Annotation:Grenadier's March (1)

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GRENADIER'S MARCH [1]. English, March (cut time). C Major Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. This march first appears in the seventh edition of John Playford's Dancing Master [1], printed in London in 1686, and was retained in the long-running Dancing Master series of editions through the 18th and final, of 1728. It was a popular march and was printed often, but it seems to have been first set as an air, called "A New Song on the Coronation of King James II., beginning, 'Hail! thou mighty Monarch, James'," performed on St. George's Day, April 23rd, 1685. The music is also given in the publication Loyal Songs (1685, p. 224) [see William Chappell, The Roxburghe ballads, Volume 2, Part 2, 1885).

The march was played in the War of the Spanish Succession notes Winstock (1970). The march was also entered into the c. 1776-1778 music copybook of fifer Thomas Nixon Jr. [2] (1762-1842), of Framingham, Connecticut. Nixon was a thirteen-year-old who accompanied his father to the battles of Lexington and Concord, and who served in the Continental army in engagements in and around New York until 1780, after which he returned home to build a house in Framingham. The copybook appears to have started by another musician, Joseph Long, and to have come into Nixon’s possession.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Winstock (Songs and Music of the Redcoats), 1970.

Recorded sources:

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