(“Well, art is art, isn’t it? Still, on the other hand,
water is water! And east is east and west is west
and if you take cranberries and stew them like
applesauce they taste much more like prunes
than rhubarb does. Now, uh…Now you tell me
what you know.” Groucho Marx 1890-1977)
Classical music composers have long found inspiration
in traditional and popular music in both general and specific ways. Consider
the jazz-influenced American in Paris
(1928) or Rhapsody in Blue (1924) of
George Gershwin (1898-1937), the many English folk music influenced
compositions of Ralph Vaughn Williams (1872-1958), the gypsy influenced Hungarian Rhapsodies of Franz Liszt
(1811-1886), and the Norwegian folk tunes and dances of Edvard Grieg (1843-1907). Apart from a general influence on or
flavoring of classical music, traditional melodies themselves have been
showcased in classical music. Ludvig Van Beethoven took many genuine British
folk songs and arranged them for voice and keyboard, and Tchaikovsky wrote 59 Russian Folk Songs for solo piano.
Brahms composed 19 Hungarian Dances,
Borodin his Polovtsian Dances, Davork
wrote 16 Slavonic Dances and Granados
12 Spanish Dances, all using genuine
folk melodies. Aaron Copeland’s use of
“Bonaparte’s Retreat” for a main theme of his orchestral suite Hoedown is derived from the playing of
rural fiddler William H. Stepp (of Leakeville, Magoffin County, Kentucky), via
the transcription of the melody by Ruth Crawford Seegar that appeared in John
and Alan Lomax’s volume Our Singing
Country (1941). Australian born composer Percy Granger (1882-1961) devised
an extended orchestral arrangement of the morris dance melody “Shepherd’s Hey”
and converted the English anthem “Country Gardens” into a piano solo. These are
but a few prominent examples of the myriad ways that folk music has influenced
classical music for centuries.
In the course of working with copies of fiddler’s
manuscript from the 18th and 19th centuries (one of my
favorite pastimes!) I sometimes come across tunes that are examples of a
reverse of this direction. In other words, classical music—art music—that
has influenced traditional music in
both subtle and not-so-subtle ways. For example, recent manuscripts I have been
working with contain names such as “March from Saul,” “Air from Tekely,” “Dance
in Paul and Virginia” and so on, titles which obviously derive from composed
works for the concert hall or the art stage.
Derivatives
from art music in traditional repertoire need to be placed in context however.
Regarding the broad scope of music since the Renaissance, the boundaries
between classical, popular and traditional music were much more permeable prior
to the 20th century, at which time widening gaps between the genres
became chasms. Earlier there was much less distinction between what was
considered art music and what was popular or even traditional, especially
during the 18th and early 19th centuries. Consider
German-born composer Georg Freidrich Handel (1685-1759), a contemporary of Bach
who excelled in producing concerti Grossi, oratorios and operas. At the beginning of the 18th
century Handel (whose reputation was already firmly established) was
Kapellmeister (music director) for Elector George of Hanover, a German state.
Handel visited London in 1710, found employment with Queen Anne and discovered
an English public with a taste for Italian-style opera, one of his fortes. He
permanently settled there in 1712. Presently Queen Anne died, and Elector
George was invited to the throne, becoming King George I. After an awkward
reconciliation with his former employer (whom he had so cavalierly turned his
back on), Handel continued to compose for the Hanoverian court of Great
Britain, but also became interested in music he heard in the British street.
Melodic and thematic material indigenous to the island began to color his
works, and, as Britain took to the adopted composer, his music in turn
influenced popular culture. One of Handel’s coronation anthems, Zadok the Priest, written for the
crowning of George II, has been played at every British coronation since. In
1726 his opera Scipio was performed
for the first time, a march from which struck a chord and was adopted as a
military march by the British army. In fact, it remains the regimental slow march
of the British Grenadier Guards to this day. It is probably as a stage
composer, however, that he had the broadest influence on English traditional
music. Handel was a partner in the management of the King’s Theatre from
1729-1734, and had a long association with the Opera House at Covent
Garden. Unfortunately, the composer was
eventually bankrupted in his theatre ventures, curiously by competition from
John Gay’s Beggar’s Opera, a pastiche
of hastily improvised works, a wisp of a story, old ballad tunes and dance
music recast as airs, and even some of Handel’s own melodies. The British ‘ballad opera’, as it was
called, took London by storm and Beggar’s
Opera and its numerous imitators eclipsed the taste for Italian opera, and
Handel ended up owing more than £75,000, an astonishing sum for the times.
Handel
was so singularly popular during the early Hanoverian period that it is no
wonder that his music reached a broad audience. It certainly was
well-published, and thus widely disseminated, and influenced amateur as well as
professional musicians. One of the most popular of Handel’s compositions to
appear in traditional musicians’ manuscripts was the famous “Dead March” from
his oratorio Saul (1738). There were
numerous ‘dead marches’, of course, with every tragic opera and musical stage
production having solemn music to accompany a post-expiration scene—there were
dead marches in Coriolanus and in Merope, for just two contemporary
examples—but Handel’s dirge proved enduringly popular, despite being written in
a major key. It became one of the most famous of funeral airs, used on many occasions
in the 18th and 19th centuries. It was, for example,
played during the progress of the hero Lord Horatio Nelson’s casket from
Westminster to St. Paul’s. It was played before military executions in the
British army, and was the most frequently used funeral march by American Civil
War bands. The tune was also played for other kinds of executions in the 19th
century. Captain Boteler of H.M.S. Gloucester
witnessed the hanging of twenty Spanish pirates at Port Royal, Jamaica, in
1823:
Early in the morning the Gloucester’s boats, manned and armed with
a guard of marine drums and fifes, went up to
Kingston, returning
in a procession towing the launch with the captain and
nine pirates,
the drums and fifes giving out the ‘Dead march in
Saul’ ‘Adeste
Fideles,’ etc.
