Annotation:Lady Gordon of Gordonstown's Reel
LADY GORDON OF GORDONSTOWN'S REEL. Scottish (originally), Canadian; Reel. Canada, Cape Breton. C Mixolydian. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. "Lady Gordon of Gordontown's Reel" was composed by fiddler-composer William Morrison, published in his c. 1813 collection (Inverness, Scotland) dedicated to Lady Seaforth. The estate of Gordonstown is near Elgin. Lady Gordon of Gordonstown was Mary, the eldest daughter of William Glendonwyn, Esq., of Glendonwyn, who married in 1801 James Gordon 8th of Letterfourie, 7th Baronet of Gordonstoun, a son of the 2nd Earl of Huntly.
The tune was later entered into the huge 19th century music manuscript collection of dairy farmer, miller, sometime printer and bookbinder, and fiddler James Barry (1819-1906) of Six Mile Brook, Pictou County, northern Nova Scotia. Barry borrowed music books when he could for his copybook, a usual practice among musically literate rural musicians, and copied much (if not all) of Morison's volume, which was fairly rare. Barry also entered Morison's "Lady Gordon of Gordonstown's Strathspey" as the companion tune.
The reel was originally written in the key of C Minor, but in Cape Breton it is usually played in the Mixolydian mode according to Paul Stewart Cranford (1995). The melody was played by influential Cape Breton fiddler Angus Chisholm.
