Hamish MacCunn (1868-1916)

[djarvie]

Jeannie Deans was broadcast by the BBC, I was a student at the time so I think it must have been the late 1960's.  I listened to it; I can't remember if it was the complete opera, but it was certainly a substantial broadcast.

[petershott@btinternet.com]

It does ring a distant bell. Sunday afternoons invariably saw me listening to the regular opera broadcast on Radio 3 (or was it the Third Programme then?) whilst ironing shirts ready for the forthcoming week. The BBC often very generously would send a copy of the libretto if you sent them a stamped addressed envelope about a week before the broadcast. Those were the days!

However given that I don't possess a libretto for the opera that's undoubtedly an indication that the complete opera wasn't performed and broadcast.

Now having been saddled with teaching a 1st Year 'Introduction to Logic' course for a couple of years I'm conscious that the previous statement contains a hopelessly bad argument. But we're all grown up here, so let's ignore the logic textbooks!

[Gareth Vaughan]

Alasdair Jamieson in his book: "The Music of Hamish MacCunn" (p. 48) writes that BBC Radio Scotland broadcast a shortened version of "Jeanie Deans" in 1968: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ntoq4bpp7QQC&pg=PA48&lpg=PA48&dq=Jeanie+Deans+BBC+broadcast&source=bl&ots=S3OrMcbaQb&sig=Ku4iY6mSV0O-f7tleB1ap6FXyac&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjHiPu739bRAhWEA8AKHauTBPEQ6AEIOTAG#

[djarvie]

Thanks Gareth for confirmation.   That will have been the broadcast I heard.

[semloh]

Thanks for responding about the vocal/choral works. It seems that performances are as rare as hen's teeth, and I suppose they are likely to remain unrecorded. In an age of enthusiastic Scottish nationalism north of the border, that seems a bit odd. I would have thought there was an appetite for all things Scottish, and the subject matter would seem to fit the bill. Record companies are usually quick to capitalize on such situations.