Annotation:Blake's Hornpipe (2)

Back to Blake's Hornpipe (2)

---

BLAKE'S HORNPIPE [2]. AKA and see Talk:The Brewer's Horse, Talk:Stony Steps. English, Hornpipe. England, Northumberland. B Flat Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. Graham Dixon (The Lads Like Beer, 1987) points out the similarity between the 1st parts of 'Stony Steps Hornpipe' and 'The Brewer's Horse', from a collection published by 19th century antiquarian William Chappell. Matt Seattle identifies Vickers' "somewhat quirky" 'Blake's Hornpipe" [2] as a version of the same tune, with the 2nd strain of Vickers' melody very similar to that of "The Brewer's Horse." The melody has been attributed to Tyneside fiddle-composer James Hill (renowned for his hornpipe), although (as the 18th century Vickers' tune attests) the melody seems to have been disseminated long before Hill shaped his version. Matt Seattle (1987) believes the attribution of the tune to Hill "can be accounted for by a conjectural scenario: W.B. Laybourn, the editor of Kohler's, got the tune from Hill, who had it from a printed or aural source (versions of "Stoney Steps" are in Offord (John of the Greeny Cheshire Way), 1985, p. 94, near identical to Kohler's, but in G Major, and A Sussex Tune Book, EFDSS, 1982), and, if he had not heard it elsewhere, assumed it to be Hill's, as it is stylistically like Hill's own compositions".

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Seattle (William Vickers), 1987, Part 2; No. 387.

Recorded sources:

---

Back to Blake's Hornpipe (2)