Annotation:Toby Peyton (3)
X:1 T:Planxty Toby Peyton [3] L:1/8 M:6/8 Q:"Lively" S:O’Neill – Music of Ireland (680) Z:AK/Fiddler’s Companion K:Gmin c>AG GAG | FD=E F2d | c>AG GAc|d=eg f2c | d>gg g^f/g/a | g(=e/^f/g) =f(d/=e/f) |(=e/f/e/d/)c (d/_e/d/c/)A | (c/d/c/B/A/G/) ^FDC| D>GG GAG | ^FGA (A<=f)d | cAG ^FDF|G3G2 :||: E | F>ED CB,A, | G,>GG G,>GG | Gcc (c/d/c/B/A/G/) | Add d2=e|fcA fcA | Ggg g^fg | (a/b/a/g/^f/a/) (g/a/g/=f/=e/g/) | (f/g/f/=e/d/c/) (d/_e/d/c/B/A/) | fAG ^FGA | dGG ^FDF | G3G2 :|
PLANXTY TOBY PEYTON [3] ("Pleraca Teoboid Peiton" or "Planxtae Teaboid Peiton"). AKA - "Toby Peyton's Plangsty." Irish, Air or Planxty (6/8 time, "lively"). G Dorian (O'Neill): D Dorian (O'Sullivan/Bunting). Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (Complete Collection, O'Sullivan/Bunting): AABB (O'Neill). Composed by the blind Irish harper wikipedia:Turlough_O'Carolan. Bunting (1840) notes that Squire Toby Peyton, of Lisduff, County Leitrim, was "an Irish gentleman of the old school, a sportsman, convivialist, and an ardent lover of the harp." Toby died in August, 1768, at the age of 104 years and was still spry at 100, according to the harper Arthur O'Neill (1734-1818), a younger contemporary, who wrote “he...would mount his horse as active as a man of twenty, and be the first in at the death, whether it was a fox or a hare" (O’Neill, Memoirs, 1810). Harper O’Neill visited Peyton on one of his journeys while plying his trade as an itinerant harper, and said “This gentleman had a fine, unencumbered estate, and exclusive of the expenses of groceries and spices he spent the remainder of his income in encouraging national diversions, particularly harping and all other wired instruments.”
O'Neill also relates the story of the tunes origin:
The squire, meeting Carolan on horseback, said to him jocosely in Irish, 'Carolan, you ride crooked,' to which the harper, who was exceedingly sensitive in every thing touching his personal appearance, replied, 'I'll pay you for that with a crooked tune.' He accordingly composed this air, which is in truth of such a crabbed, unmanageable nature as almost to defy every rule of composition in the adaptation of a bass.