Annotation:Durang's Hornpipe (1)

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X:1 T:Durang's Hornpipe [1] M:C L:1/8 S:The 1785 original, from John Durang's memoirs K:D V:1 clef=treble name="1." [V:1] DAFA DAFA | BcdB BAGF | DAFA DAFA | BGED DCB,A, | DAFA DAFA | BcdB BAGF | fgaf gedc | d2d2d2 z2 :: fgaf ecBA | BcdB BAGF | B2B2 BAGF | GEed dcBA | A^GAB cBcd | e^def e^gaf | e^gbf edcB | A^GAB A=GFE :||

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DURANG'S HORNPIPE [1] (Crannciuil Ui Deorain). AKA - "Durant's Hornpipe" (Seth Johnson). AKA and see "Wobble Gears." See also "Little Hornpipe." British Isles, American, Texas Style, Old-Time; Hornpipe, Reel or Breakdown. USA, Widely known. D Major (most versions): G Major (Riley). Standard or ADae tunings (fiddle). AABB (most versions): AABB' (Emmerson, Kerr): AA'BB' (Moylan). The melody is thoroughly ensconced in American traditional repertoire. Versions of the tune are (collectively) "a Missouri standard," according to Missouri fiddler Howard Marshall. "An old stand-by" remarked Arizona fiddler Kenner C. Kartchner (in the early twentieth century). It was commonly played at country dances in Orange County, New York in the 1930's (Lettie Osborn, New York Folk Life Quarterly, pp. 211–215) and was part of the older fiddle repertory in Patrick County, southwestern Va., before such tunes were superceded in popularity by clawhammer banjo/fiddle tunes (Tom Carter & Blanton Owen, 1976). The title appears in the repertory list of Henry Ford's champion fiddler of the late 1920's, Maine fiddler Mellie Dunham, who was quite elderly at the time. The tune was recorded in the early 1940's from Ozarks Mountains fiddlers for the Library of Congress by musicologist/folklorist Vance Randolph and was one of the relatively few recordings by legendary Galax, Virginia, fiddler Emmett Lundy. Interestingly, given the usual variation in fiddle tune titles due to faulty memory, "folk process" or other such 'drift', it is nearly always found going by the title "Durang's Hornpipe." "Little Hornpipe" and "Liverpool Hornpipe (1)" are related melodies.

Marion Thede speculates the piece was named for Ferdinand Durang, an actor, who first sang the "Star Spangled Banner" in a tavern near Baltimore's Holiday Street Theatre, but in this she is mistaken, at least in part, for Sam Bayard (1981), George Emmerson (1972) and others researched the tune and definitively conclude that it was named after actor and dancer John Durang (b. Lancaster, Pa., 1768 – d. Philadelphia, 1821), styled as "the first American dancer." Durang (who was born of German parents) stated in his memoirs that it was composed for him by one "Mr. Hoffmaster, a German Dwarf, in New York, 1785." The thespian had taken violin lessons from Hoffmaster (who, with his wife, was only 3 feet tall "with a large head, hands and feet"), who wrote the hornpipe "expressly for me, which is become well known in America, for I have since heard it play'd the other side of the Blue Mountains (of Pennsylvania) as well as in the cities" (p. 344, quoted from Downer's "The Memoir of John Durang, American Actor 1785–1816," {1966}). Bayard finds the original a much more banal piece than it is today, and that it has been much improved by the aforementioned "folk process," which has given it character and distinction in his opinion.

The dwarf's composition came a year after Durang's debut with the company of Lewis Hallam in 1784, who had just returned from a long period in England which encompassed the Revolutionary War (Emmerson, 1972). Later in his career, around 1790, he records he danced "a Hornpipe on thirteen eggs blindfolded without breaking one," which feat points to the dancer's main claim to fame (beside the tune associated with his name), that of poularizing the nautical-style hornpipe dance the Sailor's Hornpipe. In fact, from Durang's time on the nautical theme became intimately associated with the hornpipe dance and the tune "College Hornpipe," to which it was predominantly performed. Durang went on to dance in comic ballets, "pantomimic dances" and other entertainments, and in 1796 was engaged to direct pantomimes for the circus of John B. Ricketts, a Scottish immigrant, until the enterprise was destroyed in a fire at year's end, 1799.

"Durang's Hornpipe" starts to appear in American musician (and dancers) manuscript collections starting at the very beginning of the 19th century. It was included in the copybooks of fifer Ebenezer Bevens (Middletown, Conn., 1825), Gurden Trumbull (Stonington, Conn., 1801), Josiah Adams (Framingham, Mass., 1808), and fifer Seth Johnson (Woburn, Mass., 1807), for example. In print, it was included in The New and Complete Preceptor for the Fife by Daniel Steele (Albany, N.Y. c. 1815), Riley's Flute Melodies, vol. 1, by Edward Riley (New York, 1814), Merrimack Collection of Instrumental and Martial Musick vol. 1 by Henry Moore (Concord, New Hampshire, 1833), and the contemporaneous dance step collections published by Saltator, the Phinney's, J. Cunningham, and others in New York state and New England (for which see EASMES [1]). Given the fact that it was included in fifer's copybooks and collections that included martial music, one can assume "Durang's" was employed as a march as well as a dance tune. Burchenal gives the tune under the title "Lady of the Lake (3)," taken from the New England contra dance of that name (which she also prints), for which "Durang's" was an accompaniment.

In the Irish Sliabh Luachra region of the Cork-Kerry border the tune seems have been considered, and used, as a reel according to Terry Moylan (1994).

Guthrie Meade (Country Music Sources, 2002, p. 744), gives nine early sound recordings of "Durang's Hornpipe," the earliest by fiddler Don Richardson [2] in 1916, followed by John Baltzell (1924), Clayton McMichen (1927), and the Kessinger Brothers (1927).

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