Annotation:Miss Brander (2)
X:1 T:Miss Brander’s Reel [2] C:Donald Grant M:C| L:1/8 R:Reel B:Donald Grant – Collection of Strathspeys, Reels, Jigs &c. (1820-21, p. 25) B:The volume was perhaps first issued c. 1790, from a penciled note in a copy. N:The collection was dedicated to Mrs. Col. Grant of Grant (“Sir James and N:Lady Grant of Grant”). S:https://digital.nls.uk/special-collections-of-printed-music/archive/105814079 Z:AK/Fiddler’s Companion K:Bb d|B2 FB DB,FD |Cc-cB ABcd|B2 FB DB,FD|GcFA B2B:| d|B2 df Bfdf|edcB ABcd|B2 df fBdf|ecBA B2 Bd| B2 df Bfdf|edcB ABcd|BFGE DB,FD|GcFA B2B||
MISS BRANDER [2]. AKA - "Miss Brander's Reel." AKA and see "Sir Robert Peel." Scottish, Reel (cut time). B Flat Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB. "Miss Brander's Reel [2]" was composed by Elgin fiddler-composer biography:Donald Grant" and published in his Collection of Strathspeys, Reels, Jigs &c. (1820-21). The Brander family, for whom Grant composed several tunes in his collection, were members of the intertwined Moray aristocracy from whom Grant sought patronage. For example, Sir Archibald Dunbar of Northfield, Baronet, succeeded his father, and married 6th November, 1794, first, Helen Penuel Cumming, second daughter of Sir Alexander Penrose Gordon Cumming of Altyre and Gordonstown, Baronet, by his wife Helen, daughter of Sir Ludovick Grant of Grant, and grand-daughter of James Earl of Findlater and Seafield, by whom he had sixteen children. Helen died in 1819, and Sir Archibald subsequently married, in 1822, Mary, daughter of John Brander, Esq. of Pitgaveny, by whom he had three children, two sons and a daughter. Mary may or may not be the "Miss Brander" named in the title of this composition, but Grant composed tunes for all the above named.
A version of the the reel appears under the title "Sir Robert Peel" in Stewart-Robertson's Athole Collection (1884) with a cognate first strain and a second strain that is harmonically congruent and uses very similar melodic material.
