| Summary: | This research has traced the extent and nature of involvement in art music by the landed classes in the East of Scotland from the end of the seventeenth to the middle of the eighteenth century. This period was a very positive era for art music in Scotland:an era which saw the establishment ofseveral illustrious and dynamic music societies which attracted some of the leading European composers and performers, such as Johann Schetky, Giusto Tenducci, Girolamo Stabiliniand Francesco Barsanti, as well as the emergenceofa group oftalented Scottish composers, including William MacGibbon, David Foulis and Thomas Erskine. Previous research has focused on these aspects of music-making and little attention has hitherto been paid to amateur and domestic music-making, or to the role of amateurs as patrons of music. This thesis aims to augment existing knowledge of the development of the art music tradition in the early years of the eighteenth century, focusing specifically on the musical activities ofthe landed upper classes. Exploration of the musical pursuits of a sample ofnine landowning familieshas revealed a thriving domestic music tradition, and the landowners under survey were seen to have been crucial to the development ofpublic musical activities in the early years ofthe eighteenth century. From accounts, correspondence, personal memorabilia and other archival muniments, a picture of domestic musical activity has been built up for each family. Purchase and maintenance of instruments, expenditure on concert tickets, and the commissioning of portraits which include musical instruments are all discussed and factors which might have affected musical involvement are explored. Subsequent sections survey the landowners' support for professional musicians through employment of music teachers, through engagements, gifts, recommendations and advancement, and through financial backing for publishing endeavours. A survey ofsubscription lists of music published in Scotland forms a substantial part of this section ofthe thesis. The precise musical tastes of the families under survey have been assessed through the study of the collections of music they acquired; as these are in most cases no longer extant, each family's music library has been reconstructed as far as possible from sales catalogues, inventories and discharges. The recently-rediscovered sales catalogue for Lord ColvilleofOchiltree's vast music collection provides evidence that up-to-date Italian instrumental music was known at an early date in Scotland, and the predominance of large-scalechamber music in many of the music collections throws new light on domestic music activities. The landowners' role as cultural leaders is examined in the final chapter, which includes assessments of the contributions of two aristocrats about whom virtually nothing was previously known (Alexander Bayne of Rires and Robert Colville of Ochiltree
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