Annotation:Blacksmith and His Son (The)

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BLACKSMITH AND HIS SON, THE. Irish, Air (2/4 time). A Dorian. Standard tuning (fiddle). One part. "A jocular song was sung to this" (Joyce). The last two bars are the chorus. The melody resembles "Duke of Athole (1) (The), which appeared in Niel Gow's Second Collection (1788). The march from Igor Stravinsky's "Trois Pièces faciles," composed in December, 1914, is based on this tune (see Richard Taruskin, Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions , 1996, p. 1473). The tune is never really quoted, notes Taruskin, "but haunts the March in the guise of minimal motives that recur frequently, at once supplying thematic material and mapping out the composition's tonal terrain."

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Joyce (Old Irish Folk Music and Songs), 1909; No. 486, p. 269.

Recorded sources:

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