Annotation:How can I be sad on my wedding day?

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HOW CAN I BE SAD ON MY WEDDING-DAY? Scottish, Air. G Major (Oswald): D Major (Manson). Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (Manson): AABBCCDD (Oswald). The tune was used by poet and writer Allan Ramsay in his ballad opera The Gentle Shepherd published in 1725 (but not performed until later), which predated John Gay's famous Beggar's Opera by three years. The air was also used in Mitchell's ballad opera The Highland Fair, or the Union of the Clans (London, 1731). It also appears in the Scottish MacFarlane manuscript (Edinburgh, 1740), a set of three volumes written for Walter McFarlan by David Young, containing both Lowland and Highland Scottish music set for fiddle.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Manson (Hamilton's Universal Tune Book, vol. 2), 1846; p. 44. Oswald (Caledonian Pocket Companion, vol. V), 1760; p. 12.

Recorded sources:




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