> I've started playing this tune on Northumbrian Pipes, having found it in > 'Bewick's Pipe Tunes', published by Matt Seattle. In his notes, Matt > says that this version is similar to James Oswald's. > It sounds like a harp tune to me, and the title would possibly support > that. > Is this right? Any further information much appreciated. > I've been playing it as an air - it's a beautiful, relaxed melody.
If I remember right, Oswald didn't mention the harp on the title pages of the _Caledonian Pocket Companion_ (where that tune was published): there wouldn't have been much reason to, as it wasn't very fashionable in the 1740s. His own favourite instrument was the cello, though he had a professional knowledge of all the instruments in use in his time. The early volumes of CPC are primarily intended for transverse flute as the melody instrument with cello doing the bass, or keyboard doing both - later volumes get more fiddle-friendly. It's a derivative of "The Duke of Albany's Tune" printed in garbled form in Playford's "Apollo's Banquet" of 1687, which has a preface saying the fiddle is all the rage at the moment and forget about playing anything else if you want to keep your street cred. On the other hand it sounds like a march, which would imply that when it was first played a few years earlier (as the title implies) it might have been for a band. The harp wasn't greatly in favour in the 1680s either, except in Ireland (which the Duke did not yet have any links with). I suppose you could rewrite history a bit and pretend it's a Carolan tune (written before Carolan was 15). It is also used as the air of a song in the _Scots Musical Museum_ which you do not want to know about. If you can adapt it for the pipes as well, it'll fit on anything. Must include it in my forthcoming collection "The Caledonian Ophicleide". There is scope for some good accordionist to have a go at Oswald's tunes, perhaps one of the free-bass fraternity. Or given the Catholic/ Jacobite associations of this particular tune, perhaps a Glasgow-Irish-Republican accordion street band (if there are any still - I haven't heard one in years). ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 <http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack> * food intolerance data & recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files, and my CD-ROM "Embro, Embro". Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music & Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
