Annotation:Miss Susan Gordon's Reel--Fochabers
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MISS SUSAN GORDON('S REEL--FOCHABERS). Scottish, Reel. F Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. Composed by William Marshall (1748-1833). According to biographer Moyra Cowie (The Life and Times of William Marshall, 1999), Miss Susan Gordon was the illegitimate daughter of a housekeeper’s daughter, Jean Christie, and Marshall’s employer, Alexander, the 4th Duke of Gordon. Confusingly, Susan Gordon (b. 1774) was also the name of a legitimate daughter of the Duke and his first wife, Jane Maxwell, while the Duke's second wife was named Jane (or Jean) Christie, whom he married in 1820 (there were no children from the second marriage).
Source for notated version:
Printed sources: Gatherer (Gatherer’s Musical Museum), 1987; p. 12. MacDonald (The Skye Collection), 1887; p. 149. Marshall, Fiddlecase Edition, 1978; 1822 Collection, p. 50. Stewart-Robertson (The Athole Collection), 1884; p. 223.
Recorded sources: Rounder 7059, Alex Francis MacKay with Gordon MacLean – “Gaelic in the Bow” (2005).
See also listing at:
Alan Snyder's Cape Breton Fiddle Recordings Index [1]