The Scottish composer and violinist William McGibbon has re-emerged in recent scholarship as a rich case study in eighteenth-century musical hybridity. A virtuoso of the ‘Italian’ violin who trained with William Corbett, McGibbon was memorialized by some in the decades after his death as a paragon of ‘Scottish’ music. Other writers, however, remembered McGibbon primarily as a corrupter of the vernacular tradition. These two contradicting views converge on McGibbon's reputation as a player and arranger of Scots tunes, a legacy transmitted primarily through his three collections of arrangements of and variations on Scottish tunes, published many times throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Though these Scottish tunes remain readily accessible today, McGibbon's Italianate works have until now remained much more obscure. They include four intact printed collections, all of which were published in Edinburgh: the earliest, a set of trio sonatas from 1729, constitutes the first Italianate sonatas to be published in Scotland. Most of these works have not appeared in print since they were originally published. In bringing together these sonatas for the first time, Elizabeth C. Ford's edition of McGibbon's complete extant printed Italianate music is a welcome and practical contribution to research on the composer.
The collections that comprise Ford's edition are: two sets of trio sonatas, both entitled Six Sonatas for Two German Flutes, or Two Violins and a Bass, from 1729 and 1734; a set of solo sonatas for German flute or violin with accompanying bass from 1740; and six duo sonatas for two German flutes (sans bass) from 1748. In an appendix, Ford includes the sole extant part (‘Traverso Primo’) for an additional set of trio sonatas, Six Sonatas for Two German Flutes or Two Violins, with a Thorough Bass for the Harpsichord, from 1745. Unfortunately, the title of the edition, Complete Sonatas, is a misnomer, as a solo violin sonata in A major by McGibbon, preserved in MS 957 of the Hargrove Library at the University of California Berkeley, has been left out of the volume. The omission is a pity, since this work is perhaps the composer's most original and virtuosic sonata, featuring an expansive range from a to a3, string-crossing and drone-like double stops. The bass line is missing but, given the relative simplicity of McGibbon's extant bass parts, it could be easily reconstructed in a way that matches the composer's style.
As for the sonatas that constitute the present edition, Ford argues that most were intended primarily for the one-keyed German flute, including those collections that indicate both flute or violin in their titles. The evidence that she cites includes range (which rarely exceeds d1 to e3, the normal capacity of the German flute), keys (keys with sharps, which fit the intonation of the flute, dominate) and figuration (the pieces generally avoid large leaps) (xiv). There is no doubt that technical constraints were at the forefront of McGibbon's mind when he was composing the sonatas – as Ford notes, many of the subscribers to McGibbon's publications were themselves flute players, as was the dedicatee of his 1734 trio sonatas, Susanna, Countess of Eglinton. Still, Ford's decision to add the designation ‘Flute’ but not ‘Violin’ to most of the primo and secondo parts of the 1729 and 1734 trio sonatas seems a little heavy-handed. Given McGibbon's interest in accommodating the capacities of both the flute and violin, it is not surprising that the parts of the published sonatas are generally more technically neutral than the highly idiomatic unpublished violin sonata in A major of the Berkeley manuscript.
A notable exception is the secondo part of Sonata No. 6 of the 1729 trio sonatas, which is designated explicitly for the violin. Featuring triple stops, portato and in the third movement a rhapsodic solo, Ford considers this to be the ‘most mature and virtuosic work in the publication’ and surmises that it ‘may exemplify McGibbon's own playing’ (xiv). Indeed, the style of arpeggiation found here is similar to that used by McGibbon in his variations on dance movements from Arcangelo Corelli's Sonate per violino e violone o cimbalo, Op. 5, as well as in his variations on Scottish tunes, underlining how the characteristics of McGibbon's individual style transcended the categories of ‘Italian’ and ‘Scottish’. I disagree with Ford's claim that McGibbon's ‘music does not tend to make . . . clear’ his excellence as a violinist (xiv). While it is true that the sonatas published here are generally rather sedate, the aforementioned violin part of Sonata No. 6 from the 1729 trio sonatas, the A major sonata in the Berkeley manuscript and the florid graces for Corelli's Op. 5 (available in the Bärenreiter edition of Op. 5 from 2013) all attest to McGibbon's unique creative genius as a player. Indeed, McGibbon's graces for Corelli's Op. 5 represent some of the most virtuosic violin playing to have been captured on the page in eighteenth-century Scotland.
