Down The Brae: A Song History

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"Down the Brae," which the Traditional Tune Archive catalogs as "Doon the Brae" ("Down the Hill"), is a march that the archive classes as originally Scottish and also Irish.[1] The archive names no composer and regards where the melody came from as still unresolved.[1] Irish players have known it under other titles, among them "The Old Crossroads" and "The Clans," or "March of the Clans."[1]

Photograph of a still river between steep wooded banks and dark rocks

Captain Horatio Ross, River Landscape, Scotland, albumen print from wax paper negative, c. 1858. Shown for its Scottish river banks; it has no connection to the tune.

The tune has also served contra dancers: it is sometimes played for the dance "The Grand March," and in New England it has been used for "British Sorrow."[1] The recordings the archive lists include the Liverpool Ceili Band's Champions Twice (1965), where it is called "The Clans"; Fennig's All Stars' Saturday Night in the Provinces (1975); and Rodney Miller's New England Chestnuts 2 (1981), as "Rocks of Brae."[1] It is printed in The Portland Collection (1997), in a version taken from Maria Flasca, a banjo and piano player in Portland.[1] A piece titled "Down The Brae," in separate melody and harmony parts in DAD tuning and with no composer named, appears in Maureen Sellers's Simply Duets, a collection of older songs arranged for mountain dulcimer duet, published by Fingers Of Steel; its identification with this march rests on the shared title.[2]

Our book that contains the song "Down The Brae"

Sources

  1. Traditional Tune Archive: "Doon the Brae".
  2. Fingers Of Steel: "Maureen Sellers, Simply Duets".
  3. Image: Captain Horatio Ross, River Landscape, Scotland, albumen print from wax paper negative, c. 1858. The Cleveland Museum of Art.

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