Annotation:Lord MacDonald (4)
X:1 T:Lord Macdonald's Reel [4] M:C| L:1/8 R:Reel B:Gow - 3rd Collection of Niel Gow's Reels, 3rd ed., p. 9 (orig. 1792) Z:AK/Fiddler's Companion K:G B|Td3e d>Bg>B|dBgB aAAB|Td^cde dBgB|(A/B/)c TBA BG G:|| B|DGBG TAGBG|DGBG TAGAB|DGBG TAGBG|DEDC B,G,G,G| DGBG TAGBG|DGBG TA>GEc|BAGF GFED|TE>FGA BGG|| |:B|Td3e d>Bg>B|dBgB aAAB|Td^cde dBgB|(A/B/c) TBA BG G:|| g|(dg)bg T(ag)bg|(dg)bg T(ag)bg|(dg)bg T(ag)bg|Td>edc BGGg| (dg)bg T(ag)bg|(dg)bg T(ag)ea|(ba).g.f (gf).e.d|efga bggb|]
LORD MACDONALD('S REEL) [4] ("Cor an Tigearna Mic Domnaill" or "An Tiarna Mac Dónaill). AKA and see "Lady MacDonald's (1) (Reel)," "Lady McDonald's Reel," "Petit Bucheux (Le)," "Little Peggy (1)," "Little Peggy's Love (1)," "Lord McDonald (1)," "MacDonald's Reel," "McDonald's Reel (1)," "John MacDonald's Reel," "Miss Jackson's," "Morag Nighean Domhnuill Duinn (Marion Brown Donald's Daughter)," "Petit Bûcheux (Le)," "Sets canadiens (1)," "Slanty Gart," "Tavern Reel (The)," "Virginia Reel (1)" (Ford). Scottish, Canadian; Reel. Canada; Prince Edward Island, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. G Major (most versions): A Mixolydian (Cranford). Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (O'Neill/1001, Surenne): AAB (Balmoral, Breathnach, Honeyman, Hunter, Kerr): ABB (Cranford): ABC (Miller & Perron/1977): ABCB (O'Malley): ABCD (Miller & Perron/2006, Taylor): AABB (Brody, Huntington): AABC (Martin & Hughes, Skinner): AABBCC (John Gow, S. Johnson): AABCCD (Athole, Skye, Gow): ABB'CC' (O'Neill): AA'BB'CC'D (Perlman). One of the most famous folk fiddle melodies, composed by Sir Alexander MacDonald (1744-1795), 1st Lord MacDonald (according to some, a few days before his death), and first published around the year 1790; it appears in the Gow's 3rd Collection of Niel Gow's Reels (1792). "Lord Macdonald's Reel" was printed in John and Andrew Gow's A Collection of Slow Airs, Strathspeys and Reels (London, c. 1795). Andrew (1760-1803) and younger brother John (1764-1826) established a publishing business in London in 1788 and were the English distributors for the Gow family musical publications. From that beginning the tune was quickly assimilated throughout Scottish tradition and disseminated wherever the Scots emigrated.
Sir Alexander was an amateur fiddler who composed several tunes extent in 18th century collections. See also his "London Highland Society (The)" (Gow, 3rd Collection, 1792). He was a friend and dinner partner of Samuel Johnson in London, to whom he had been introduced by James Boswell (Laird of Auchenleck and Johnson's anamnesis) while on their famous journey to Scotland and the Isles in 1772 (Macdonald presented Johnson with verses written in Latin during the visit to Armidale, Skye). Macdonald, who was the 9th Baronet of Sleat, was created in 1776 Baron Macdonald of Slate in the County of Antrim in the Peerage of Ireland; a pretence, as the territorial designation was Sleat on the Isle of Skye, County Inverness. Lord Macdonald married Elizabeth Diana Bosville, the daughter of Godfrey Bosville, with whom he had seven sons and three daughters. Despite being a Highland laird, Macdonald was educated at Eton and served with the Grenadier Guards. He was also a Deputy Lieutenant of Inverness-shre and a Brigadier General in the Royal Company of Archers.
"Lord Macdonald's Reel" can be found in many North American traditions; for example, see the closely related tunes and notes for the American "Leather Britches" and the French Canadian tunes "Reel de l'enfant" (2nd strain), Wilfred Guillette's "Reel des jigeur" (Stepdancer's Reel), "Reel à quatre (Le)," Georges Frappier's "Sets canadiens (1)," and Louis Boudreault's "Reel McDonnell." Ken Perlman, who researched the fiddle music of Prince Edward Island, Canada, notes that it was in the old days the most requested tune of fiddlers by stepdancers throughout much of the island, attesting to its popularity there. He calls it "the most played 'good old tune' on PEI and states that it was at one time the benchmark by which fiddlers were measured. Cape Breton fiddler Jerry Holland's version, in A Mixolydian, is a pipe setting learned from his father. An American variant is "Leather Britches/Breeches," especially the 2nd and 4th parts of the Scottish versions printed by Gow and others. One of the oddest appearances of the tune is on the barrel organ from the polar expedition of Admiral Parry of 1819. In place of a ship's fiddler (common in those days), Parry introduced a mechanical barrel organ on board ship to provide entertainment and a vehicle to which the men could exercise (i.e. by dancing). "Lord MacDonald's Reel" was one of eight tunes on barrel no. 5.
See more versions of the tune at "Lord McDonald (1)." See also the Irish variants "Noon Lasses (The)" and "Tavern Reel (The)." See also the many Québécois variants under the additional titles "Petit Bûcheux (Le)," "Reel à Pataud," "Gigue à Ti-Zoune," "Reel McDonnell," "Reel St-Émile," "Reel d'Amqui" and Reel à Célestin à Jos."