The following morning the other ten were also exe-
cuted—a fearful sight. No men could go to their death
with less
apparent concern.
Before the captain first went up the ladder he
called upon his men to remember they were before
foreigners and
to die like Spaniards. [Michael Pawson & David Buisseret, Port Royal, Jamaica; Oxford, 1975].
“Dead
March in Saul” appears in the 1786 commonplace book of American flute player
Henry Beck, in William Morris’s commonplace book of 1776-1777 (he was with the
First Regiment at Hunterdon County, New Jersey), and in John Beach’s
(Gloucester, MA) musical copybook of 1801-1825. Keyboard player Ann Winnington,
of New York, copied a “Dead March from Saul” into her c. 1810 music book, as
did Philadelphia, Pa., musician William Patten, around 1800, although
Winnington’s was a different tune. In England the march appears in the 1820
music manuscript book of the Rev. Robert Harrision (Brampton, Cumbria).
Handel’s
early tenure in England coincides with the publication of the later volumes of The English Dancing Master, famously
published in London 1651 by John Playford, then issued in increasingly expanded
and revised editions through his lifetime. His son Henry then took over the
long-running series. Finally, Dancing
Master volumes were published by John Young until the 18th
edition, in 1728. Collectively known as the ‘Playford’ volumes, they are the
most famous collection of tunes gathered for social dancing of the era. The
second volume (first published in 1713, then revised in a subsequent four
editions) of the Dancing Master
contained some 360 dances. The
Playfords were not the only ones to publish dance collections, of course, for
several London publishers competed in the lucrative market: Rutherford, Walsh,
Oswald, Johnson, Bremner and Thompson are the most prominent of the 18th
century publishers to issue collection after collection of country dances with
music and steps to feed the popularity of the ‘dance assemblies’. Often there
would be a yearly offering by these various publishers, with titles such as “24
Country Dances for the Year 1746.” With all of this activity, the locally
available traditional tune repertoire suitable for dancing was quickly
exhausted. City publishers generally had limited access to rural music, nor
were they, after all, in the business of collecting—they were publishers. Some
were also musicians and fiddler-composers—Bremner and Oswald, to name outstanding
examples—but even their output could not keep pace with demand and they had to
round out their collections with music obtained from other sources.
An example of this reaching out to other
sources to round out publications may be seen in the tune “Correlli Reviv’d,” a
jig printed in John and Andrew Gow’s A
Collection of Slow Airs, Strathspeys and Reels (London, c. 1795). Andrew
(1760-1803) and younger brother John (1764-1826) established a publishing
business in London in 1788 and were the English distributors for the Scottish
Gow family’s musical publications. The title is a reference to the Italian
Baroque composer and violinist Acrangelo Corelli (1653-1713). Immensely popular
and successful in his day as a concert violinist, Corelli also popularized and
perfected the Concerto Grosso form in his composing. He was also renowned as a
teacher, and among his pupils were Vivaldi and Geminiani. The Gows’ tune
incorporates some aspects of baroque style, and presumably is based on a
Corelli air. Another Corelli piece, a gavotte from his Trio Sonata op. 2, No. 1 (1685) was printed with country dance
directions in Wright’s Compleat Collection (vol. 1, London, c. 1740).
“Corelli’s Gavotte” also appears in the music manuscript book of Captain George
Bush (1753?-1797), a fiddler and officer in the Continental Army during the
American Revolution. Bush had evidently copied it from a tutor for the fife
printed in Philadelphia in 1776, thought to be reprinted by George Willig
around 1805. The melody appears much earlier in the 1718 music manuscript of
Englishman Thomas Bennet, as simply “Gavot.” Modern fretted-instrument player
Doc Rossi has made a connection between Corelli’s piece and a variant called
“Mr. Cosgill’s Delight.” The latter tune was published in the third volume of
the Dancing Master (1728) and in
Walsh and Hare’s New Country Dancing
Master (3rd Book, 1728), picked up and recorded by Ashley
Hutchings and John Kirkpatrick in the early 1970’s.
As
George Dorris (in his article “Music for the Ballets of John Weaver,” Dance Chronicle, vol. 3, No. 1, 1979)
points out, “In order to find enough tunes, the compilers presumably searched
widely for suitable music to fill out these books, and theatre music would have
offered a convenient source.” The Dancing
Master volumes contain numerous references to ‘art’ theatre in the names of
tunes and dances representative of stage productions then current. Sometimes
these would be the names of the plays, characters from them, or even people
performing in them (keeping in mind that many plays of the time could be
considered what we can musical theater today, with dancing and singing
included). Plays such as The Way of the
World, The Beaux Stratagem, Recruiting Officer, Fair Quaker of Deal, and She
would if she cou’d, are graced by tunes and dances of the same name in Dancing Master: Vol. the Second (1713).
