From Night ’til Morn

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This is a lovely little tune that I’ve known for years – but without any background or history. I first learnt it by osmosis – but then found it in a copy of the ‘Sussex tunebook’ given to me at some stage. It’s commonly played as a polka in D – but also G and has an unusual 40-bar form which sometimes causes confusion in sessions.

From Night ’til Morn – as commonly played

The tune appears in various fiddle manuscripts in the early & mid 1800’s and also as an earlier military march with a different name (Pauve Madeleine) – but the ‘Night ’til Morn’ name eluded me.

That is until, whilst doing to research on the Rook manuscript, I got sucked into reading some background on the growth of the middle class in the early 19th century – which lead me to Jane Austen. John Rook spent a fair bit of time coaching young ladies in the playing of the piano and looking at the index of the Austen manuscripts there is certainly some crossover in repetoire. Amongst all of that can be found a version of “From Night ’til Morn” – in the key of Bb and arranged for two players / singers:

From Night Till Morn I take my glass – Jane Austen Manuscripts

Austen’s title could easily be interpreted as a drinking song but the first line of the song points to a more melancholic perspective “From Night ’til Morn I take my glass in hopes to forget my Chloe”.

This song and similar arrangements were published in the late C18th – and in many places the arrangement is attributed to William Shield – who is also responsible for the class Northumbrian Smallpipes variations to the Keel Row. A very small world indeed.

XYZ – James Hill Hornpipe?

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Reading and researching old music manuscripts takes a lot of effort and is very much a specialised interest – but just occasionally it all comes to life in unexpected ways. I was recently playing in Devon and was sharing some music with some friends, when fiddler Paul Burgess played a lovely G minor hornpipe that felt strangely familiar:

Paul had it from an 19thC manuscript as ‘A Modal Hornpipe‘ – whilst I’ve always known my version as a James Hill hornpipe called ‘XYZ‘ and commonly played in A minor a bit like this:

XYZ_snippet

I eventually found the G minor transcription in the William Irwin manuscript at the Village Music Project. Irwin was a fiddler in Langdale and two of his books dataed 1838 & 1850 were partially copied in the early C20th but the original MSS have been lost. The question then becomes which came first; Irwin’s Modal Hornpipe or Hill’s XYZ?

XYZ was a famous racehorse born in 1808 who won numerous races in the North East from 1811 to 1814. James Hill was born in c.1810 and wrote music through out his short life but many the sources and attributions to James Hill come from much later – a challenge addressed in Graham Dixon’s wonderfully presented & encyclopaedic book ‘The Lads Like Beer‘.

The tune explicitly named XYZ appears with a direct attribution to Hill in the Jock Davidson (Kielder Jock) manuscript and the Clough family manuscripts – both sources from the early C20th. Unattributed but named versions appears in both the Robert Davison and William Green manuscripts; both c.1850. The RD version titled ‘X.Y.’ is much closer to the Modal Hornpipe than many:

XY_snippet

In all of the earlier versions there are musical curiousities and what can only be called mis-transcriptions. The c.1850 version from Collingwood is transcribed in A Major and the Robert Davison version (included in the PDF) has a particular ‘double flat’ in the B part!

There’s nothing definitive in any of these manuscripts to say which (if any!) is the primary source and a good tune is still a good tune to be played and enjoyed – but I’ll still keep my ear out for such coincidences as they’re a constant joy. Here’s a PDF with three transcriptions: XYZ and Modal Hornpipe

Jock Wilson of Fenton

Posted on by Rob

Traditional music is a bit of an oddity in the music world in that the authors of tunes are rarely known and seldom recorded. Northumbrian music has long been a semi-literate tradition and composers can often be found for pieces from the 19th and 20th centuries. So while ‘Trad’ is still the standard attribution, I prefer ‘Unknown’. Someone came up with the musical idea and it’s always satisfying to find out who. In some cases however authorship can be assigned where in truth the story is perhaps more complicated.

I learnt the rant ‘Jock Wilson of Fenton’ on the concertina many many years ago from the likes of the Shepherds and Andy & Margaret Watchorn. It’s got a great rhythm and structure and I’ve always known it as a Bryce Anderson composition. Bryce was the accordion player with the Cheviot Ranters dance band and composed a great many tunes but it seems that this might not have been composed as much as adapted.

Thanks to the Village Music project, I discovered a much earlier version of the tune. For many years now the VMP has been cataloguing and transcribing all of the english fiddle manuscripts they can find. John Clare was a fiddler in Northamptonshire who wrote down many of his tunes in the first half of the 19th century. One of the many untitled tunes (#170) in the manuscript bears a striking similarity to the modern Jock Wilson. The tune was transcribed by Flos Headford who gave the tune the title ‘Jock Wilson’s Hornpipe’. Here’s the first line:

[audio:http://milecastle27.co.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/UntitledJC170Concertina2011.mp3|titles=Untitled Hornpipe (John Clare MS #170)]

A bit of further research throws up a very similar tune in Kerr’s Second Collection of Merry Melodies – No. 346 Cooper’s Hornpipe:

Different versions of Cooper’s can be found in a variety of places (it even has a touch of the Old Morpeth Rant in the B part).

[audio:http://milecastle27.co.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/CoopersHornpipeKMM2Concertina2011.mp3|titles=Coopers Hornpipe (Kerrs 2nd Merry Melodies #348)]

Jock Wilson of Fenton starts in an almost identical fashion:

The B-part diverges a bit more – starting on a minor chord but the structure is still reminiscent of Cooper’s.
[audio:http://milecastle27.co.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/JockWilsonConcertina2011.mp3|titles=Jock Wilson of Fenton (Bryce Anderson)]

Here’s the manuscript for all three tunes in full: Jock Wilson of Fenton (PDF)

In times gone by tunes were frequently renamed with local references – Jimmy Allan (Reel of Tullochgorum), Lads of North Tyne (Boys of Bluehill). This may have been to make them memorable, because the original name was unsuitable or because the original name was not known to the player. Deliberate passing off is a possibility but it’s more likely that some musicians quite simply forgot whether or not they wrote a tune. I’ve played composers’ tunes back to them and had them ask where the tune came from. Tunes also evolve when a musician knowingly changes sections of the tune – either due to replacing ‘missing’ pieces or out of musical choice, it’ll get a different name to make the distinction from the original.

So my theory is that Bryce had a bit of a tune going round his head and by the time he filled the gaps in it got recorded as his. Alternatively; somewhere somebody asked what a tune was called and was given the name “Jock Wilson of Fenton” and then further down the line someone called it “one of Bryce’s tunes”. Either way history now has it as his and it’s been distinctive and popular enough to remain in the local repetoire for at least the last 30 years.