Bonaparte Crossing The Rhine march

I like to ornament this tune with plenty of triplets, especially on the A notes. This gives it almost the feel of of a Strathspey. This is one of those tunes that sounds good with a “Scottish snap”.

This is usually played in Edor on the other side of the pond

I’ve actually tried a c# in the second measure of the Bpart. It gives an unexpected surprise. though perhaps many might see it as not belonging, I have seen and heard such inflections used quite often.
has any one tried this on the pipes? I haven’t yet.

Here it is known as a nice driving fiddle/bar tune under the name of “Star of the County Down”, played as a waltz. It has a beautiful quality as a waltz and works great on the low-d whistle too.

Here’s my (untested) ABC for it, including guitar chords. This version may be sung too(lyrics below):

EG | “Am” A4 AB | “F” A3 G A2 | “C” c3 d ec | “G” d4 cd | “Am” e3 d c2 |1 “Am” A3 G E2 | “G” G6 | “Em” G4 cB :|2 “G” A4 G2 | “Am” A6-|-A4 e2 | “C” g4 e2 | e3 d c2 | “G” d4 e2 | “Em” d4 cd | “Am” e3 d c2 | A3 G E2 | “Em” G6-|-G2 c2 B2 | “Am” A4 AB | “F” A3 G A2 | “C” c3 d ec | “G” d4 cd | “Am” e3 c d2 | “G” A4 G2 | “Am” A6 | A6

Here are the lyrics:
In Banbridge Town in the County Down
One morning last July,
From a boreen green came a sweet colleen
And she smiled as she passed me by.
She looked so sweet fronn her two bare feet
To the sheen of her nut brown hair.
Such a coaxing elf, sure I shook myself
For to see I was really there.

Chorus:
From Bantry Bay up to Derry Quay and
From Galway to Dublin Town,
No maid I’ve seen like the brown colleen
That I met in the County Down.

As she onward sped, sure I scratched my head,
And I looked with a feelin’ rare,
And I say’s, say’s I, to a passer-by,
Whose the maid with the nut brown hair?
He smiled at me and he says’s, say’s he,
That’s the gem of Ireland’s crown.
It’s Rosie McCann from the banks of the Bann,
She’s the star of the County Down.

Chorus:
From Bantry Bay up to Derry Ouay and
From Galway to Dublin Town,
No maid I’ve seen like the brown colleen
That I met in the County Down.

At the Harvest Fair she’ll be surely there
And I’ll dress in my Sunday clothes,
With my shoes shone bright and my hat cocked
Right for a smile from my nut brown rose.
No pipe I’ll smoke, no horse I’ll yoke
Till my plough turns rust coloured brown.
Till a smiling bride, by my own fireside
Sits the star of the County Down.

Chorus / Repeat

Is this tune really related to “The Star of the County Down”?

I think it really rather has to be, don’t you?

“Star” and this tune do share a passing similarity, owning to the same rythym, mode and some similar melodic outlines, but there’s another song that I think bears a much closer relation to it; “ Mick Maquire“, The Clancy Brother did it a number of years ago.

The tune for “Star of the County Down”has gotten around and is sung to a number of different sets of lyrics, notably the “Lily of the West” and has even been used a hymn tune by the Catholic church in the U.S. A very similar tune was even used but English composer Ralph Vaughn Williams in a set of variations for strings.

This is much closer to the tune of a song I heard as “The Hot Asphalt”, whih is irish, but it is also a close relation to the tune of an english song “The Cuckoo’s Nest”.
There is also a suggestion that this tune has become known as “Boneparte Crossing the Rockies”, ( I know there is no historical evidence for this event ) , which is further confused by another tune, also known as “ Sherman’s March “ also being called BCtR ( both versions ).
Confused ?

The Hot Asphalt (sung by the Dubliners I think) is the same tune as the second part of some versions of the hornpipe, The Rights of Man.

It is indeed very similiar to “The Hot Asphalt”. The second part of the tune has some slightly different beginning 4 bars but the ending 4 (which repeat the last 4 of part one, not counting the triplet in this version) are the same as the way the lyrics go.

I suspect the two tunes derived from Scottish pipe march “The Battle of Waterloo.”

Actually a March instead of a Reel. I picked this one up from the Angus Sessions Podcast.