“Two tunes bear the name of popular characters”, finds Dorris, “’Miss Hoyden’
from Sir John Vanbrugh’s The Relapse
and ‘Sir Foplin’s Airs’ from Sir George Etherege’s The Man of Mode: or Sir Fopling Flutter, in which the dance mimics
foppish behavior; these tunes may well be associated with the characters in the
plays as performed in the theatres.” The third volume of the Dancing Master (published between 1726
and 1728) has even more references, showing the taste for Italian opera that
Handel rode upon: Giovanni Bonocini’s Griselda
and Farnace (“Pharnaces” in the Dancing Master), and Handel’s own Radamisto (“Radamistus,”) Flavio (“Flavius”) and Pastor Fido. Dorris remarks the plays of John Dryden are also represented by The Indian Emperor, Aurangzebe (“Orangzebe”) and Amphitrion.
The tunes “Monsieur Dupre,” “Booth’s Hornpipe,” and “Mrs. Booth’s Minuet” all
refer to period performers—Mrs. Booth was Hester Santlow who married actor
Barton Booth. Finally, the popular stage pantomimes are represented by “The
Hey-Maker’s Dance in Faustus; or Wing’s Maggot,” “Dr. Faustus Tumbler’s,” and
“Harlequin a Director.”
It
appears there is ample evidence that “art” music was well represented in
volumes such as the Dancing Master
and other collections meant for social dance consumption by dancing masters and
their patrons and audiences. Is there
evidence that they made an impact on traditional (“folk”) music? If tune titles and melodies in musicians’
copybooks, commonplace books and manuscripts is evidence, then the answer is
broadly yes, although these make up a small percentage of tunes in handwritten
musicians’ manuscript copybooks. For example, Harlequin titles—which can only
have derived from the art stage—appear in the Thomas Hammersley copybook
(London, c. 1790), Ebenezer Beven’s commonplace book of music for the fife
(Middletown, Conn., c. 1825-1830), Jeremiah Brown’s commonplace book (Seabrook,
N.H., 1782), David Young’s manuscript collection of reels (Drummon Castle,
Crieff, Perthshire, Scotland, 1734), Nancy Shepley’s commonplace book
(Pepperell, Mass., c. 1794), and others. Harlequin titles appear no less than
78 times in printed 18th century music and dance collections,
scores, and periodicals.
Handel is
represented in fiddler’s manuscripts by other musical selections adopted into
general use; his march from Solomon
(1749), the march from Rinaldo (1710)
and the aforementioned march from Scipio
(1728). In addition to its military uses, the latter appears in period tutors
for the oboe, bassoon, flute, and fife, as well as country dance collections.
The march was used as the vehicle for an air in the ballad operas Polly (1729), Quaker’s Opera (1728), The
Country Wedding (1729), Welsh Opera
(1731), Grub Street Opera (1731), and
Stage Mutineers (1733). It appears
also in the music copybooks of musicians John W. Stiles (probably from New
England), dated 1807; Silas Dickinson (Amherst, Mass.), around 1800; and
violinist John F. Curtiss (Cheshire, Conn.), around 1800. The Rinaldo march was similarly used in
ballad operas (including the seminal Beggar’s
Opera), instrument tutors, martial and dance collections and periodicals.
The march from Solomon was printed by
expatriate Scot Robert Bremner in London (A
Collection of Airs and Marches, 1761) and in Preston’s Marches, Airs & Minuets (London, 1804). It was included in the late 18th
century manuscript copybook of Henry Livingston, Jr., a veteran of the
Revolutionary War who lived in Dutchess County, New York. Livingston was an
important land-owner in the Hudson Valley and a member of the powerful extended
Livingston family, but he was also a surveyor and real estate speculator, an
illustrator and map-maker, and a Justice of the Peace. Henry was a musician
(probably a flute player) and presumably a dancer of some skill, as he was
elected a Manager for the New York Assembly’s dancing season of 1774-1775,
along with his 3rd cousin, John Jay, later U.S. Chief Justice of
Governor of New York. P. Van Schaack (Kinderhook, N.Y.) also had the march from
Solomon in his 1820 copybook for the
fife and flute.
Handel was not the only German
composer to have influenced London social music. Later in the century Joseph
Haydn (1732-1809) resided in London for two periods: 1791-1792 and 1794-1795,
where he concertized to great acclaim. Contemporary music historian Charles
Burney (1726-1814) wrote in his memoirs: “Haydn himself presided at the
piano-forte; and the sight of that renowned composer so electrified the audience,
as to excite an attention and a pleasure superior to any that had ever been
caused by instrumental music in England.” Haydn is known to have composed
country dances; one, called “The Princess of Wale’s Favorite Dance by Dr.
