Annotation:Lochiel's Rant

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LOCHIEL'S RANT. AKA - "Lochiel's Reel." AKA and see "Lochiel's Awa' to France," "On the Sly." Scottish (originally), Canadian; Reel. Canada, Cape Breton. A Dorian. Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB. John Glen (1891) finds the earliest appearance of this tune, which has been described as a 'pipe reel', in print in Robert Bremner's 1757 collection (p. 44), although this seems to have been predated by a year in London publisher David Rutherford's Rutherford's Compleat Collection of 200 of the Most Celebrated Country Dances (London, 1756, p. 64). Another early appearance is in the 1768 (James) Gillespie Manuscript of Perth (as "Lochyell's Rant"), the same version that was entered by Northumbrian musician William Vickers into his 1770 music manuscript ("Lochhails Real"). The first strain is very similar to that of the reel "Laurel Bush (The)/Laurel Tree," and the first strains of the even larger "Reel of Bogie (1) (The)" family of dorian mode tunes. On Cape Breton, Alex Gillis and the Inverness Serenaders were the first to record the tune.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Bremner (Scots Reels), c. 1757; p. 44. Kerr (Merry Melodies, vol. 1), c. 1880; Set 12, No. 4, p. 9. Mulhollan (Selection of Irish and Scots Tunes), Edinburgh, 1804; p. 19. Stewart-Robertson (The Athole Collection), 1884; p. 254.

Recorded sources: Rounder Records 7052, Buddy MacMaster - "The Cape Breton Tradition" (2003).

See also listing at:
Alan Snyder's Cape Breton Fiddle Recording Index [1]

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