Annotation:College Hornpipe (The)

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X:1 T:Colledge [sic] Hornpipe, The M:C| L:1/8 R:Hornpipe B:Charles & Samuel Thompson – “First Book of 30 Favourite Hornpipe” (London, c. 1757) Z:AK/Fiddler’s Companion K:Bb (BA)|B2 B,4 FE|(DF) B4 (3dcB|c2C4 (cB)|Ac f2- f2 ga| bagf gfed|ecde BAGF|GBAc Bde|d2(B2B2):| |:(FE)|DFBF DFBF|G2E2-E2 (GF)|EGG eGcG|A2F2-F2 (ed)| ef g2-gfed|ecde BAGF|(3GAB (3ABc (3Bcd (3cde|d2B2-B2:|

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COLLEGE HORNPIPE, THE. AKA and see "Duke William's Hornpipe," "Jack's the Lad (1)," "Lancashire Hornpipe (1)," "McNeile's Hornpipe," "Pitt's Hornpipe," "Reel des matelots," "Sailor's Hornpipe (1)."

English, Scottish, Irish, Canadian, American; Hornpipe. D Major (Ashman, Colclough, Huntington, Mattson & Walz, Pepper): G Major (Johnson, Perlman): C Major (Ditson, Harding, Howe, Raven): B Flat Major (Athole, Burchenal, Cole, Cranford, Emmerson, Honeyman, Howe, Hunter, Kerr, Mackinstosh, McGlashan, Skinner, Vickers, Wilson). Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (Wilson): AABB (most versions): AA'BB' (Cranford).

A country dance and tune which was extremely popular both in England and in America. In the latter country it appears, for example, on page 28 of a dance MS of the Pepperell, Massachusetts, maid Nancy Shepley, c. 1766, and in the music manuscript copybook of Henry Livingston, Jr. (as "Colledge Hornpipe," set for the German flute). Livingston purchased the estate of Locust Grove, Poughkeepsie, New York, in 1771 at the age of 23. In 1775 he was a Major in the 3rd New York Regiment, which participated in Montgomery's invasion of Canada in a failed attempt to wrest Quebec from British control. An important land-owner in the Hudson Valley, and a member of the powerful Livingston family, Henry was also a surveyor and real estate speculator, an illustrator and map-maker, and a Justice of the Peace for Dutchess County. He was also a poet and musician, and presumably a dancer, 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. Carr published in America the tune in Philadelphia publishers Benjamin and Samuel Carr's Evening Amusement (p. 15) about August, 1796, and a version was entered into the music manuscript copybook of musician M.E. Eames, frontispiece dated Aug. 22nd, 1859 (p. 39). Some fifty years following Eames, the tune was still popular for New England dances. Burchenal (1918) printed another contra dance of the same name to the tune, as Howe (c. 1867) did earlier. A variant is familiar to most modern people as the theme to the mid-20th century cartoon "Popeye the Sailor Man," and, in Britain, as the theme music for the children's show "Blue Peter." See also note for "Annotation:Sailor's Hornpipe (1)."

In England, musicologist William Chappell's editor concluded that it could not date from earlier than the second half of the 18th century, however Hornby finds a version in the music manuscript collection of Edward Winder dated as 1746, where it appears as "Sailor's Hornpipe". The hornpipe was entered into the music copybook of Welsh fiddler John Thomas, dated 1752, under the title "Pitt's Hornpipe." Chappell himself believed that the tune was an old sailor's song called "Jack's the Lad." The melody became particularly associated with the nautical hornpipe type of dance which became popular solo step-dance on the stage at the end of the 18th century, and it is popularly known as "The Sailor's Hornpipe" today.

Paul Cooper finds the earliest appearance of the melody as "Colledge Hornpipe" in London publishers Charles and Samuel Thompson's First Book of 30 Favourite Hornpipes (c. 1757, reprinted in their Compleat Collection of 120 Favourite Hornpipes, c. 1770), a collection of hornpipes taken from stage productions ("as Performed at the Public Theatres."). Another early publication of the tune appears in a volume entitled Compleat Tutor for the German Flute, published by Jonathan Fentum, London, c. 1766, the same year as Nancy Shepley's American dance MS. The title was entered at Stationers' Hall in 1798 by J. Dale, London, as "The College Hornpipe", set as a rondo. Cooper finds that the tune largely dropped from sight for some time in printed publications in the latter 18th century, resurfacing in the 19th century. He concludes that the probable stage origins of "College Hornpipe" were largely exhausted but that the melody continued in the vernacular, where it was probably used for step-dancing and for country dancing, reemerging as a "folk tune" in the 19th century at which time it regained popularity.