Haydn” was printed by Gow & Shepherd (Edinburgh). Haydn’s other country
dances unfortunately are now lost. Haydn and the Gows were all associated with
the extravagant Prince of Wales and the King’s Theatre in London during the
same period. The “Princess” title of the surviving piece honors Caroline of
Brunswick (1768-1821), who married George Augustus Frederick, then Prince of
Wales and later king George IV, her first cousin, in 1795. Unfortunately, the
Prince and Princess appear to have taken a dislike to each other in record time,
never living together again after the first few days of their marriage
(although one child, Princes Charlotte Augusta, was conceived in that brief
time). They maintained separate households, and indeed, each embarked on
numerous affairs with other lovers. Scottish fiddler-composer Duncan McIntyre
(born c. 1765), then working in London, was impressed with Haydn and wrote a
strathspey (“Doctor Haydn”) for him that appeared in his Collection of Slow Airs, Reels, and Strathspeys (1796). [McIntyre
reportedly journeyed to India around the year 1806 as master of ceremonies to
the governor general’s court, but there his trail ends. His cause and date of
death is unknown.] Finally, a slow march called “The Picnic” shows an
interesting juxtaposition, with parts of the piece arranged by three prominent
composers from three different backgrounds. The first and last parts of the
four-part tune were arranged by Nathaniel Gow, a prominent fiddler-composer,
bandleader and publisher both in Edinburgh and London. The second part—eight
bars—was set by “Mr. Giornovichi”, while the third part was set by Haydn.
Reviewing “The Picnic,” Peter Brown (Musical
Times, vol. 129, No. 1747, Sept. 1988) notes the music’s similarity to the
slow movements of Haydn’s Paris Symphony
no. 82 (1786) and the String Quartet op.
64, no. 1.
English popular musician
and dramatist Thomas D’Urfey (1653-1723) was a sometime colleague and
collaborator with composer Henry Purcell and friend of King Charles II. He also
stuttered terribly and had a reputation
for musical carelessness, but saw no reason for more diligence, maintaining
that “irregularities disappear when (my) songs are sung.” He paid scant heed to
those who criticized his work for its lack of (high) art, dismissing them with
the comment (recorded with his speech defect), “The town may da-da-damn me for
a poet, but they si-si-sing my songs for all that.” D’Urfey, like Handel, began his career
imitating the Italian style. His 1699 play The
Rise and Fall of Massaniello was staged with a broadly comic character
called Blowzabella, a prostitute, based on a popular 16th century
Italian theme. As D’Urfey turned his comedic skills to more English themes the
character stayed with him. She
reappeared in his 1719 publication Wit
& Mirth, or Pills to Purge Melancholy, in a song entitled “Blowzwbella,
my bouncing Doxie” which tells of a bagpiper and his wife, affectionately known
as Blowzabella, who is nonetheless employed in the ‘oldest trade’. The couple
banter about their respective livelihoods but come to agreement in the end,
confirming their marital bliss. It begins:
He. Blowzabella
my bouncing Doxie,
Come let's trudge it to Kirkham Fair,
There's stout Liquor enough to Fox me,
And young Cullies to buy thy Ware.
She. Mind
your Matters ye Sot without medling
How I manage the sale of my Toys,
Get by Piping as I do by Pedling,
You need never want me for supplies.
The
air that D’Urfey printed is not the one later associated with the title
“Blowzabella” as it appears in dance and country musicians’ manuscripts later
in the 18th century. However, “Blowzabella” proved popular, and
songs under the title found their way into ballad operas such as Ebenezer
Forrest’s Momus Turn’d Fabulist, or
Vulcan’s Wedding (London, 1729), Henry Potter’s The Decoy (London, 1733), Robert Drury’s The Mad Captain (London, 1733) and his later The Rival Milliners, or the Humours of Covent Garden (1737), and
Matthew Gardiner’s The Sharpers
(Dublin, 1740). It appears that the 6/8
time country dance version of “Blowzabella” derives from the air that Forrest
employed in his 1729 stage work. As "Blousy Bella" the melody appears
in a c.1708 manuscript in the British Museum by G. B. Buononcini, for
unaccompanied flute. Later, the jig appears in the music manuscripts of H.S.J.
Jackson (Wyresdale, Lancashire, 1820), William Vickers (Northumberland, 1770)
and Thomas Hammersley (London, 1790, as “Blousa Bella”). John Walsh, who
published the melody in his Caledonian
Country Dance volumes of the mid-18th century (beginning 1735),
identified the melody as "Scotch," although there is no reason to
believe it is. The jig also appears in print in Daniel Wright’s Compleat Collection of celebrated country
Dances (published by Johnson in London, around 1740), Robert Bremner’s Delightful Pocket Companion for the German
Flute (London, 1763), and John Simpson’s Compleat Tutor for the Flute (London, 1745). An air called
“Blouzibel” also appears in print in Watts’ Musical
Miscellany, vol. 4 (London, 1730), set in ¾ time, but this appears to be an
unrelated tune. In modern times the jig “Blowzabella” has had a modest revival
in English sessions, perhaps spurred by the fact that Blowzabella was taken as
a band name by an excellent Northumbrian "revival" musical group of
the late 20th century, one of the more successful traditional music
touring groups of the era.
Tekeli (1806) was a work
for the theatre by English organist and composer Theodore Hook. Born in 1746,
Hook was a (club-footed) child prodigy who composed a ballad opera at age
eight, but was handicapped through life with a club-foot. He was a popular composer of
songs, operas, overtures, concertos and one oratorio, and was much in demand
for performances, where he played harpsichord and pianoforte (of which he was
an early proponent). Hook was also much sought as a church organist. Tekeli was composed fairly late in his
career with words by his son, Theodore, in a free translation from a French
melodrama, and was produced at the Drury Lane theatre. Tekeli featured an impressive grand cavalcade across mountains,
which included model figures and animals that grew larger at each successive
appearance—a primitive ‘special effect’. Boys were hired for the cast to
preserve the perspective. It was revived at Covent Garden in 1811, when 16
white performing horses were led on stage, “to thunders of applause.” Lord
Byron, thinking about the elaborate escape in Tekeli remarked in verse (English
Bards, and Scotch Reviewers, 1809):
Gods! O’er those boards shall Folly rear her
head,
Where Garrick trod, and Siddons loves to tread
On those shall Farce display Buffoon’ry’s mask,
And Hook conceal his heroes in a cask
Pieces from the opera began to appear in musicians’ manuscripts and
published collections almost immediately, on both sides of the Atlantic.
