Annotation:New High Level Hornpipe (2)

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NEW HIGH LEVEL HORNPIPE [2]. English, Hornpipe. England, Northumberland. B Flat Major ('A' part) & F Major ('B' part). Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB'. The melody has generally been attributed (in the Northumbrian Pipers Tune Book, vol. 1, 2nd edition, 1970, for one), to Robert Whinham (1814-1893), a musician, teacher, composer, dancing master and fiddler originally from Morpeth, Northumberland. Graham Dixon (1995), however, could find no verification for the attribution. The tune is usually played in the key of 'G', and is often paired with Tyneside fiddler-composer James Hill's "High Level Hornpipe (1)," says Dixon. The first strain was borrowed by Scottish bandleader Andrew Rankine and married to a different second strain for his "New High Level Hornpipe (1) (The)."

The tune appears in the mid-19th century music copybook of Northumbrian fiddler John Nichol [1].

Source for notated version: the 19th century Foster manuscript, in the Beamish Museum [Dixon].

Printed sources: Dixon (Remember Me), 1995; p. 70.

Recorded sources: Common Ground CGR002, Will Atkinson - "Mourthorgan." EAR 015-2, Joe Hutton - "Northumbrian Piper." PCCD001, Pauline Cate - "The Wansbeck Piper." Topic 12TS239, Billy Atkinson - "Bonny North Tyne" (1974). Topic TSCD 669, Will Atkinson (et al) - "Ranting and Reeling: Dance Music of the north of England" (1998).

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