Annotation:Miss Murray of Auchtertyre's Strathspey

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MISS MURRAY OF AUCHTERTYRE/OCHTERTYRE'S STRATHSPEY. AKA and see "Lady Portmore's Reel," "Mrs. Murray of Archentyre's Reel." Scottish, Strathspey. F Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB. Composed by John Bowie (1759-1815) of Perthshire, and published by him in 1801 (although it was published earlier by others). The melody was published twice in London in country dance collections by the firm of Preston & Son, in 1798 as "Mrs. Murray of Archentyre's Reel" (which is close to Bowie's title), and again in 1800 as "Lady Portmore's Reel."

Euphemia Murray

Miss Murray of Auchtertyre was Euphemia Murray of Lintrose, a cousin of Sir William of Ochtertyre. She was an accomplished woman and an amateur composer herself, with at least one composition, a slow strathspey, published by the Gows (Fifth Collection, 1809) –- see “Rosabell.” Poet Robert Burns was struck by her teenage beauty when he visited Sir William Murray at Auchtertyre in 1787 and composed a famous ode in her honor, “Blythe was she.” ‘She’ was not amused, by one report and did not care for it (a Smyth descendent says she called Burns a "drunken young ploughman", tore up the manuscript, and did not allow it to be mentioned in her presence) [1]. Beautiful she was, however, and was known as the ‘Flower of Strathmore’, her beauty toasted at gatherings. Another account differs in its report of her attitude toward the poet, suggesting she was rather warmer towards him:

[She] happened to forgather with Burns during on of his northern tours, and her affability and beauty charmed this lyric from him.

Euphemia married David Smyth, Lord Lethven, a Scottish judge, whom she met when she was giving testimony in court (according to an account by Smyth). Apparently a scandal had arisen in the Murrays of Auchtertyre, and she was called as a witness, as she was intimate with the family. "Her beauty and modesty so impressed the judge, Lord Methven, an elderly widower," relates a family account [2], "that he asked her to be his wife, and she became Mrs. Smyth of Methven."

When a fashion for Scottish dancing hit London at the turn of the 18th century, ”Miss Murray of Auchtertyre” was one of the tunes danced to, as we see in this excerpt from a London paper called The Star (06/01/1799), which reported on a recent ball at Oatlands Palace, Surrey, England:

At the fete given by Her Royal Highness, the Duchess of York, at Oatlands on the 30th of May (1799), the dances were as follows: 1. Ramah Droog. 2. Miss Murray of Auchtertyre. 3. The Tartan Plaidie. 4. Lady Harriet Hope’s Reel. And lastly, the enchanting tune of Miss Gordon of Troupe’s Strathspey was called for by Princess Augusta, and danced twice over by all the fet. Between the second and third dance, Their Majesties desiring to see the Highland Reel in all its purity, it was danced by the Marquis of Huntley and the Lady Georgiana Gordon, Colonel Erskine and Lady Charlotte Durham, with all the elastic motion, hereditary character, and boundless variety of the Scottish dance.

One of the oddest appearances of “Miss Murray’s Strathspey” is on the barrel organ from the polar expedition of Admiral Parry of 1810. In place of a ship’s fiddler (common in those days), Parry introduced a mechanical barrel organ on board ship to provide entertainment and a vehicle to which the men could exercise (i.e. by dancing). “Miss Murray’s Strathspey” was one of eight tunes on barrel no. 4.

Source for notated version: Gow (Complete Repository), Part 1, 1799; p. 30. Stewart-Robertson (The Athole Collection), 1884; p. 217.

Printed sources:

Recorded sources: Saydisc SDL 234, Parry’s Barrel Organ (vol. 11 in the Golden Age of Mechanical Music).

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