Spellings in musician’s manuscripts vary, but marches and airs from the
melodrama appear in more than a dozen 19th century musicians’
copybooks in America, and a similar number in England. Jamie Knowles remarks
that Hook’s march melody survived as a merry-go-round tune at Southport
Fairground until Victorian days.
Blue
Beard, based on the fairy tale of a famous nobleman and his over-curious
wife, contained a march that achieved great popularity. The original story was
written by Charles Perrault and first published in 1698, and it was turned into
an opera by Grétry called Barbe Bleue.
Michael Kelly saw a production in Paris in 1790 and paid Colman to make a
libretto out of it in which the villain became Turkish rather than French. When
Blue Beard, or Female Curiosity was
staged in 1801 at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, reviews were mixed but it
proved popular with audiences. Kelly himself acted in the play and told this
amusing story:
At the end of the piece, when Blue Beard is slain by Selim, a most
ludicrous scene
took place. Where Blue Beard sinks under the stage, a skeleton rises,
which when
seen by the audience was to sink down again; but not one inch would the
said
skeleton move. I, who had just been killing Blue Beard, totally
forgetting where I
was, ran up with my drawn sabre, and pummelled the poor skeleton’s head
with
all my might, vociferating, until he disappeared, loud enough to be
heard by the
whole house, “(Damn) you, why don’t you go down?” The audience were in
roars
of laughter at this ridiculous scene, but good-naturedly appeared to
enter into the
feelings of an infuriated composer. (quoted
in the New York Times Sept., 23,
1877)
The “March from Blue Beard” was immensely
popular from the beginning of the 19th century, for it appears in a
number of musicians’ copybooks and manuscripts, including those of James
Haslingden (from the south or Midlands of England), dated 1827, papermaker and
musician Joshua Gibbons (1778-1871, Market Rasen, Lincolnshire), William Winter
(Somerset), and an anonymous Staffordshire musician’s manuscript, dated 1820.
In America, it appears in the music manuscript copybooks of Morris Woodruff
(1803, Litchfield, Conn., as “The Blue Bards March, or Female Curiosity”), John
Beach (1801-1825, Gloucester, Mass.), Daniel Henry Huntington (Onondaga, N.Y.,
1817), Henry Livingston (Dutchess County, N.Y.), George White (Cherry Valley,
N.Y., c. 1790-1830), Joel Allen (1800-1817, Southington, Ct.), and the Bellamy
Band (Hamden, Ct., 1799-1804). In print it can be found in Edward Riley’s Flute Melodies (New York, 1814-1816),
P.H. Munson’s Figures of the Newest and
Most Fashionable Country Dances (Hudson, N.Y., 1808) and in the various
editions of Alvan Robinson’s Massachusetts
Collection of Martial Musick (1818-1826), to name just a few. One of the
oddest instances of the tune is on the barrel organ from the polar expedition
of Admiral Parry of 1810. In place of a ship’s fiddler (a common addition to a
crew in those days), Parry introduced a mechanical barrel organ on board ship
to provide entertainment and a vehicle by which the men could exercise (i.e. by
dancing). “March in Bluebeard” was one of eight tunes on barrel no. 4.
The transformation of the villain in Blue Beard into the more exotic
character of a Turk was in keeping with the period fascination with things
oriental and Eastern. Various “Turk’s Marches” or “Turkish Marches” appear in
operas and other art music works of the time. Scottish publisher James Aird (Selections,
vol. 1, 1782) prints two “Turks March” tunes, the first being the same as the
“Turk’s March” that can be found in the music manuscripts of English fiddler
John Clare. David Murray, in his excellent book Music of the Scottish Regiments (Edinburgh, 1994), explains that
the music of the Ottoman empire began to influence Europe and the western
military band in the 17th and 18th centuries,
particularly through Austria, whose troops associated the “often intimidating
sound of the Turkish martial music” with the Corps of Janissaries, composed of
Christian boys, captured and brought up as Muslims and rigorously trained as
elite troops. Particularly of note in this music was the use of percussion,
with drums of various sizes and timbres, cymbals and triangles. Murray says
that these Janissary bands were at times presented wholesale to various
European heads of state, and, as time wore on, when members died they were
replaced by local musicians, “and the Turkish reed and brass instruments were
discarded in favor of oboes, horns, trumpets and bassoons,” although the
percussion section was retained. In fact, writes Murray, “there is evidence
that it was a standard element in Prussian military bands by about 1777…British
military bands were not behindhand in acquiring the elements of the Turkish or
Janissary percussion. Another Continental fashion taken up with enthusiasm by
the British in the 18th century, was the enlistment of black youths
to play these exotic Turkish percussion instruments, rather than fresh-faced
lads from the plough tail or the slums, which were even then beginning to
proliferate in the wake of the industrial revolution” (pg. 86). There was a
surplus of ‘black lads’ due to the British emancipation of slaves, and the
consequent turning out of servants so as to not have to pay them wages, and
many enlisted. Murray suggests that certain military affectations (such as the
twirling of the bass drum sticks, and the wearing of tiger and leopard skins)
stemmed from the practice of encouraging costumes and capering by these
musicians. “But at least one (musician) turned out to be a proper soldier,”
writes Murray, “Drummer Charles Bogle was a ‘man of colour’, a fact sedulously
concealed by the Victorian chroniclers of his regiment. He died at the Siege of
Burgos in 1812, fighting most gallantly, wielding his drummer’s broadsword in
single combat with a French soldier, who died equally gallantly. Their bodies
were recovered, the Frenchman run through with Charlie’s sword, his bayonet
through Charlie’s body.” A ‘Turkish’ march was played by the American forces
under General Benjamin Lincoln at their surrender at Charleston on May 12,
1780. The choice was "no doubt Lincoln's attempt to avoid the complete
humiliation inherent in performing an American march under these
circumstances" (Camus, 1976, pg. 154). A "Turkish March" appears
in G. Goulding's New and Complete Instructions for the Fife
(1787-1799, pg. 8) published in London, England, and appears under the title
"Turkish March in the Battle of Prague" in several other
manuscripts. Longman, Lukey & Co.
