With thanks to Bodil Partridge, who told me recently about Thomas Kingo, a 17th century Danish composer with family roots in Crail, Fife.
Image: Abraham Ortelius, Atlas (c1570), Septentrionalium Regionum map of North Atlantic, Britain, Ireland, Scandinavia, Iceland, Greenland, and oceanic islands real and fantastical
A recent post took Soundyngs across the North Sea to the 17th century Netherlands. This time, we cross from Fife to Denmark in the same period. The 17th century was a turbulent time for Scottish politics, but a rich period for developing musical links with the continent, particularly Scandinavia and Northern European countries.
Thomas Kingo (1634-1703) is well-known in Denmark as a poet and clergyman, with a particular body of composition in psalm text translating. He was born in Denmark, but his grandfather was a tapestry weaver from Crail in Fife. The family emigrated to Helsingœr in 1588 when Thomas’s father John (Hans) was still very young, working there as weavers, possibly with connections to the royal court (Mennie, p.77). While trade connections between Scotland and Scandivia were strong in the 17th century, as Mennie observes, it is remarkable that a Fife tapestry-weaver was “so skilled that he could compete for employment or business with the Flemings and Brabanters” who were the principal craftsmen employed by the Danish royalty. However, James VI in due course married Anne of Denmark in November 1589, perhaps this speaks to a background flow of personnel between the west and east of the North-Sea in the year leading up to this event.
Image: Bishop Thomas Kingo, 1634-1703 with title page of the first part of his ‘Spiritual Choir’ book, this edition printed 1680
Mennie’s biographical article draws on input from Ronald Cant and Robert Smart, Keeper of Muniments at St Andrews in the 1980s, who both suggested the surname ‘Kingo’ is a Gaelic version of ‘Mackenzie’, pronounced ‘Mackingie’. Apparently, there were a number of historical “Kingos” around the East Neuk in the late 16th century.
Thomas Kingo, poet and eventually bishop, was born to John Kingo in Slangerup, on the Danish island of Zealand. The family weaving business clearly had prospered enough for this clever lad to be schooled up to university level in Copenhagen, whence he graduated in 1658. The groundwork for his later work in hymnary was doubtless laid down in his grammar school years: singing sacred songs was part of the syllabus of the Fredicksborg Grammar School. After a period of working as a private tutor, Kingo entered the service of the Lutheran church as a pastor, eventually becoming Bishop of Funen, dying in Odense in 1703.
Many of the hymns he wrote are still sung in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and the Faroe Islands today. As Denmark was joined with Norway in the early modern period, Kingo’s reputation reached these countries as well as their dependencies. The middle years of the 17th century saw a troubled relationship with expansionist Sweden; however, the Danish-Norwegian joint kingdom retained one common King throughout Kingo’s life, only emerging as two separate nations in 1814. The political turmoils of the 17th and 18th centuries saw many Scots, across professions including soldiering as well as craft and commerce, travelling and settling in these areas, and possibly taking their music-making habits to these new homes.
Kingo’s hymns are in the Lutheran tradition and include several published collections: the Aandeligt Sjungekoor (‘Spiritual Choir’) printed in two parts between 1674 and 1681. These were songs intended for domestic use, particular personal prayer – rather like the Gude and Godlie Ballatis in Scotland which was the subject of another recent Soundyngs post. In 1683, Kingo was commissioned by King Christian V to put together a hymnal of both traditional and his own work, and this appeared in 2 parts: part 1 in 1690, and part 2 in 1699, known as Kingos salmebog (Kingo’s Hymnal) (Mennie, p.78). Its introduction was not uncontroversial, with more conservative ministers for a time blocking its introduction, but eventually Kingo’s material prevailed. Mennie’s article goes on to summarise more secular poetry by this author which he suggests have parallels at least in generic content with Scottish verse of the period, including a mock-heroic ballad about a sad soliloquising bull (yes, think, if Hamlet were a cow….) in ballad meter (see Mennie for the text of this, translated into Scots).