Submitted on May 17th 2001 by Jeremy.
https://thesession.org/tunes/7

& with several different sets of lyrics to this air…

Submitted on July 1st 2006 by davarm.
https://thesession.org/tunes/5915

A2 |
D>D DE DCCD | F>G AF G2 (3ABc | d>c AG AGED | C>C CD C2 (3AGE |
D>D DE DCCD | F>G AF G2 (3ABc | d>c AG AGEC | D4 D2 ||
AB |
d>c AG F>G AB | c>d cA c2 (3ABc | d>c AG AGED | C>C CD C2 (3AGE |
D>D DE DCCD | F>G AF G2 (3ABc | d>c AG AGEC | D4 D2 ||

K: A Dorian or Mixolydian
|: E>G |
A2 A>B A>GE<G | c>d (3edc d2 e>g | a>ge>d (3cBA B>A | G>AG<E G2 c>B |
A2- AB AG (3EFG | c2 e>c (3ddd (3efg | a>ge<d c>AG<E | A2 A>^G A2 :|
|: e<g |
a>g (3eed c>de>f | g>ag<e g2 c’>b | a>ge>d c2 (3cBA | G2- G>E G2 (3EFG |
(3AAA A>B A>G (GGG | c<de>c d2 (3efg | a2 (3ged c2 B<G | (3AAA A<^G A2 :|

This air is also used as an alternate air, among other songs, for “The Little Beggarman” / “My Old Rigadoo” ~

“The Auld Rigadoo” / “The Red Haired Boy” / etc…
Key signature: A Mixolydian
Submitted on February 25th 2002 by muddflat.
https://thesession.org/tunes/566

The Little Beggarman / Little Beggar Man / Old Rigadoo

I am a little beggarman a beggin’ I have been
For three score or more in this little Isle of Green
I’m known from the Liffey, down to Segue
I’m known by the name of old Johnny Dhu

Of all the trades that’s goin sure beggin’ is the best
For when a man is tired he can sit down and rest
He can beg for his supper for there’s nothin’ else to do
Only cut around the corner with his old rigadoo

~ etc…

I believe this Scots pipe march is usually played in Amix, not Dmix.

https://thesession.org/tunes/3056

On the (Great Highland) pipes, it would have to be played in Bb mix (but written in A mix).

Apart from the key, this setting appears to come straight from the pipes - there is evidence of ‘piper’s compression’ (i.e. modifying the tune to fit into the octave-and-a-note range of the pipes) in various parts of the tune: e.g. in bars 1,5 & 13, DCCD intead of DCAC.

Listen to Jim “Texas Shorty” Chancellor’s “Bonaparte Crossing the Rockies.” It’s the same tune as “Star of the County Down” only speeded up. It’s made the rounds in the US under that name, and is in the Fiddler’’s Fakebook as “Bonaparte Crossing the Rocky Mountains.” I think the main difference between “Rockies” and “Star” is that the former has a goofy little switch from minor to major for two measures in the B section.

The version of “County Down” I’m most familiar with is on the Van Morrison and the Chieftains recording. It’s got the lyrics cited here but it isn’t played as a waltz.

The Edor version of this is here https://thesession.org/tunes/1464. I’ve heard both in sessions.

Watch Julie Fowlis play this tune on the highland pipes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DYU591BKoI

play video

This is a wicked, and wickedly simple, pipe march I heard at Folkworks Summer School ‘10, I *think* from Callum McCrimmon’s mixed-instrument group. I wasn’t actually taught it, but I remember hearing it, and dancing to it, and loving it, and then just the other day I came across this video, with a bit of this tune in at 4:49 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyfxliMyj7g (sound quality’s not that great, sorry).

play video

Does anyone have a little more information on this tune?
Does anyone know if this tune’s already on here? I did all the searching I could, and didn’t come across it, but who knows…

And does anyone know its NAME??!

That’s not a pipe march. I don’t know it, and I’m glad.

😀

Some also call it “Johnny Get Up”…

It’s a comic song the air for one, and it doesn’t even work well, in my opinion, for the Gei Gordons, the dance being done to it in the clip. It might have more ancient roots, but it doesn’t ring that way in my ears, though easily marchified, or turned to 3/4 time as a waltz.

http://www.chivalry.com/cantaria/lyrics/mr-mcguire.html

Quite a few folks have given this a spin ~ Margaret Barry, The Irish Rovers, The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, to mention just a few…

Doubling the parts this way does the melody no good service…

Sense should have told you it is a classic sequence, AABA, rather than as given ~ AAAABABA…

I’m surprised Kenny didn’t recognize it…

For some reason the ABCs I’ve done for this tune are not transferring, so first, this, to see if anything is? 😏

Now to see if it’s what I suspec, that for some reason the combination of > & ^ somehow is being taken wrongly as HTML code? But let’s first try the A-part of the tune? ~