printed it in their Compleat Instructions
for the Fife (London, 1770), and Thompson & Son included it in Compleat Tutor for the Fife (London),
editions of 1760, 1770 and 1786. David Rutherford printed it in his Compleat Tutor for the Fife (London,
1756). Fiddler and poet John Clare (Helpston, Northants) included two versions
in his c. 1820 music manuscript; one as “Turk’s March,” and another as
“Quickstep in the Battle of Prague,” and Ensign Thomas Molyneaux (6th
Regmt.) noted it in his copybook in Shelburne, Nova Scotia, in 1788, with the
alternate title “or, The Church Call”. American musicians also played the
“Turk’s March,” for it appears in the music manuscript copybooks of Silas
Dickinson (Amherst, Mass., c. 1800) and John Turner (Norwich, Conn., 1788).
A march called the "Huntsman's
Chorus" (Was glecht wohl auf Erden)
opens the third act of Carl Maria von Weber's (1796-1826) opera Der Freicshutz, first performed in
Berlin in 1821. The opera is considered the first important German Romantic
opera, and features themes and tunes inspired by German folk music. The march
was quickly picked up in publications in the 1820’s and 1830’s for use for
dancing—it made a fine cotillion—and in instrumental tutors (including a bugle
preceptor!). The popularity of the piece, as well as folk music pieces from the
Tyrolean Alps, in England in the 1820’s may have been a result of the
recently-concluded conflict with Napoleon, a victory in part due to an alliance
with German and Austrian states. “Huntsman’s Chorus” (or “Hunter’s Chorus” as
it was also called) was employed for a variety of uses. As a quickmarch, it was
long played in England by the band of the Rifle
Brigade (95th Regiment) as a regimental march, and in the United
States the melody was collected by Prof. Samuel Bayard from the playing of fife
bands under the titles “Harrison City,” “A Drag,” and “Bunker Hill.” It was
published by Elias Howe in Boston in his Diamond
School for the Violin (1861). The melody was used as a vehicle for either a
polka or single step morris dance in the North‑West (England) tradition.
A multipart version appears in the 1823-26 music manuscript book of Joshua
Gibbons (Tealby, Lincolnshire Wolds) under the title “Election Tune, June
1826,” attributed to one L. Hanson. It also appears in the c. 1837 music manuscript
of Shropshire musician John Moore, and was collected in the 20th
century still in tradition in Yorkshire. In modern times “Huntsman’s Chorus”
was used as a contra-dance vehicle, popularized by Dudley Laufman’s Canterbury
Dance Orchestra and Fennig’s All-Stars, and I myself remember dancing to it in
the early 1970’s at contra-dances in Philadelphia, although I had no idea of
its origins. A second melody from Der
Freischutz, the “Villager’s Waltz,” appears in the mid-19th
century dance music manuscript copybook of William Winter (1774-1861), a
shoemaker and fiddler from Somerset, England.
I recall a piece that was occasionally played
at contra dances in the 1970’s called “Schwanda Polka,” picked up from fiddler
and caller Dudley Laufman of Canterbury, New Hampshire. Dudley writes that he
absorbed the tune from his mother who “used to dance around the house by
herself to this music, played on an old wind-up victrola. I doubt very much if
anyone else has used this music for dancing.” The melody comes from an opera in
two acts composed in 1927 by Jaromír Weinberger (1896-1967) called Švanda dudák (Schwanda the Bagpiper),
which premiered in Prague. The opera had some considerable success but
disappointingly does not employ any bagpipe music whatsoever—although this can
hardly be the reason the opera has fallen from the repertory in modern times.
The polka and paired fugue have survived in concert performances for both
orchestra and band.
Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart is remembered in traditional music in “Michael Turner’s Waltz,” which
has gained some currency in modern English sessions. The untitled waltz was
contained in the music manuscript collection of Michael Turner (1796-1885) who
adapted the melody from a portion of the great composer’s 1788 suite KV 536 No. 2 (the second, or trio part)
in G Major. Turner was for fifty years a Parish Clerk, Sexton and choir leader
of a church in Warnham, Sussex. His gravestone reads:
His duty done, beneath this stone
Old Michael lies at rest
His rustic rig, his song, his jig
Were ever of the best.
