Annotation:Alexander's Hornpipe
Back to Alexander's Hornpipe
ALEXANDER'S HORNPIPE. AKA – "Alexander's Favourite." AKA and see "Byrne's Hornpipe (2)," "Sandlark (The)." Irish, Hornpipe. D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The tune appears as "Byrne's Hornpipe (2)" in the Feis Ceoil Collection of Traditional Irish Music (1914). Curiously, O'Neill printed it in 1903 in his Music of Ireland, but omitted it from his 1907 Dance Music of Ireland. An early version of the hornpipe can be found in the music manuscript copybook of fiddler John Burks under the title "Prunoble's Hornpipe." Nothing is know of Burks, but he may have been from the north of England.
Sources for notated versions: Chicago police sergeant James O'Neill, a fiddler originally from County Down and Francis O'Neill's collaborator [O'Neill]; accordion player Johnny O'Leary (Sliabh Luachra region of the Cork-Kerry border) [Moylan].
Printed sources:
McDermott (Allan's Irish Fiddler), c. 1920's, No. 82, p. 21 (appears as "Alexander's Favourite").
Moylan (Johnny O'Leary of Sliabh Luachra), 1994; No. 344, pp. 193–194.
O'Neill (Krassen), 1976; p. 193.
O'Neill (Music of Ireland: 1850 Melodies), 1903; No. 1683, p. 313.
Ryan's Mammoth Collection, 1883; p. 145.
Sing Out, vol. 34, no. 4, Fall 1989; p. 97.
Recorded sources: Rounder 1087, Tommy Reck – "From Galway to Dublin" (Reissue of a 78 RPM. Learned from Seamus Ennis).