X: 2
T: Johnny Get Up
M: 2/4
L: 1/8
R: song air
K: ADor
EF/G/ |\
A>^G AB | AG EG | c>d e/d/c | d2 ef/g/ |
a>g ed | cA B>A | G>A GE | D2 cB |
A2 A>^G | AG E2 | cd ec | d2 eg |
ag ed | cA B^G | A2 A>^G | A2 ef/g/ ||

Weird, it’s the B-part it won’t accept. I’ll try one 4-bar line at a time. What’s curious, there’s not really anything I can see that would be taken as HTML code, curious… 😏

a>g ed | cd ef | g>a ge | g2 c’b |

aa/g/ ed | c>A BA | G>A BA | G2 D/E/F/G/ |

A>^G AB | AG EG | cc/d/ e/d/c | de/d/ d/e/f/g/ |

a>g ed | cc/A/ B^G | A2 A>^G | A2 |]

How weird is that?! It wouldn’t take the B-part as a whole, with or without the A-part. It wouldn’t allow it seperated into two parts, and it wouldn’t allow it seperated into four parts, with spacing, but it will accept one line at a time. So it’s no clearer why it wouldn’t take. Strange!

Thank you Kenny, wise words of wisdom as always. Next time I post a tune on this site, I’ll try and remember to put a “Kenny - disclaimer” in the comments.

Ceolachan, likewise. Although the tune to the song in the link you gave is not this tune. It’s got its similarities, sure, but certainly not close enough to warrant actually calling it the same tune.

And by the way, did either of you actually listen to the video I linked? I’m just transcribing how it was played on there.
And I was under the impression that it sounded like a pipe march. Admittedly, I am no expert on Scottish bagpipe music, so please, give me a definition of a Scottish pipe march, and show me why this isn’t one.

Thanks.

hey ceolachan there is no wonder that you have such a high post count on this site seeing as you split

your sentences

into

bitesized pieces

thus being like a spambot

cut it out man

My mistake - I only watched the beginning of the recording, and thought the first tune so awful, I didn’t watch it through to your 4mins.49 seconds. I also didn’t look at your “abcs”, which was a bit remiss of me.
The tune you’ve posted is indeed a 4/4 pipe march, known to Scottish pipers as “The Battle Of Waterloo”. It’s also used in Irish circles for several songs, such as “The Hot Ashpelt”. It’s played as a hornpipe, and called various permutations of “Napoleon Crossing The Rhine”.

https://thesession.org/tunes/7
Tune #7 !!!

https://thesession.org/tunes/1464

https://thesession.org/tunes/3056

https://thesession.org/tunes/5915

Yes, I watched the whole video, and noted the enjoyment everyone was having. It doesn’t surprise me that there are mutiples of it here, and yes, it is little different from the song, in my opinion.

ⒹⒿⒻ ~ the website wouldn’t allow me to post the B-part as a whole unit, or in parts, only as I ended up trying after many failed attempts, sadly, one 4 bar line at a time…

Good one Kenny, I mean four of course…

The first thing that came to my mind were songs, and that being a classic structure, AABA… I still think it makes a mess of it to double it to AAAABABA…

I knew it was ringing more bells than songs, but that was where I was stuck ~ hornpipes and marches… Thanks for the slap about Kenny, I needed that… Here’s more on Kenny’s links ~

A & B representing 4-bar phrase ~

Bonaparte Crossing The Rhine - hornpipe (AAAABABA)
Submitted on May 17th 2001 by Jeremy.
https://thesession.org/tunes/7

From Galway To Dublin - hornpipe (AAAABABA)
Submitted on February 24th 2003 by gian marco.
https://thesession.org/tunes/1464

Bonaparte Crossing The Alps - (AAAABABA)
Submitted on May 22nd 2004 by slainte.
https://thesession.org/tunes/3056

The Battle Of Waterloo - march (AABA)
Submitted on July 1st 2006 by davarm.
https://thesession.org/tunes/5915

& your contribution to this Joe ~ AAAABABA

I still can’t shake the songs, despite refreshing my sense of this melody swung and marched… I still don’t like it, personally, as a tune for the Gie Gordons, but there’s no denying those folks enjoying themselves, and almost any tune will do where the company is in high spirits…

“Bonaparte Crossing The Rhine” - hornpipe
Submitted on May 17th 2001 by Jeremy.
https://thesession.org/tunes/7

“From Galway To Dublin” - hornpipe
Submitted on February 24th 2003 by gian marco.
https://thesession.org/tunes/1464

