Annotation:New Highland Laddie (2)

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NEW HIGHLAND LADDIE [2]. "Ah! Sure Such a Pair," "Highland Laddie (7)." English, Air (6/8 time). D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABBC. Kate Van Winkler Keller finds a song to this tune arranged by Thomas Arne for the production Clio and Euterpe (London, 1758), beginning: "The lowland lads think they are fine." However the air was printed perhaps earlier, around 1755, in London publisher David Rutherford's volumes The Art of Playing on the Violin, (a different "New Highland Laddie" was printed by him a year later in his Rutherford's Compleat Collection of 200 of the Most Celebrated Country Dances, 1756). "New Highland Laddie" was included in the manuscript collections of Scottish musician James Gillespie (The Gillespie Manuscript of Perth, 1768), London musician Thomas Hammersley (1790), flute player Thomas Molyneaux (Nova Scotia, 1788), and American Daniel Aborn (c. 1790-1809). It was also entered into the large 1840 music manuscript collection of multi-instrumentalist John Rook (Wigton, Cumbria) as an untitled tune "No name to it", beside which someone later had added the identification "Highland Laddie."

Source for notated version: the manuscript collection of Captain George Bush (1753?-1797), a fiddler and officer in the Continental Army during the American Revolution [Keller].

Printed sources: Keller (Fiddle Tunes from the American Revolution), 1992; p. 26. Manson (Hamilton's Universal Tune Book, vol. 1), 1854; p. 104 (as "Highland Laddie").

Recorded sources:

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