Hewlett: A Song History
"Hewlett" is usually attributed to the blind Irish harper Turlough O'Carolan (1670–1738), though the man it honors is a mystery; the Traditional Tune Archive states plainly that Hewlett has not been identified.[1] The earliest printing the Archive lists is Edward Bunting's 1809 collection of Irish music, where the air appears in E-flat major as "Hulet's Health," a toast to its subject's hospitality.[1] Bunting gave no source for the melody, although in 1792 he had taken down verses said to belong to it from Blind Billy O'Malley of Louisborough, County Mayo.[1]
Harp, wood, 1700s. An eighteenth-century harp, shown for Carolan's instrument; it has no connection to him.
Donal O'Sullivan, who numbered it 56 in his 1958 study Carolan: The Life, Times and Music of an Irish Harper, found no attribution of either tune or words to Carolan, yet judged both so typical of the harper that his authorship was hardly in doubt.[1] The Archive characterizes the song itself as a boisterous drinking piece.[1] As an instrumental, the Archive treats it as an air in 3/4 or 3/8 time, most often set in D major in modern versions, and lists "Planxty Hewlett" and "Fine Toast to Hewlett" among its other names.[1] The Irish tune index irishtune.info files it in D major as a piece rather than a dance tune, and marks the Carolan attribution with a question mark.[2]
In 1973 it was recorded both by Planxty on The Well Below the Valley and by the Chieftains on Chieftains 4.[1][2] Later recordings include Máire Ní Chathasaigh and Chris Newman's The Carolan Albums and harpist Therese Honey's Summer's End.[2] In New England and elsewhere it is sometimes played as a waltz at contra dances.[1] Linda Brockinton includes it in Carolan: Traditional Irish Harp Tunes For The Mountain Dulcimer, a collection of 13 of O'Carolan's harp tunes arranged in tablature for mountain dulcimer in DAD tuning.[3]
