Annotation:Captain McDuff (1)
Tune properties and standard notation
CAPTAIN MACDUFF/McDUFF [1]. AKA - "Captain MacDuff's." Scottish, Reel. A Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (Surenne): AAB (Athole, Gow, McGlashan, Skye): AABB' (Kerr). Composed by Daniel Dow, an Edinburgh composer and music teacher who lived from 1732 to 1783, perhaps most famous as the composer of "Money Musk." Dow published a collection of Scots tunes called Thirty-seven new reels and strathspeys (1775) which appears to be the first collection to include the word "strathspey" in its title. His family is known to have stayed in Strathardle and his son (John Dow) was born at Kirkmichael. Dow, whose first name has been given as Daniel or Donald (both acceptable translations for the Gaelic 'Domhnull') was buried in the Canongate Kirk, Edinburgh on January 20th, 1783. The earliest printing of "Captain MacDuff" was Dow's c. 1775 collection (p. 6), according to John Glen (1891). In the opinion of Mr. Troup of Ballater (as cited by David Baptie in Musical Scotland, Past and Present, 1894, p. 46) "Captain MacDuff's" is among the dozen or so of Dow's best compositions.
Source for notated version:
Printed sources: Carlin (The Gow Collection), 1986; No. 418. Gow (Complete Repository), Part 3, 1806; p. 27 (appears as "Captain Macduff's Reel"). Kerr (Merry Melodies), vol. 2; No. 171, p. 20. MacDonald (The Skye Collection), 1887; p. 27. McGlashan (A Collection of Reels), c. 1786; p. 28. Stewart-Robertson (The Athole Collection), 1884; p. 22. Surenne (Dance Music of Scotland), 1852; p. 61.
Recorded sources: