Annotation:Major McNiel's Strathspey
MAJOR McNIEL'S STRATHSPEY. Scottish, Strathspey (whole time). B Flat Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB. "Major McNiel's Strathspey" was first printed around the year 1810 by music seller Robert Purdie for his Princes Street, Edinburgh, shop on a single sheet issue (2 pages) entitled "Tom Thumb, A Favoirite Dance", together with "three new strathspeys and a reel" by biography:James Boick (Boick's name is not attached to "Tom Thumb" as it is the other tunes, although he may have been the composer). Boick's name crops up as the composer of tunes in the collections of Robert Petrie, and, later, in Hamilton's Universal Tune Book (1843) and Köhler's Violin Repository (1881-1885); John Pringle composed a strathspey for him. David Baptie (Musical Scotland, 1885), however, makes no mention of him.