Composed with amateurs in mind, the sonatas published here are ‘relatively easy to play well’, as Ford notes (xiii). Likewise, the new edition is sure to be enthusiastically received by a wide range of musicians, from recreational players to professionals with an interest in the history of Scottish music. Some potential performers, however, will be put off by the absence of a continuo realization. To be sure, there is evidence for the use of a cello or other bowed bass instrument on its own to accompany sonatas in eighteenth-century Scotland, as in Italy. For instance, lines from ‘An Evening Frolic’ by the Scottish poet Allan Ramsay (1686–1758) describe a performance of Corelli by ‘three fidlers and a Bummin Base . . . planted in a Nook’, where ‘Bummin Base’ more likely refers to a bowed instrument, perhaps a cello or even a bladder fiddle (bumbass), than to a keyboard or plucked string instrument. Indeed, only the collection of trio sonatas from 1745 explicitly indicates the use of a keyboard instrument (‘with a Thorough Bass for the Harpsichord’), although this part is lost. The earlier collections indicate simply ‘a Bass’ without additional comment as to the specific instrument. Ford assesses the bass lines of the 1729 trio sonatas as ‘functional, if inelegant, often suggesting a bowed instrument rather than a keyboard instrument as the primary component of the basso continuo’ (xiv). While experienced bowed-string continuo players can adeptly realize harmonies when they are needed, non-specialist cellists who cover the bass line without the harmonic support of a keyboard instrument may feel intimidated. Fortunately, in the case of many of the trio sonatas, such players can mostly get away with simply playing the bass line without adding harmonies, as the upper two parts usually supply the essential chordal notes. The solo sonatas, by contrast, can sound rather empty without at least some added harmonies, though such a performance option should not be excluded as historically implausible.
Ford's Introduction and Critical Report are peppered with new or little-known references and helpful corrections of previous research. For instance, Ford solves the mystery behind an anonymous incomplete handwritten set of trio sonatas from 1727 held by the Library of Congress, attributed to McGibbon without explanation in David Johnson's article in Grove Music Online (‘McGibbon, William’, oxfordmusiconline.com (15 March 2020)). As she extablishes, the extant parts are not by McGibbon but rather by Alessandro Scarlatti (163–165). These are bound with print copies of McGibbon's trio sonatas of 1729 and 1734. Ford gives a helpful table of sources for McGibbon's sonatas that amends conflicting information in RISM and the works list of the Grove article. Curiously, this table includes an entry for McGibbon's variation sets on ‘John Come Kiss Me Now’ and ‘La folia’ (in fact entitled ‘Joy to Great Caesar’, not ‘La folia’), both of which appear in the McFarlan Manuscript (MSS 2084 and 2085 of the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh). Ford's designation of these works as ‘sonatas’ seems to have been adopted from Johnson's list. Yet neither piece is called a sonata in the source, and both are more easily categorized as variation sets. More humorously, Ford relates that another volume at the Library of Congress, which includes a copy of the 1740 solo sonatas bound together with McGibbon's Scots Tunes from 1742, apparently belonged to the famed fiddler Niel Gow (1727–1807). A handwritten note signed by ‘N. G.’ bluntly evaluates a set of variations by McGibbon on the tune ‘My Nanio’ as ‘A very Bad Set’ (164).
The abbreviated biographical section on McGibbon communicates previous research, chiefly by David Johnson, and includes new information about the location of McGibbon's unmarked grave in Greyfriars cemetery in Edinburgh. Ford includes an oft-quoted passage from Robert Fergusson's 1772 poem ‘Elegy, on the Death of Scots Music’ that refers to a ‘Macgibbon’ who was ‘the man in music maist [most] expert’ and who ‘could sweet melody impart / And tune the reed / Wi’ sic a slee [sly] and pawky [crafty] art’. Taken literally, this passage describes a player of a reed instrument, probably a bagpipe. Following the lead of previous researchers, Ford assumes that the musician is William McGibbon, even though he is not known to have been a piper. This is still a reasonable assumption, given the close association between McGibbon and vernacular Scottish music in the decades following his death (the bagpipe reference could simply be a general symbolic reference to the local musical tradition). Yet Ford's discovery of archival references to an older McGibbon who taught flute – who she speculates could be William's father Duncan (otherwise known to have been a ‘violer’) or uncle Malcolm (an oboist) – serves as a reminder that there are other possible candidates for Fergusson's ‘expert’ musician.
Despite the omission of the solo violin sonata in A major from the Berkeley manuscript, the Complete Sonatas is a highly useful tool for research on McGibbon and, more generally, chamber music during the Scottish Enlightenment. The edition will also be welcomed by enthusiasts of Scottish music.
