Glen Collection of printed music > Printed music > Wood's edition of the songs of Scotland

INTRODUCTION.
The great success of " The Songs of Scotland," published in Three Volumes by Messrs.
Wood and Co., has led to the present work in One Volume, containing all the Songs and Airs
that were given in those three volumes, with the addition of several popular Airs and Songs not
included in that Collection, and two new Songs written for this volume by Mr. A. M. M'Laren.
In the three volumes above mentioned, the airs were arranged for the voice and pianoforte, with
copious Notes relative to the songs and melodies. In this volume, the airs are given with the
words, but without a pianoforte accompaniment ; and the footnotes are, with some few necessary
alterations, the same as those appended to the text of the Collection in three volumes. The
Editor has to acknowledge the careful labours of an able professional musician, Mr. J. T.
Surenne, in the minute revision of the whole of the airs as they appeared in the proof-sheets
of this volume. It is right to state this, because Mr. Surenne's name does not appear on the
title-page as editor of the airs, it being thought inexpedient that the names of two editors
should be printed there. The Messrs. Wood have been induced to publish this volume from
a consideration of the fact, that a great many persons who can sing may be desirous to pos-
sess the airs and words in the compass of one volume, and separate from an instrumental accom-
paniment necessitating, in most cases, the concurrence of a singer and an instrumentalist.
Thousands of Scottish men and women, at home and abroad, who love the lays of their native
land, neither possess a pianoforte nor know how to play upon it, but can read printed music and
sing from the book. For some years past the cultivation of vocal music in Scotland has been
much promoted by the improvements introduced in Church Psalmody ; and in this way a prac-
tical knowledge of vocal music is rapidly extending through the whole country. Forty years
ago, not one in a hundred among the operative classes could read music. A new impulse and
better methods of teaching, are now enabling a majority of all classes not only to sing popular
airs from the book, but to join in Part-music, ecclesiastical or secular. The Scottish clergy, of
all denominations, seem to unite heartily in promoting a practical knowledge of vocal music.
In the last century, several collections of airs — Scottish, English, Irish, Welsh, &c. —
with words, but without any accompaniments, were published in England and Scotland, in the
shape of pocket volumes. These were generally printed on coarse paper, with clumsy types,
and with little attention to neatness or accuracy. The present work, from the press of Mr.
Constable, contrasts strikingly with those old volumes, by showing the great improvement of
music-type and other type-printing, even within the present century.
In the present Work, as in the three volumes of the " Songs of Scotland," we have had
occasion to allude to Irish and English airs that had been introduced among our really Scottish
national melodies ; and, in every instance, we endeavoured to do justice to the true claims of
England and Ireland. The appropriation by one country of melodies truly belonging to another,
is no new thing in the history of music ; and, at the present day, it would be impossible to settle