A
lthough Jean Redpath has spent half which was basically English art-songs. The upshot
her long and distinguished professional was that I became almost schizoid. I was bi-lingual
life performing in the United States, and had two different approaches to music. On the
the peerless mezzo-soprano remains one hand I thought in terms of a ‘sing-ger’(someone
the undisputed First Lady of Scottish song. For whose voice has been trained to do a specific thing)
47 years she has divided her time 50-50 between and on the other I was somebody who sings naturally.
a busy appearance schedule in America and her It wasn’t until I was 21 years old and at university
“auld hoose” on the coast of Fife. In 1987 she was in Edinburgh that I approached a music teacher. I
honoured by the Queen with an MBE for her lifelong said, ‘I think I’d like to have my voice trained’ and
contribution to Scottish music and in July of this year she replied with the single most intelligent question
she will receive her fourth honorary doctorate when anyone has ever posed. ‘And what would you like to
Glasgow University acknowledges her unique place train your voice to do?’ Well, that stopped me dead
at the heart of the Scottish folk tradition. At 71, Miss in my tracks. I really hadn’t thought it through, so
Redpath’s extraordinary voice, still rich and clear and she asked me to sing a phrase standing up and then
perfectly pitched, seems to have grown even more to sing the same phrase again lying flat on the floor.
delightful with the passage of the years. Listening ‘If you can do that vertical as well as horizontal,’ she
to her latest CD in which she performs the lovely, said, ‘you’ve got it licked. It’s all in the breathing. I
lilting Jacobite songs of Lady Carolina Nairne, it’s suggest you go out and sing for 20 years.’ Bless her
impossible to imagine that she can’t simply go on heart, she opened my eyes to the fact that there was
and on forever. “I’m in rude good health, my dear,” more to life than being a ‘sing-ger’, someone who
she chuckled. “I’ve just been through a battery of tests stands with their hands clutched under their bosom
and my figures are all spectacular. I still enjoy my and sings in a voice and an accent which is other
work, so why not go on singing. I think I’ll probably than natural.”
still be singing when they carry me out in a box.” Jean Redpath claims her greatest gift is in having
An American Resident since 1961, she has “a memory like flypaper” – one in which everything
been perpetually on the move, performing before sticks. She has that rare ability that allows her to
appreciative audiences in one great US city after the hear a tune once and then repeat it. “There aren’t too
next. I caught up with her during a stop in Illinois. many traditional Scots tunes that I haven’t heard,”
“I’m a peripatetic,” she told me. “Over the years I’ve she said. “I spent quite a few years teaching, so I’ve
managed to have an address in San Francisco, Boston, heard multiple versions of tunes. It’s hard to get past
New York, Sarasota Florida and now in Illinois. I’ve the impact of the first time you hear something. Over
become a professional houseguest.” the years there have been four or five occasions when
She was a regular trans-Atlantic commuter for instead of hearing the big declamatory sound, I’ve
many years, so much so that I wondered whether heard the personal, immediate, emotional sound and
she now felt more American than Scots. “If I were that’s the one that gets me in. It speaks to my heart
asked to define myself,” she said, “I’d call myself first and therefore makes it much easier for me to sing.
and foremost a Scot, and very proudly so. I really The only philosophy I have is: ‘if you don’t mean it
do believe I came in with a charge this time round. and you don’t feel it, don’t sing it, because nobody
I am bidden to carry and to forward and to record else is going to believe it either.’
the songs of Scotland. I think that those of us who Miss Redpath recorded the songs of Lady Nairne
can sing should be putting these songs down now in in 1987. I asked her why she had chosen this time
some kind of permanent record.” to release the music. “Because,” she said, “I think it’s
Jean Redpath had the great good fortune to be high time she was given some credit for her work.
born and brought up in a musical family in Fife She’s a lady who has been allowed to slip through the
where everyone, including her many aunts and cracks. Everyone is familiar with her music and yet
uncles, could either sing or play an instrument. nobody ever gives her the recognition she deserves.
“They all had the most wonderful musical ears,” she Very few people know anything about her at all, and
said, “and they were part of that great Scots tradition of course, that’s the way she wanted it during her own
of rote learning in which they committed absolutely lifetime. She would have been horrified at the idea of
everything to memory. My mother had an amazing publicity. She was content with her anonymity, but
repertoire and an even more amazing memory. She in the Year of Homecoming, the year in which we
died at the age of 87, still able to quote page after celebrate the 250
th
anniversary of the birth of Robert
page of Shakespeare. I inherited that gift. I soaked Burns, who was a great inspiration to her, I thought,
up all that music at home and managed to keep it ‘now’s the time’”.
separate from what I was being force-fed at school, So who was Lady Nairne? Jean Redpath’s own
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