“Bonaparte Crossing The Alps”
Submitted on May 22nd 2004 by slainte.
https://thesession.org/tunes/3056

“The Battle Of Waterloo” - march
Submitted on March 6th 2011 by Joe CSS.
https://thesession.org/tunes/11103

“From Galway To Dublin” - hornpipe
Submitted on February 24th 2003 by gian marco.
https://thesession.org/tunes/1464

“The Battle Of Waterloo” - march
Submitted on March 6th 2011 by Joe CSS.
https://thesession.org/tunes/11103

With my head playing musical charades with me, our computer doing the peculiar, and life’s recent potholes and mine collapses, I would do better to stick with simpler chores, like skinning and boning fish and preparing scallops for the fish pie I’m making that will feed us for the next four or more days. The growing duplications and higer repetitions on site can make ones head spin. I think though, I’ll ask one of our members if he has an ‘earliest’ date for the mother of these evolutions and mutations? That’s it, put the owness on someone else’s shoulders. I’m glad Kenny’s are broad…

Best of health to you and yours Joe, and your music too…

I’ll pull out some old tomes this weekend to browse through. This is one of those melodies that gets air time from Denmark to the Shetlands, over to The Dingle Penninsula, across to Newfoundland and Vancouver Island, and down to the Texas Pan Handle, and further south to Tasmania. In one form or another many lay claim to it. Another set of lyrics I vaguely remember being sung by an Australian friend, in a strong dialect.

The fish pie is in the oven Joe, and it’s huge, and there’s also music and dance to follow tonight.

I never said I didn’t like the air, or its many offshoots. That sort of thing is like honey to me, the history and connections, and I haven’t stopped looking since you contributed it, including revisiting those relatives Kenny has linked to. It is medicine for the pain I’m fighting now, sciatica, and doing too many things at once in an attempt to try to ignore it, an impossibility. That includes this fish pie and music, and, sorry, making a bit of a mess here as I’ve been playing through and listening to songs and marchs and the like…

Jim Malcolm used this old pipe tune for a beautiful song of the same name to open his 1998 CD “Rohallion”. He gave it an Aeolian/Dorian twist.

http://www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/

The Listowel (Bonaparte Crossing the Rhine ~ #7, as a hornpipe rather than a march
http://www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/LIAM_LITE.htm#LISTOWEL_HORNPIPE

From Galway to Dublin / The First Light of Day ~ #1464
http://www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/FROG_FY.htm#FROM_GALWAY_TO_DUBLIN_%28TOWN%29
http://www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/FIN_FIR.htm#FIRST_LIGHT_OF_DAY

http://www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/

“The Listowel Hornpipe” (Bonaparte Crossing the Rhine ~ #7, rather than the march
http://www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/LIAM_LITE.htm#LISTOWEL_HORNPIPE

“From Galway to Dublin” / “The First Light of Day” ~ #1464
http://www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/FROG_FY.htm#FROM_GALWAY_TO_DUBLIN_%28TOWN%29
http://www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/FIN_FIR.htm#FIRST_LIGHT_OF_DAY

You’ll find more links to follow and history there…

A lot of discussion about a DUPLICATION!

Yup! That too was driving me nuts with memory faults… 😏

X: 5
T: Bonaparte’s March
S: “The Roche Collection of Irish Tradtional Music”, 1927, Volume II, page 17, tune #231
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: march
K: ADor
|: E>G |\
A2 A>B A>GE>D | c>de>c d2 e>g | a>ge>d c>AG>E | G>Ec>E G2 E>G |
A2 A>B A>GE>D | c>de>c d2 e>g | a>ge>d c>AG>E | A2 A>A A2 :|
|: eg |\
a>ge>d c>de>f | g>ea>f g2 e>g | a>ge>d c>AG>E | G>Ec>E G2 E>G |
c>AB>G A>GE>D | c>de>c d2 e>g | a>ge>d c>AG>E | A2 A2 A2 :|

http://www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/index.html

http://www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/BOH_BONIN.htm#BONAPARTE_CROSSING_THE_ALPS

I hope you enjoyed your fish pie, Ceolachan.

The potatoes weren’t right and the sauce split Joe. I was having a bad day in general and this was a madly but pleasant distraction, one of those “I know this!”, but from a dyslexic’s point of view, very frustrating, but had me singing and playing music, which is always a good thing, minus the singing bit my wife suffered throguh. BUT ~ back to the fish pie ~ I brought it around and re-did the whole damn thing and it was lovely, four meals for two, so it had better be, and with scallops too.

