I sought her O, I rue the day I sought her O, Wha gets her needs na say he's woo'd, But he may say he's bought her O.
O hark, my love! on ev'ry spray, Each feather'd warbler tunes his lay; 'Tis beauty fires the ravish'd throng; And love inspires the melting song: Then let my raptur'd notes arise; For beauty darts from Nanny's eyes: And love my rising bosom warms, And fills my soul with sweet alarms.
Come draw a drap o' the best o't yet, Come draw a drap o' the best o't yet: Gae seek for pleasure whare ye will, But here I never misst it yet. We're a' dry wi' drinking o't, We're a' dry wi' drinking o't: The minister kisst the fidler's wife, He could na preach for thinking o't.
O! come my love! Thy Colin's lay With rapture calls, O come away! Come, while the muse this wreath shall twine Around that modest brow of thine; O! hither haste, and with thee bring That beauty blooming like the spring, Those graces that divinely shine, And charm this ravish'd breast of mine!
Roslin Castle 'Twas in that season of the year, When all things gay and sweet appear, That Colin with the morning ray, Arose and sung his rural lay. Of Nanny's charms the Shepherd sung, The hills and dales with Nanny rung; While Roslin Castle heard the Swain, And echo'd back the chearful strain.
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