With nodding head the choir he led
That none should start too soon,
The second he sang full true
His viol played the tune
And when at last his age had passed
One hundred—less eleven,
With faithful cling to fiddle string
He sang himself to heaven.
Dave Shepherd, fiddle player for the modern Scottish group Blowzabella,
came up with a setting of “Michael Turner’s Waltz” in 5/4 time (!).
Two other long-forgotten works should
be mentioned due to the popularity of musical selections from them, and the
number of appearances of musical themes from them in period publications and
musicians’ manuscripts. The Battle of
Prague (mentioned above) is a sonata first published in Dublin around the
year 1788 by Frantisek Kotzwara (1730-1791), a Czech expatriate who lived in
London and made his living as a virtuoso double-bass player working at the
King’s Theatre. The descriptive piece, which commemorates the Prussian victory
over the Austrians at Prague in 1757, is the only work of his to survive.
Portions of it were immensely popular on both sides of the Atlantic in the late
18th/early 19th century. As if being a “virtuoso
double-bass player” (how many have there been?) was not enough claim to fame,
he is also infamously remembered for his personal proclivities and untimely
demise. Writer Mark Twain mentions the Battle
of Prague in his book A Tramp Abroad,
when he complained of a salon organist who “turned on all the horrors of ‘The
Battle of Prague,’ that venerable shivaree, and waded in the blood of the
slain.” Similar objections of excess were voiced to the martial “Downfall of
Paris” (from which the fiddle tune “Mississippi Sawyer” derives), and it’s
interminable ‘drone, drone, drone’ at the hands of legions of amateur pianists
in the decades following the defeat of Napoleon. Selections from The Battle of Prague were printed
widely. The “March in the Battle of Prague” was published in America by J.G.C.
Schetky in Philadelphia in 1793. The same melody appears in numerous 19th
century British musicians’ manuscripts, including those of Joshua Gibbons
(1823, Lincolnshire), John Clare (c. 1818), and John Moore (see below), and
Rev. Robert Harrison (1820, Brampton, Cumbria), James Winder (1835, Wyresdale,
Lancashire), William Clarke (1858, Feltwell, Norfolk), John Fife (c. 1780
Perth, Scotland), James Haslingden (1827, Midlands or southern England),
William Hall Lister (mid-19th century, East Boldon, near Newcastle)
and the Tiller manuscript. Penn
State Professor Samuel Bayard collected a version of the march from Battle of
Prague from south western Pennsylvania fifers in the 1930’s. The melody’s
original name had long been forgotten and was only known as one of the “Dow
Everly” tunes, after the regionally influential fifer who played it.
The “Annan Polka” can be found in
Kerr’s Merry Melodies, vol. 3, a
Scottish publication from the 1880’s. The title refers to a location in
Dumfries, Scotland, where a contender for the crown of Scotland, Edward
Balliol, was defeated in 1332. Despite the Scottish place name, however, the
melody is not indigenous, but rather is derived from Johann Strauss Sr.’s
“Beliebte Annen Polka,” composed in 1842. Seattle fiddler Vivian Williams, who
discovered the connection, notes that the Straus piece should not be confused
with Johann Strauss Jr.’s “Annen Polka,” written in 1852. The melody also
appears in the Browne Family music manuscripts, which are actually a collection
of different manuscripts in different hands in the possession of the Brown
Family (of Troutbeck, Lake District, Cumbria, England) prior to their being
secured by the Armitt Library in Ambleside. The particular manuscript that
contains the “Annan Polka” probably dates to c. 1850, according to English
researcher Chris Partington. The polka was likewise copied into a mid-19th
century music manuscript book by fiddler and shoemaker William Winter
(Somerset, England), under the title “Amen Polka,” which must have made perfect
sense to Winter as he spent some time playing in his local church band.
Finally, we come to “The Kiss
Waltz,” a melody recorded by Texas fiddler Captain McKinney for Okeh Records in
1929. Fiddler Posey Rorer recorded a rather up-tempo version as “Kiss Waltz,”
with Charlie Poole, Roy Harvey and the North Carolina Ramblers around the same
time as McKinney, although the side was never issued commercially. Credit again
to Vivian Williams who finds that the tune was derived from a classical
composition, a vocal waltz, called Il
Bacio (The Kiss) by the Italian composer Luigi Arditi (1822-1903) in the
mid-19th century. Arditi began his musical career as a violinist,
but spent much of his mature career in England, where he conducted at Covent
Garden and London’s pleasure parks. He composed several popular operas. Bill
Monroe recorded a version of the waltz on his “Uncle Pen” album under the title
“Kiss Me Waltz.”
[The author wishes to
gratefully acknowledge communications with Vivian Williams, Dudley Laufman and Doc Rossi for information contained in
this article, as well as the websites www.colonialdancing.org/Easmes/index.html and www.village-music-project.org.uk/
.]