According to Erik Svensen, Kingo’s first volumes of godly songs were a ‘renewal of the domestic devotions that Martin Luther had enjoined heads of families to preside over each day in his Small Catechism’ (Svendsen, accessed 24/7/23). The official hymn book, however, was a major cultural monument. Kingo’s poetry is also highly sophisticated, combining Protestantism with a baroque interest in number symbolism (see Nelson, accessed 24/7/23). He was a poet rather than a composer, working using the traditional method of contrafactum – writing new verses to existing tunes. For the sources of his tunes, he ranged widely, from local Danish composers like Søren Terkelsen to fashionable international music by the likes of the French, and very catholic, composer Jean-Baptiste Lully (see Nielsen). Kingo was, however, musically literate, able to notate his melodies alongside providing figured basses (see Jakob Bloch Jespersen and Allan Rasmussen, accessed 24/7/23).
A 2015 recording of music by this composer by the Phemius Consort, Else Torp (soprano), Jakob Bloch Jespersen (baritone) and Allan Rasmussen (harpsichord), available from da Capo records, includes the useful online notes referenced in Further Reading below. This puts Kingo’s musical alongside other baroque sacred music of northern music by Lully and Dietrich Buxtehude.
So, not entirely Scottish, but in Kingo’s name and family lineage, suggestive of the sophisticated sound-world of the North Sea world that connected east-coast Scots with international culture. The co-existence of a domestic and an official body of Protestant sacred material also links 17th century Denmark with what we know of 16th century Scotland, as does, possibly, community patterns of communal singing.
Readers interested in tracking other Scots musicians who worked in early modern Denmark may be interested in the SSNE (Scotland, Scandinavia and Northern Europe) biographical database, a project led by Steve Murdoch and Alexia Grosjean (see Further reading below). Searching this database using the key word ‘musician’ doesn’t supply Kingo (fairly, he is tagged as a poet and theologian) but does list several other musical Scots who visited or settled and worked in Denmark.
- harpist Edward Adams John Cunningham who was working in the Danish royal court in the 1640s before moving on to Brandenburg
- Trumpeter Ardsoun, who accompanied a diplomatic mission from Scotland to Denmark in 1596
- Trumpeter John Cunningham, who worked in the Danish court in the 1630s
- Trumpeter Robert Drummond, listed in Scottish embassies to Denmark in 1587 and 1596
- Tenor (singer) and viola da gamba player Lawrence Alexander, who played in the Danish court orchestra in the 1640s and 50s
- Trumpeter William Ramsay, another musician who went to Denmark in the embassies of 1587 and 1596
- Trumpeter David Scott, who was employed by the Danish court in the 1610s
Further Reading and Listening
- ‘Kingo, Thomas [SSNE 1538]’, biographical entry in the SSNE (Scotland and Scandinavia) database (St Andrews: Institute of Scottish Historical Research), accessed 24/7/23
- Duncan M Mennie, ‘Some Scots in Denmark’, conference proceedings for the Scottish Society for Northern Studies, Newcastle upon Tyne, 3 May 1986, pp.75-83
- Thomas Kingo’s Sacred Song Book, the Phemius Consort for Da Capo Records, 2015 and on Spotify
- Jakob Block Jespersen and Allan Rasmussen, ‘A Musical Patchwork’, music note for Da Capo Records, 2015
- Anne-Marie Mai, Jørn Henrik Petersen, with translations by John Irons, Fashioners of Faith: The Danish Hymn-Writers Kingo, Brorson, Grundtvig and Ingemann (Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark, 2018)
- Erik A Nielson, ‘Radiance and Contrition’, a note on Kingo’s music, for Da Capo Records, 2015
- T Riis (ed.), Should Auld Acquaintance be Forgot: Scottish-Danish Relations c1450-1707 (Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark, 1988)
- SSNE – the Scotland, Scandinavia and Northern Europe Biographical Database
- Erik Norman Svendsen, ‘’Thomas Kingo’ biographical note, for Da Capo Records, 2015