Ban on Handel suggested 263 years after Culloden

[stephen w]

Handel's Judas Maccabeus branded a 'stupid' choice to open the Edinburgh international festival

Charlotte Higgins
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 14 July 2009

The battle of Culloden may have taken place two and a half centuries ago, but there are some very long memories in Scotland. The Edinburgh international festival is this year due to open with a performance of Handel's oratorio Judas Maccabeus. The work – whose most famous aria is the catchy See, the Conqu'ring Hero Comes – was written in the aftermath of the defeat of the Jacobite uprising at Culloden, in honour of the victorious commander, the Duke of Cumberland. Or, as he is better known, Butcher Cumberland.

The Scottish press has reported something of a row, with independent MSP Margo MacDonald calling the programming "stupid". "I think the Duke of Cumberland tops most people's lists of those in history we do not wish to honour," she said. Sir Tom Farmer, the founder of Kwik-Fit and a donor to Scottish arts organisations, said the move had been criticised at a recent dinner he attended. "It was obvious that people were quite disturbed. I would say that I agree with them," he said. "There's been wonderful, wonderful music written over the centuries. We have a big choice. Why pick that one?"

Well, one answer is that it is an incredible piece of music, written at the start of an Enlightenment that was ushered in by a combination of forces, among them the aftermath of the highland rebellion – and ideas about the Enlightenment are at the heart of this year's festival. As a spokeswoman said, "We have also commissioned a play about an 18th-century Scottish witch – and it doesn't mean that we condone witchcraft."

[stephen w]

Sutherland's Statue


In 1994, Sandy Lindsay of Inverness proposed that the Statue of the Duke of Sutherland be removed from its lofty perch on Ben Bhraggie, in Golspie, Sutherland. He appealed to the descendants of the Highland Scots who were driven off their lands by agents of the Duke of Sutherland, often with their houses burned over their heads.

The plan was later amended to remove, rather than demolish the statue and to site some information panels on the top of Ben Bhraggie, in memory of the people who were cleared and harried by the Duke.

The man, whose memory still offends so many, stands on a 76ft pedestal casting his proud, stony gaze on the town of Golspie below. The Sutherland statue is seen by many Scots, particularly in the North, as a symbol of power, greed, oppression and heartless evictions. It represents a family, a ruling class, and a period in history which split communities and sent families to the far corners of the earth in search of livelihood denied them on their own soil.

A harsh land, a harsh sea, and a harsh climate were hard enough burdens to be borne by the people, but harsh overlords backed by unfair laws, and servants of these laws, were the final tribulations, which brought a way of life to an end for many for the benefit of a privileged few.

Many see it as a monument to the greed and vanity of the Sutherland family, the toadyism of their hirelings, and the efficient extortion racket which squeesed contributions from unwilling tenants.

Arguments against Removal

Removing the statue would be an empty gesture as we cannot rewrite history. The influence of a ruling class and the ravages of sheep and deer on our landscape will last long after the weather has eroded the features from the statue of the Sutherland duke. The massive statue, and the opulent castle of Dunrobin have to be vital parts of case against the Dukes of Sutherland. Their wealth, power and vanity are enshrined in stone and should be preserved as warnings to future generations to beware of allowing such circumstances to happen again.


If we start moving statues about, who would decide what is to go and what should replace it? Could it not lead to political and cultural chicanery? Would it not allow parties of the left and right, when in power, to remove opposing symbols to obscure corners to be followed by tit-for-tat action when power is reversed?

What if women's groups agitate for the Scott Monument, Allan Ramsay and other male company to be removed from Princes Street in Edinburgh? Who would decide the new heroes and heroines of the day and would they be any better? The Gaels have taken their vengeance on the Sutherland duke's statue with their graffiti. Let us leave it at that. The duke should be left standing high on his tiered pedestal in the biting wind. Many think he deserves such a fate.

If, in centuries to come, the monument could simply be allowed to crumble under the forces of nature, its decaying condition would be an even more dramatic reminder.

Edited from an article by Ken Andrew, courtesy of Chebecto Community Net.

[stephen w]

For anyone interested in the backhistory of the response by MSP and industrialist to the Edinburgh International Festival programming, John Prebble's Culloden is a powerful and absorbing text.