X:1
T:Dead March in Saul, The
M:C
L:1/8
N:”Adagio”
K:C
E2E2E2zE|ED/E/ FE D2 z2|F2 FG/A/ F2
zA|GF E(3D/E/F/ E2z2|
G2G2G3 G/A/|_BBBA G2 zG|GF zE ED
zG|GF/E/ FE D4:|
|:G2A2B2 zc|BA/G/ A^F GD G2|(G4 G2)
(A2|A)G/F/ E>D D2 z2|
e2 e>f/g/4 e2 ze|dcfe d2 z2|g2
c’2g2 zg|.f.e.d>c. c2 z2||
X:1
T:Mr. Cosgill’s Delight
M:2/2
L:1/8
K:C
e2g2c’2c2|f>g e>f
d2c2|e2g2d2G2|c>d B>c A2G2:|
|:d2 g>f e2 a>g|f>e d>c
B>A G>f|e>f g>G A>B c>g|f>g e>f d2c2:|
X:1
T:March in Solomon
M:C|
L:1/8
R:March
S:The late 18th century
copybook manuscript of Henry Livingston
Z:AK/Fiddler’s Companion
K:D
|: A>A | e4A4 | F3E D2d2 | edef
d2a2 | f3e defg | a2a2a2 gf |
g2g2g2 fe | f2 ed g2f2 | e6 ::
e>e | a4f4 | edef e2a2 | g2f2b2a2 |
g4f4 | d4A4 | dcde d2g2 | gefg
“tr”e4 | d6 :|
X:1
T:Battle of Prague. JC.008
M:C
L:1/8
Q:120
S:John Clare, Poet, Helpston
(1793-1864)
R:March
O:England
A:Northamptonshire
Z:vmp:P.Headford
K:D
d2d>dd2e/d/c/B/|{B}A2A>AA2f>d|{c}B2g>e{d}c2e>c|d2d>dd2(fe)|!
e2cd ee(fe)|{e}d2Bc dded|{d}cB/c/
e/d/c/B/ A2^G2|A2A>A A2z:|!
|:A2A>B
c>de>f|g2e>gf2fg|afdd ~f>efd|e2A>AA2F>G|!
A2B>cd2f>d|{d}c2g>ef2
(3Adf|afdd fedc|d2d>dd2z:|]
X:1
T:Doctor Haydn
M:C
L:1/8
R:Strathspey
N:”Slowly”
C:Duncan McIntyre
K:F
“tr”F>GA>f
F<fA<f|F<F({FG}A>)F D<G~G>A|”tr”F>GA>B (d/c/)B/A/
({fg}a>)g|({g}f>)d (d/c/)B/A/ G/A/B/c/ d2|
F>G (3AfA (3cfc (3AfA|F<F({FG}A>)F
D<G”tr”G>A|(F/G/A/G/ F>)^C D<FD>B,|A,>F D/C/B,/A,/
G,/A,/B,/C/ D>E|
F<FA>F c>Fd>F|cFAF
.G/.A/.B/.c/ d2|({c}a>)gfc dbGd|cf/c/ AF GG,B<d|
F<FA>F
c>Fd>F|cFAF .G/.A/.B/.c/ d2|cf/c/ Ac dB,Bd|A,c/B/ AF GG,E<G||
X:1
T:Blow Zabella
M:6/8
L:1/8
S:James Aird, Selection of Scotch, English, Irish and Foreign Airs, vol. II (1782)
Z:AK/Fiddler’s Companion
K:G
d2c BAG | c2A B2G | d2c BAG | A2D G3 :|
|: g2d BGB | cAc BAG | g2d BGB |1 ADF G3 :|2 ADF G2 ||
|: G/A/ | BAB cBc | d3 d2c | BcB ABA |1 G3 G2 :|2 G3 G3 ||
|: g2G g2G | ABA B2G | g2G g2G |1 ABA G3 :|2 ABA G2 ||
|: G/A/ | BAB cBc | d3 d2c | BcB ABA | G3 G2 :|
X:1
T:Michael Turner’s Waltz
M:3/4
L:1/8
R:Waltz
K:G
GA|B2 BD cD|d2d2 gf|e2e2 ge|d2d2 GA|B2 BD cD|
d2d2 cA|G2 G2 AB|G2 z2::AB|c2 cd Bc|A2A2 Bc|
d2 de cd|B2B2gf|e2e2 ge|d2d2 GA|B2 Bc AB|G2
z2:|
X:2
T:Violino I
M:3/4
L:1/8
S:Mozart – Trio from
KV536
K:G major
GA|B2B2cA|d2d2gf|{f}e2e2ge|{e}d2d2GA|B2B2cA|d2d2cA|G2G2AB|G2z2:|
|:AB|c2cdBc|A4Bc|d2decd|B4gf|{f}e2e2ge|{e}d2d2GA|B2BcAB|G4:|
X:1
T:Annan Polka
M:2/4
L:1/8
R:Polka
S:Kerr – Merry Melodies, vol. 3, No. 436 (c. 1880’s)
Z:AK/Fiddler’s Companion
K:G
dgBg|fA/B/ c/B/A|caAa|gB/c/
d/c/B|dgBg|fA/B/ c/B/A|Fd Dd|1
gG/A/ B/A/G:|2
[Bg][Bg][Bg]z||:B/c/d/e/ d/B/c/A/ | BG G/F/G|
AEFD|GG G/F/G|B/c/d/e/ d/B/c/A/|BG G/F/G|AEFD|GGGz:|
“Trio”
|:f/g/
f2a|aggA|e/f/ e2g|gffz|f/g/ f2a|aggA|e/f/ e2a|dddz :|
3/7/08
Andrew Kuntz
8 Veatch Street
Wappingers Falls, NY 12590