Annotation:Mrs. Donaldson’s Strathspey (2)

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 MRS. DONALDSON'S STRATHSPEY [2]. AKA - "Mr. Donaldson." Scottish, Strathspey. B Flat Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB. The melody appears in both editions of Niel Gow's First Collection (1784) and his Second Collection, unattributed, and also appears in The Beauties of Niel Gow (1819), where authorship is claimed. But the second strain appears to be derived from the second strain of Daniel Dow's composition "Miss MacLean of Duart" (1774). John Glen (1895) goes so far as to call it a "bare faced plagiarism." In the opinion of Mr. Troup of Ballater (as cited by David Baptie in Musical Scotland, Past and Present, 1894, p. 46) "Mrs. Donaldson's Strathspey" is among the dozen or so of Dow's best compositions. As "Mr. Donaldson" it appears in Stewart-Roberson's Athhole Collection.  Source for notated version:  Printed sources: Gow (Second Collection of Niel Gow’s Reels), 1788, 3rd edition; p. 5.  Recorded sources:

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