Annotation:Monaltrie's Strathspey

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MONALTRIE'S STRATHSPEY. Scottish, Strathspey. F Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). Composed by Kirkmichael, Perthshire, fiddler Robert Petrie, whose 1790 collection was dedicated to Mrs. Farquharson of Monaltrie. This is from James Brown's 1854 travel guide [The New Deeside Guide]:

Monaltrie House, sometimes also called Ballater House, and sometimes Tullich Lodge, is the seat of Mrs. Farquharson of Monaltrie, and stands, as you heard before, on a grand and noble lawn at the foot of the hill of Craigendarroch. It is surrounded by beautiful trees, and around it there are delightful walks, very tastefully laid out. Adjoining to it there is a fair garden, stocked with all kinds of fruits, and which are generally sold there here during the season.

Mrs. Farquhason, Petrie's dedicatee, may have been Margaret Garden (1774-1857), who in 1791 married William Farquharson of Monaltrie, a man twenty years her senior. The couple had no children, and he predeceased her by thirty years. After he died at Vervay, Switzerland, his widow erected an obelisk to his memory at Ballater. Margaret's father was Peter Garden, a member of the Garden of Troup family (son of Peter Alexander Garden, 3rd of Troup), and it was to members of the Troup family that Robert Petrie dedicated his next three collections.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Petrie (Collection of Strathspey Reels and Country Dances), 1790; p. 18.

Recorded sources:

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