Annotation:Horse Grenadier March (The)
Back to Horse Grenadier March (The)
HORSE GRENADIER MARCH, THE. English, American; March (cut time). D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The melody appears in the music manuscript copybook of Henry Livingston, Jr. Livingston purchased the estate of Locust Grove, Poughkeepsie, New York, in 1771 at the age of 23. In 1775 he was a Major in the 3rd New York Regiment, which participated in Montgomery's invasion of Canada in a failed attempt to wrest Montreal from British control. An important land-owner in the Hudson Valley, and a member of the powerful Livingston family, Henry was also a surveyor and real estate speculator, an illustrator and map-maker, and a Justice of the Peace for Dutchess County. He was also a poet and musician, and presumably a dancer, as he was elected a Manager for the New York Assembly's dancing season of 1774-1775, along with his 3rd cousin, John Jay, later U.S. Chief Justice of Governor of New York. The tune was also included in the c. 1820 music manuscript flute or fife collection of P. Van Schaack, of Kinderhook, N.Y., and, in drum notation, in an anonymous manuscript for a drummer, c. 1780 [University of Birmingham, Shaw-Hellier No. 287]. In Van Schaack's ms. "Horse Grenediers March" is given as an alternate title for the tune, which has "Marquis of Granby (The)" as a primary title. The march was also entered into the c. 1776-1778 music copybook of fifer Thomas Nixon Jr. [1] (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.
The can be traced to British sources, however, where it appears in publisher Peter Thompson's Compleat Tutor for the French Horn (London, 1755), Thorowgood and Horne's Compleat Tutor for the Guitar (London, 1763), and Longman & Broderip's New Instructions for the French Horn (1785).
Source for notated version:
Printed sources:
Recorded sources: