Wild Rose Of The Mountain waltz

I have just spent an afternoon internet researching this lovely slow aire that someone brought to The Alice early this year.

When I went looking for a recording of it, I found it on the Brendan Lynch (Ireland) CD “Tunes from the Hearth”. I downloaded the track and started learning it. As I’ve been learning it I have been fascinated by the format of the tune. His version seems quite complex. He seems to play the A part 4 times (with variations), and the B part 4 times (wih variations), and he plays it twice through. The blurb for the track says its Shetland. After the discussions about differences in the various Celtic traditions, I wondered if this was a feature of Shetland tunes, so I started out to look.

It transpires that the tune was actually composed by John Mason in the mid 1900’s. He comes from Orkney, and is the Musical Director and driving force behind the Scottish Fiddle Orchestra. They toured Oz in 2004, which is probably how the tune got to be popular over here.

The sheet music for the tune is in ‘Ceol na Fidhle, Vol 4’ (if I wanted to buy it), and I was able to download the ABC (except I still don’t know how to read ABC’s and don’t really want to learn, prefering to listen instead).

It’s been recorded by John McCutcheon (Hammer dulcimer), Carol Thompson (Harp), who says the tune is ‘traditional Irish’, and by Trevor Hunter (Fiddle) on his CD “From Shetland” (that I will simply have to buy), which is probably why Brendan Lynch noted it as Shetland.

I even found out that the Carol Thompson rendition was played at 8.51pm, 17/3/04 on WNYC, New York, and the tune was played in Montreal on 26/6/01.

This is interesting stuff, but it doesn’t answer my original question, and it raises more.

Is this an Orcadian tune?
Or is it Scottish, Shetland or Irish?
What would make it one or the other?
Does it demonstrate how modern tunes cross cultural boundaries and end up in more than one Celtic tradition? Or does it just demonstrate my ignorance?

Somehow, it doesn’t sit right to play this tune without understanding. Is the structure unusual or what?

Can anyone help with this one?
Cheers

I think it is very likely there are two tunes with this title. I think the John McCutcheon recording predates the 1990’s and is a traditional tune from America.

Good Luck.

I have just checked and the John Mason tune (in Vol 1 not Vol 4) is not the tune recorded by John McCutcheon.

Good Luck.

Scottish/Irish air/waltz composed by John Mason, Orkney fiddleplayer, Musical Director and driving force of the Scottish Fiddle Orchestra, in the mid 20th century. The ABC’s were copied from http://www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/WIA_WIM.htm#WILD_ROSE_OF_THE_MOUNTAIN_[3]
Transcription - Steve Wyrick.

Been learning it from the Brendan Lynch (Ireland) CD, Tunes by the Hearth. This version is faster than when I heard it played first and thought I would like to learn it. Lynch seems to play it differently from the standard AAB parts given by Wyrick. It’s got some tricky D sharps and its easy to get lost in the repeats (AAAABBBBAAAABBBB (well, that’s what it seems to be).

Don’t really know whether the tune belongs here, but it is lovely anyhow.

There is only a v-e-r-y basic resemblance to the transcribed tune.

Now its in the tunes section, I’ll never know! What a shame!

Jan, I’d say you have a fair amount of “understanding” to build on for playing this waltz. I haven’t heard a recorded version of this, but your transcription is clear enough. Yes, it’s a Scottish-sounding waltz. Sounds good with a Scots sense of timing (a bit on the dotted side) and ornamentation (cut notes, notey rolls).

No reason to suspect it should be played as anything other than a waltz written by a fiddler from Orkney….

P.S. Track notes on albums are notoriously full of half-truths and misinformation. Bear in mind that this is an aural tradition, so sources and composers and countries of origin are often lost in transit. It’s not at all unusual for a good tune to cross international borders and musical genres, or for players to adapt it to suit their own tastes, including changing the sequence of parts when it’s played.

Thanks Will, if I didn’t have reports to put out and some pretty darn good fantasy landscape assignments to mark (better than I could do meself, but don’t tell them that), I’d ponder some more on it. But Brendan Lynch does not seem to play it heavily dotted (to my ear, anyhow) and it has a march feel about it although it fits 3/4 timing, with some beautiful string crossings, sometimes C #, sometimes C natural, a couple of D#’s that you come down to instead of D. I just love it (if I ever get it), it’s so intriguing.

That’s a really interesting tune. Thanks Old Scraper! I played it during the last session after a Waltz called Flatbush Waltz, which sounds a bit Scandinavian. If you play this one afterwards, in speeding up a bit, it’s very effective.

The Flatbush Waltz may or may not sound like a Scandinavian tune, but is as far as I know a Jewish Klezmer tune, composed comparatively recently by the Klezmer musician Andy Statman who has, or had, a band in America. I think Flatbush is an urban area in or around New York.
The best recording and setting of “Wild Rose…” that I’ve heard was that played by the fiddler Chuck Fleming on - I think - a record he made with singer / songwriter / guitarist Gerry Kaley in the 1980’s called “Shake Loose The Border”. It differs from the sheet music and dare I say I think it improves on it - I’d think so even if the sheet was the tune as it was ogiginally composed.
It goes roughly as follows (I’ve imagined it here in G, that is with the high and low F’s played sharp, though I don’t remember in what key it was played on the album mentioned):

B A|:G4 (3BAG|A2 G2 A2|B2 c2 d2|e2 f2 g2|d3 c B2|A3 G F2|E6 |F4
D2|G4 (3BAG|A2 G2 A2|B3 c d2|e2 f2 g3|d4 c B2|cB AG
F/G/A/F/|G6 |G4 B A :|G4 dc||

|:B4 d2|c4 d2|f3 e f2|g2 d2 B2|e3 f g2|d3 c B2|A3 a ag|f2 e2 dc|B2
d2 B2|c4 d2|f3 g/f/ ef|g2 d2 B2|e3 c dB|cB AG F/G/A/F|G6 |G4 d2:||
|G5 ~||

The tune lends itself easily to spontaneous variation and ornamentation.
If I’ve messed up / not done justice to Chuck’s version, I hope for forgiveness on that score.

Composed by John Mason (1940 - 2011), a solicitor from Orkney who founded the Scottish Fiddle Orchestra in 1980 and directed it till his death.

I believe John Mason spent much of his life in mainland Scotland and there built up the Scottish Fiddle Orchestra. A few years ago the Fiddle Orch. came up to Orkney and by all accounts they played pretty well.