Annotation:Woe's my heart that we should sunder
X:1 T:Woes my heart that we show’d sunder M:C L:1/8 R:Air Q:"Slow" S:McGibbon – Scots Tunes, Book 1 (c. 1746) Z:AK/Fiddler’s Companion K:C (G>E)(G>A) G3c | (A>G)(A>c) A2 (G>A) | c3d (e>g)(d>e) | c3d e2 {e/f/}g2 | (G<E)(DE) G3c | {_B}A2 G>F f3a | g>age (fe)T(dc) | TA3G A2c2 :| |: T(f>ef)g (fga)f | {f}e>def (efg)e |T(dcd)e (ge)(de) | c3d e2 {e/f/}g2 | (G>E)(DE) G3c | {_B}A2 (GF) f3a | g>age (fe)T(d>c) | TA3G A2c2 :|]
WOES MY HEART THAT WE SHOULD SUNDER. AKA – “Waes my heart…” AKA and see "Always My Heart that We Mun Sunder." Scottish (originally), English; Air (4/4 time). C Major (McGibbon, Muhollan): D Major (Aird, Rook). Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The air was popular throughout the 18th century. It was included in the ballad operas of Joseph Mitchell (The Highland Fair, or Union of the Clans, 1731) and Theodore Cibber (Patie and Peggy: or, The Fair Foundling, 1730—a recasting of Allan Ramsay’s The Gentle Shepherd). Franz Joseph Haydn composed a setting for it. The air appears numerous collections from the period, including the Gillespie Manuscript of Perth (1768), and in several musicians’ copybooks of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It appears, for example, in the J. Brown manuscript of 1782, written in Seabrook, New Hampshire and in the manuscript copybook of Henry Livingston, Jr. Livingston purchased the estate of Locust Grove, Poughkeepsie, New York, in 1771 at the age of 23. In 1775 he was a Major in the 3rd New York Regiment, which participated in Montgomery’s invasion of Canada in a failed attempt to wrest Montreal from British control. An important land-owner in the Hudson Valley and a member of the powerful Livingston family, Henry was also a surveyor and real estate speculator, an illustrator and map-maker, and a Justice of the Peace for Dutchess County. He was also a musician and presumably a dancer, as he was elected a Manager for the New York Assembly’s dancing season of 1774-1775, along with his 3rd cousin, John Jay, later U.S. Chief Justice of Governor of New York. "Woe's My Heart..." also was entered into the large 1840 music manuscript of multi-instrumentalist John Rook (Waverton, near Wigton, Cumbria).
Woes my heart that we shou’d sunder,
With broken words and down cast eyes,