There are suggestions of older antiquity of the tune. William Vickers included the tune in his music manuscript collection under the title "Old Lancashire Hornpipe," Ken Perlman (1996) dates the tune to the 17th century or earlier and states that it was used by Henry Purcell (c. 1658–1695) in his opera Dido and Aeneas. Perlman does not cite any substantiating data, nor where he obtained this information, and at present his assumption seems unlikely.

There is, or was, an English country dance called College Hornpipe. Some years after novelist (and musician) Thomas Hardy's book Under the Greenwood Tree was published, a man wrote to Hardy about the country dances that Hardy used as a setting for his characters. Hardy replied (c. 1925):

I am interested to hear that you have been attracted by the old English dances, which gave me so much pleasure when I was a boy. The dance I was thinking of in "Under the Greenwood Tree" must have been "The College Hornpipe", as that is the only one I remember beginning with six-hands-round. I am sending you the figure as nearly as I can recall it sixty years after I last danced in it. This and other such figures have been revived on the stage here by 'The Hardy Players' (as they call themselves) since they began making plays out of my stories. Only very old country people remember the dances now. I have many such figures in old music books.

The figures Hardy sent are as follows, "as formerly danced in Wessex":

• (First strain). Top three couples six hands half-round and back again to places.
• (First strain repeated). The same three couples, one hand joined of each, promenade full round to places
• (Second strain). Two top couples down the middle and up again, to places.
• (Second strain repeated). The three couples whole pousette (both hands joined) leaving second couple at the top. (Tune ends).
• (Tune begins again). The original top couple being now in the third place, do the same with the original fourth and fifth couple. (Tune ends, the original top couple being in the original fourth couple's place).
• (Tune begins again). At the same time that the original top couple starts the figure again with the original fifth and sixth couples, the original second couple, which has been idle at the top, starts the same figure with the original third and fourth couples standing below them, so that the figure is now going on in two places, and later, if the line is a long one, in as many places as there is room for. The original top couple at last finds itself breathless at the bottom of the dance; but gradually works up to the top as succeeding couples dance down and take places below.

"The College Hornpipe" was mentioned in an account of one of the old pipers of County Louth, a man named Cassidy, as recorded by William Carleton in his Tales and Sketches of the Irish Peasantry, published in 1845. Breathnach (1997) believes the first name of this piper was Dan, and that he was blind. Carleton, born in 1794, was a dancing master who taught in the 1820's, and was engaged to teach the children of the 'dreadful' Mrs. Murphy. It seems that Carleton:

...having spent several nights at piper Cassidy's house weighing up the local dancers ...was impelled by vanity to show them how good a dancer he was himself. He asked one of the handsomest girls out on the floor, and, in accordance with the usual form, faced her towards the piper, asking her to name the tune she wished to dance to. Receiving the customary reply, 'Sir, your will is my pleasure,' Carleton called for the jig Polthogue. He next danced Miss McLeod's Reel with his partner, and then called for a hornpipe, a single dance, this is, one done without a partner. It was considered unladylike for girls to do a hornpipe. The College Hornpipe was his choice for this dance. (p. 59)

Breathnach, however, adds that the tune piper Cassidey played for Carleton may not have been the one we now associate with the title "College Groves." It may have been the "Cork Hornpipe" (known usually under the title 'Harvest Home'), which was the name often used for the 'ubiquitous piece' in county Longford. He thinks it more likely, though, that the tune was "Jack's the Lad" which, around Derrylin in Fermanagh was also known as 'The College Hornpipe' (p. 68). It is an interesting tie-in with Chappell's assertion that the tune was originally called "Jack's the Lad" in England. The melody was entered into the mid-19th century music manuscript collection of County Cork uilleann piper and Church of Ireland cleric James Goodman under the title "McNeile's Hornpipe." See also the Yorkshire variant/derivative "Sunderland Hornpipe (1)."

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