Annotation:Bologna's March
X:1 T:Bologna's March M:C L:1/8 Q:"Andante" R:March B:John Watlen - The Celebrated Circus Tunes (Edinburgh, 1791, p. 2) Z:AK/Fiddler's Companion K:C G|c4 BcdB|c2 c>c c2d2|e4 defd|e2 e>e e2d2| cBcd {cd}e2 dc|BGBd g2d2|e/g/^f/g/ {f}ed/c/ B2 TA2|G2 GG G2:| |:g4 eceg|fgaf d4|f4 dBdf|efge c2 zG| c>ed>f e2 zd|e>gf>a g3 f|(3efg {b}ag/f/ e2d2|c2 c>c c3:|]
BOLOGNA'S MARCH. AKA and see "Favorite Slow March (A)," "Hornsby's March." Scottish (?), March (2/4 time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The tune was first published by John Watlen in his Celebrated Circus Tunes (Edinburgh, 1791), and retained for his second edition of 1798. It was also reprinted in 1796 by Glasgow publisher James Aird, along with several other tunes from Watlen's collection, without credit to the source. The march was included in the music manuscript collections of John Rook (1840, Waverton, Cumbria) as "Favorite Slow March (A)," and Joshua Gibbons (1823, Tealby, Lincolnshire) as "Hornsby's March."
Many of Watlen's tunes were composed for, or attached to, performers at the circus. "Bologna's March" is associated with acrobat and strongman Pietro Bologna. Pietro's son, John (Jack) Peter Bologna was an understudy to another member of the troupe, the tightrope dancer Antonio Spinacuta, and had his own associated tune in Watlen's first collection, attributed to "Little Pierre & Sgnt. Spinacuta"[1].
- ↑ Kim Baston, "The Celebrated Circus Tunes: Music and Musicians in an Eighteenth-Century Circus", Popular Entertainment Studies, Vol. 9, Issue 1-2, 2018, p. 9.