Album Summary: William Thomson's Orpheus Caledonius (1725) was a landmark publication; the first ever large-scale collection of "Scotch Songs" in print — 50 songs arranged with un-figured bass, most with lyrics from Allan Ramsay's Scots Songs and Tea-Table Miscellany, plus an appendix of melodic reductions. It was an instant hit and in 1733, expanded into 2 volumes with 100 songs. Indeed, Thomson's Orpheus set the standard format for Scots Song settings for the rest of the eighteenth century, including those of Robert Burns in The Scots Musical Museum. This ScotMus.com album is a faithful reprint of the song arrangements from the historic 1st edition of 1725.
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She's fresh as the Spring, and sweet as Aurora,
When Birds mount & sing, bidding day a good morrow, The Sward of the Mead, enamel'd with Daisies, Look wither'd and dead, when twin'd of her Graces. |
But if she appear, where verdures invite her, The Fountains run clear, & Flowers smell ye sweeter, 'Tis Heaven to be by, when her wit is a flowing, Her Smiles and bright Eye set my Spirits a glowing. |
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The mair that I gaze, the deeper I'm wounded,
Struck dumb with amaze, my Mind is confounded: I'm all in a Fire, dear Maid, to caress ye, For a' my desire is Hay's bonny Lassie. |