……. third tune in this set, I like the look of the bass drummer! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6javZSp_WPI

play video

this is the setting they used IMO ;

X:1
T:March
C:Arr. Donald MacLeod
R:THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO
U:z=“@ “
L:1/8
M:C
Q:84
K:A mix
P:A
[|{g}ed/B/|{g}A2 {GdGe}A{d}B {gAd}A{e}G {g}G{d}A|{GdG}c>d {gef}ec {Gdc}d2 {g}ef/g/|\
{ag}a>g {ef}ed {gef}ed {gBd}B{e}A|{g}G>{d}G {e}G{d}A {gGd}G2 {gef}ed/B/|
|{g}A2 {GdGe}A{d}B {gAd}A{e}G {g}G{d}A|{GdG}c>d {gef}ec {Gdc}d2 {g}ef/g/|\
{ag}a>g {ef}ed {gef}ed {gBd}B{e}G|{g}A4 {GAG}A3 {gf}g|]
P:B
[|{ag}a>g {a}ed {g}c2 {GdG}ef|{gf}g>a {f}g{a}e {gf}g2 {a}ef/g/|\
{ag}a>g {ef}ed {gef}ed {gBd}B{e}A|{g}G>{d}G {e}G{d}A {gGd}G2 {gef}ed/B/|
|{g}A2 {GdGe}A{d}B {gAd}A{e}G {g}G{d}A|{GdG}c>d {gef}ec {Gdc}d2 {g}ef/g/|\
{ag}a>g {ef}ed {gef}ed {gBd}B{e}G|{g}A4 {GAG}A3|]

and an ‘interesting’ setting from the great Stuart Liddell 😎

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kC1-8mlNZ3A

play video

Here in central Arkansas, most of the local musicians who play Irish, Scottish, and/or so-called “old time music” seem to know this tune as “Bonaparte Crossing the Rocky Mountains”. Yes some of the musicians who play old time music also play at the local Irish Sessions. And they play it like the version in the Fiddler’s Fakebook. In the version from the Fiddler’s Fakebook, this tune is played in A minor except for the first eight bars of the B Part which are played with a C # sharp instead of a C natural. Then it returns to A minor for the rest of the B part.

And “Bonaparte Crossing The Rhine” is played like a march or “straight” with no swing whatsoever by the old time musicians. No, this tune isn’t played at the Irish Sessions.

Also, both tunes, no matter where they are being played, are played “AABB” and then repeated the same way.

Laurence

Here’s my version, played on solo guitar (the second tune of the medley)……..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lChb2i79CsU

play video

–Wm. Brown

Forest, Virginia, USA

Here’s Fin Moore playing the march: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWZZvZSOtnU

play video

hard to beat the Tony McMahon John Keogh version on youtube from about 1985 of Napoleon Crossing the Rhine. Both players give it all on box and keyboards.

We play this setting in Kentucky and Tennessee usually at more moderate march tempo (although some like to play it fast.) Certain parts of the tune sound like of a speeded up version of “Fields of Athenry” to me.

Hi Roads to Home,
Looks like your setting here (X: 5) is a probably a version of this march of the same name :
https://thesession.org/tunes/10620

Also can you take a look and edit the rhythm on bars 2,3,5 & 6 of the B part… Something doesn’t quite add up there 🙂

Cheers.

Thanks Steve,
In the second bar of the X:5 B part this expression “[GB]>A” doesn’t seem to convert the same way it does in Easy ABC or Mandolintab.net converter. I intended this to be two dotted 1/8th notes played as a double stop followed by a 1/16 note. That’s how it comes out in other converters but here it comes out as two dotted 1/8ths followed by a half-note… I don’t have an answer for that but it sure messes the timing up. Does anyone have an answer as to why this works this way for just this converter? Jeremy?

You can get the proper timing by pasting the ABC from X:5 into Easy ABC or the converter on mandolin.net.

Yes. It certainly seems like a problem with the converter. I’ve also pasted your abc into http://www.mandolintab.net/abcconverter.php and it does display correctly there.

The tune this sounds like is “Grace” not “Fields”, sorry.

In my céilí band, we play this tune as a march. Lovely tune, so energetic and melodic <3 🙂

A version of this tune is played as the “Caledonian March” in Orkney (and presumably other places). I’ll add it when I get the time.

Amazing the variation in this tune…This version makes me insane…in a good way…love it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxTRdAmVp_s

play video

Bonaparte Crossing The Rhine on mandolin (I mean, the tune being played on mandolin …not Napoleon surfing across the river on a mandolin):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74xrIsxL84Q

play video