Annotation:Grand Spy (1) (The)

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GRAND SPY [1], THE. AKA and see "Grand Spey (2) (The)," "Grant's Strathspey." American, Scottish (originally); Hornpipe. D Major. Standard tuning. AABBCC. The title is a miss-hearing of the Scottish "Grant's Strathspey" or "Grants of Strathspey (The)," with the "Grand Spy" title appearing in American publications. A more modern derivative fiddle setting of the tune from Ireland is the curiously corrupt title "Graf Spee."

As "The Grand Spy" it was published in Riley's Flute Melodies (New York, c. 1825), a popular and influential collection, and perhaps the source for Boston publisher Elias Howe's use of it in his later publications. It appears in Howe's mid-19th century Musician's Omnibus under the title "The Grand Spy or The French Spy," in his 1000 Jigs and Reels (c. 1867), and in Ryan's Mammoth Collection (Boston, 1883), also published by the Howe firm (although it was one of the 50 tunes omitted from Ryan's direct descendant, Cole's 1000 Fiddle Tunes). However, Chicago musician and musicologist Paul Tyler finds the "Grand Spy" tune in the music manuscript copybook (three versions, in two different keys) of army musician John Carroll of Fort Niagara, which predates its appearance in Riley's. The melody was recorded as an untitled tune on Indiana fiddler John W. Summer's Folkways Records album "Fine Times at Our House," and Paul Tyler notes that it had "made it over the mountains to Summers' neck of the woods by 1844." An early recording of the tune on a 78 RPM disc was made by an American Irish piper named Martin Beirne (who led the Blackbird Orchestra) where the tune is called "The Grand Spy." The great County Sligo fiddler Michael Coleman recorded the same setting of the tune in 1944, on a disc for radio broadcast.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Howe (1000 Jigs and Reels), c. 1867; p. 59. Edward Riley (Riley's Flute Melodies, vol. 3), New York, 1820; p. 67. Ryan's Mammoth Collection, 1883; p. 48.

Recorded sources: Columbia 33558-F (78 RPM), piper Martin Beirne (1936).

See also listing at:
Hear piper Martin Byrne's recording at Internet Archive [1]

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