Annotation:Bonny Lass to Marry Me (A)

Back to Bonny Lass to Marry Me (A)

---

BONNY LASS TO MARRY ME, A. "Bonny Lass to Me (A)." Scottish, Reel. G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. Glen finds this tune first published by Robert Bremner in his 1757 collection, soon afterwards appearing in James Oswald's Caledonian Pocket Companion, Book 4 (1760). It is perhaps also "A Bonny Lad to Marry Me." The melody appears in the music manuscripts of Setauket, Long Island, New York, painter and fiddler William Sidney Mount [1] (1807-1868) on a page with other Scottish tunes such as "Cotter Reel," "Miss Betty Forbes Reel" and "Mrs. Abercrombys of Glupas Reel." The reel was entered into the 1840 music manuscript collection of multi-instrumentalist John Rook, of Waverton, Cumbria, and is also contained in vol. 2 of the large mid-19th century music manuscript collection of County Cork cleric and uilleann piper biography:James Goodman. It is considered (by Hugh and Lisa Shields, for one) an ancestral tune to the Irish "Breeches On (The)" or "Oh the Britches Full of Stitches."

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Aird (Selection of Scots, English, Irish and Foreign Airs, vol. II), 1785; No. 23, p. 9. Bremner (A Collection of Scots Reels), 1757; p. 24. O'Farrell (Pocket Companion, vol. IV), 1810; p. 109. Oswald (Caledonian Pocket Companion, Book 4), 1760; p. 21.

Recorded sources:

---