This is a set of two well-known Scottish retreat marches in 3/4 time. Played as a mandolin quartet (two mandolins, mandocello, tenor guitar -- second mandolin harmony coming in on the repeats) using a setting by Peter Macfarlane for the Vermont Fiddle Orchestra: https://cvsfc.org/VFOtunes/2020Apr/G...aruel-Lead.pdf http://www.cvsfc.org/VFOtunes/2020Ap...mpaniment1.pdf Mid-Missouri M-0W mandolin (x2) Suzuki MC-815 mandocello Vintage Viaten tenor guitar https://youtu.be/a-EXbXv5Ngg I believe Glendaruel is not far from John Kelly's home! Martin
Ah, Martin, you are becoming more of a Scot with every new posting! This is a fine set of retreat marches you have put together here and you have done a fine job with the arrangement you have chosen. The Green Hills of Tyrol is actually a transcription of a tune from Rossini's opera William Tell. It was transcribed for the pipes by a Scottish piper, John MacLeod, at the time of the Crimean War; It had lyrics added to it by the late Andy Stewart, the Scottish singer and entertainer and he called it A Scottish Soldier. It achieved world-wide success in the early 1960s not only in Scotland but was a No 1 hit in Canada and Australia among other places! The Dream Valley of Glendaruel is a composition by Pipe Major John McLellan, DCM, of Dunoon. John McLellan also wrote poetry and actually put lyrics to this tune. There are three verses to it and we used to perform it locally here when our band, The Old Bores, was playing regularly. You are right that Glendaruel is not very far from my home and is indeed a beautiful part of Cowal. Other pipe tunes featuring the name are The Glendaruel Highlanders and The Sweet Maid of Glendaruel.
Silly question: what is a retrreat march? Anyway, fine music, nicely aranged and played.
Thanks, John and Christian. I should also re-record The Battle Is Over, another famous retreat march -- there's a nice Dave Swarbrick arrangement for fiddle. Nigel has a setting which I recorded all the way back in 2010, 12 years ago, also on the Mid-Mo: https://youtu.be/cW0bv8wISyg There's a good explanation of the origin of retreat marches here: https://pipingpress.com/2017/01/25/o...t-march-began/ In brief, a "retreat march" has nothing to do with a defeated army retreating. Rather, it's a tune played during "retreat", the end of each duty day in the army ("reveille" is the beginning of the day). Originally, this was marked by a drum corps, but gradually the Highland regiments were permitted to supplement the drums with pipers. Military regulations of the day specified that the drum pattern at retreat was in a three-beat rhythm. They didn't say anything about what the pipes should play, so a retreat march became any slow-ish pipe tune with a strong drum rhythm in three, i.e. either in 3/4 or 9/8. Martin
I agree with Christian, fine music, regardless of what a ‘retreat march’ actually is.
And now I know what a retreat march is! Thank you for the information and the nice examples. This is a lovely set.
Thanks for bringing this to the top, Dennis. Lovely recording, Martin.
