Annotation:Reel à quatre (2)

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REEL À QUATRE [2]. AKA and see "Lamplighter's Hornpipe (1)." French-Canadian, Reel (cut time). A Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The reel was recorded by Arthur Joseph (A.J.) Boulay in 1929. Boulay was born in New Hampshire in 1883 and lived there for some thirty years before moving in 1913 to Saint-Stanislas (near Beauharnois, Province of Quebec). He learned to fiddle at age ten and took formal lessons, and joined a dance band in the years prior to emigrating. As was the case with many early 78 RPM Quebecois fiddlers, music was not his main occupation, and Boulay found work in a cheese factory and a bakery. He is credited with being the first Quebec fiddler to be recorded, in 1923 (by RCA Victor), when he waxed a quadrille in three parts and a medley of Gigues. In 1924 he removed to Cornwall, Ontario, but visited Quebec regularly, recording some sixty tunes. Boulay died in Cornwall, December, 1948. Boulay's "Reel à quatre" is the New England tune "Lamplighter's Hornpipe (1)," named by Boulay after the dance it accompanied, the Reel à quatre (reel for four), and not surprising as he must have learned much of his core repertoire in New Hampshire.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources:

Recorded sources: Victor 263610-A (78 RPM), A.J. Boulay (1929).

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