Annotation:Fetteresso House
X:1 T:Fetteresso House M:6/8 L:1/8 R:Jig B: John Morison - A Collection of New Strathspey Reels, with a few favourite Marches (Edinburgh, c. 1797, No. 21) N:Organist and fiddler Morison (1772-1848) was from Peterhead, Aberdeenshire, the easternmost point in Scotland, on the North Sea. Alburger notes that failing fortunes forced him to diversify: he also organized balls and ran a ship's chandlery. F:https://www.google.com/books/edition/A_Collection_of_New_Strathspey_Reels_wit/Vo-EymUbJkYC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22john+morison%22+%22new+strathspey+reels%22%C2%A0&pg=PP1&printsec=frontcover K:F A|F2A AFA|Bcd dcB|AFA BGB|AFA GEC| TF2A AFA|Bcd efg|fed {d}c2B|AFF F2:| |:e|fcf fga|gdg gab|bag fga|gec c2e| fcf fga|bag fec|dfd {d}c2B|AFF F2:|
FETTERESSO HOUSE. Scottish, Jig (6/8 time). F Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. "Fetteresso House" was composed by John Morison (1772-1848), a fiddler and, for a time, organist at St. Peter's Chapel, Peterhead. Morison was from Peterhead, Aberdeenshire, the easternmost point of Scotland and a port town on the North Sea. He had a small fiddle band for playing dances, but he supported himself, as many musicians did, with diversification. Alburger notes he also organized balls and ran a ship's chandlery; he also tuned pianos and organs and copied out music, but eventually he went bankrupt (at least once). Morison published two collections; the first around 1797 and the second in 1815.
Fetteresso Castle is a 14th-century tower house, rebuilt in 1761 as a Scottish Gothic style Palladian manor. Late in the 17th century, the Duff family controlled Fetteresso and expanded the building around the old tower house. The Chevalier St George or Old Pretender stayed in the house during the 1715 Jacobite rising, and was acclaimed King James VIII/III by the Earl of Mar in the courtyard. With the failure of the rising the house was forfeited and passed through the hands of the infamous York Buildings Company and eventually into the family of Vice Admiral Robert Duff. They substantially rebuilt the house by 1808 into the outward form as a ‘castle’ with crenellations that it is today, and lived in it until the Second World War.
Morison composed several tunes for members of the Duff family of Fetteresso, which was held at the time of publication of his first collection by Robert William (Duff) Duff of Fetteresso (1767-1834). His c. 1797 New Strathspeys volume was dedicated to Mrs. Duff.
