Annotation:Duke of Athole's Delight (The)
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DUKE OF ATHOLE'S DELIGHT. Scottish, Strathspey. G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB and 8 variations. The composition has been credited to Joseph Reinagle (1762-1825), although it is unattributed in Gow's First Collection (1784). Reinagle was the son of a German music teacher. He forsook the navy after only one voyage, and next failed at the goldsmithing trade in Edinburgh, and finally received his father's permission to let him be a musician. This he succeeded at, first mastering the trumpet, and then, when his health compelled him to forsake the wind instrument, cello and violin. Reinagle became concert director in Edinburgh (where Nathaniel Gow was a cello student of his), then, in 1789, he went to Dublin and finally to London in 1791, where he played in several of the best orchestras, mainly on the cello. In fact, he published several works for the instrument as well as a Concise Introduction to the Art of Playing the Violoncello, which went through four additions. The Duke of Athole was a patron of Gow and took the fiddler to London to entertain when he sat at the House of Lords.
Source for notated version:
Printed sources: Carlin (The Gow Collection), 1986; No. 43. Gow (The First Collection of Niel Gow's Reels), 1784 (revised 1801); pp. 34-35.
Recorded sources:
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