Kinlock Of Kinlock: A Song History
"Kinloch of Kinloch" is a melody known in English, Scottish and Irish tradition and in North America, and over the years it has been used for marches, jigs and songs alike.[1] Its name is Gaelic, and the Traditional Tune Archive glosses Kinloch as "end of the lake."[1] Following Glen, the Tune Archive dates the title "Mrs. Kinloch of Kinloch's Favorite" to John Watlen's Second Collection of Circus Tunes of 1798, and reports that Niel Gow and his sons printed the tune under that name in their Fourth Collection of 1800, crediting it to a Mr. Kinloch.[1] IMSLP's catalog entry for Gow's Fourth Collection likewise names a Mr. Kinloch among the composers whose tunes the book contains.[2] Accounts of the tune's origin differ: one account reported by the Tune Archive links the name to a Newcastle dancing master and music publisher and puts its publication around 1815, while the Archive judges the tune to be somewhat older and notes that it is sometimes credited to George Kinloch of Kinloch.[1]
J. M. W. Turner, Inverary Pier, Loch Fyne, Morning, from the Liber Studiorum, etching, aquatint and mezzotint, 1811. A Scottish loch from the years the tune spread in print, shown for the loch in its name; it has no connection to the tune.
In England the London musician Thomas Hammersley copied the tune into a manuscript book he started in 1790, the Hardy family of Dorset (Thomas Hardy's family) kept it in their music manuscripts, and the 99th Regiment used it as its march.[1] In Northumberland it carried the song "Blow the Wind Southerly," which Bruce and Stokoe printed with its tune in Northumbrian Minstrelsy in 1882.[1][3] The tune caught on in America too, appearing in George Willig's Philadelphia collection of country dances in 1812, in a volume of Edward Riley's New York Flute Melodies in 1820, and in several manuscript copybooks of the early nineteenth century.[1] Nevin's Chicago guide for drummers, fifers and buglers of 1861 even turned it into a waltz.[1]
Aubrey Atwater sets "Kinlock of Kinlock" twice in Song By Song, Vol. I, once for mountain dulcimer in DAD tuning and once for Irish tin whistle; she publishes the 132-page book herself, a gathering of old-time favorites for mountain dulcimer, banjo, whistle, guitar and voice.[4]
Sources
- The Traditional Tune Archive: "Kinloch of Kinloch" (annotation).
- IMSLP: "A Fourth Collection of Strathspey Reels, etc. (Gow, Niel)".
- Mainly Norfolk: "Blow the Wind Southerly".
- Aubrey Atwater: "Song By Song, Vol. I".
- Image: J. M. W. Turner, Inverary Pier, Loch Fyne, Morning, from the Liber Studiorum, etching, aquatint and mezzotint, 1811. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.