Bunting's Messiah (review)

The three-volume publication Ancient Music of Ireland has ensured that the name of Edward Bunting (1773–1843) will for ever be associated with Irish traditional music. This ground-breaking collection, whose volumes appeared in 1796, 1809 and 1840, is dominated by folk melodies collected during Bunting's tours of Ireland; but it originated in his work at the Belfast Harp Festival of 1792, when he was just 19. It says much about Bunting that the festival's organizers should have entrusted this apprentice to William Ware, the organist of St Anne's parish church, Belfast, as 'a skilful Musician' whose job was 'to transcribe and arrange' the music played by the harpers. Bunting was therefore a central figure in  one of the festival's most important tasks: 'attempting to revive and perpetuate—The Ancient Music and Poetry of Ireland' (p. 40). Thanks to the power of publication, his is the name by which the festival is remembered, even above those of the harpers.

This reputation has given Roy Johnston his gateway into another aspect of Bunting the man and musician; and his title, Bunting's Messiah, is all the more apposite because of its incongruity for the modern reader. The reality is not incongruous. Although Bunting was one of the earliest serious collectors of folk music, he had one point in common with almost all who followed him: he came to it from outside. His training was in art music, and so, for all his life, was his living. This largely forgotten aspect is the main concern of this readable book—an interesting mixture of biography, social history, and commentary, and straightforward music history.

Johnston has an interesting tale to tell. Bunting seems to have been something of a prodigy as a keyboard player; and his activities during the first twenty years of the nineteenth century show a desire to establish himself as Belfast's foremost musician. More was to be gained than money. The 1792 Harp Festival seemed to give 'the words precedence over the music, an apparent reversal of the order of importance, unless its social significance is appreciated. The "person well versed in the language" would almost certainly be a gentleman, the "skilful musician" equally certainly would not' (pp. 40–1). Johnston's perspective places the career of Ware, and even more so the early career of Bunting, in an interesting context. Concert giving, and above all concert promotion, offered dual opportunities: on the one hand, the musicians might increase their own earnings; on the other, their success in commercial enterprise might raise their social standing and, simultaneously, the standing of music and musicians in general.

Roy Johnston does not dwell on that as a possible motivation for their activities. However, issues surrounding the status of music and musicians are implied in many of the time-capsule quotations that fill the pages of Bunting's Messiah: 'The improvement of Ulster in the fine arts has for many years been progressive; but it is to be regretted that that province has never had an opportunity of witnessing the power of Music, in the most rational and sublime display of it, an Oratorio. This treat is at present in contemplation; being set on foot by an inhabitant of this town, of the highest professional abilities' (p. 74). This inhabitant was Bunting, who was organizing a festival for the autumn of 1813. It is this festival and Bunting's hopes for it, his efforts, successes, and failures, that lie at the heart of this book. His enterprise is all the more creditable when one considers that by then his master, William Ware, had 'burnt his fingers' in concert promotion 'and was not inclined to try again' (p. 50), and that Bunting himself had tried subscription concerts, about which 'evidence is almost totally lacking of their degree of success' (p. 64). Without the backing of inherited money or of wide reputation, Ware and Bunting were stepping into territory that had hitherto been the preserve of aristocrats. They were following the...