Key signature: Gmajor
Submitted on February 11th 2012 by Trevor Jennings.
This tune has been added to 11 tunebooks.
Also known as When War's Alarms.
Recordings of a tune by this name:
X: 1
T: When Wars Alarmes
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: reel
K: Gmaj
d2 Be A3c | BG EA GF ED | G2 G2 G>A B>c | {Bc}d2 cB B2 A2 |
d2 Be A3c | BG EA GF ED | G2 G2 G>AB>c | B2 A2 G4 :|
|: e2 e^d eB cB | c2 cB BA GE | c2 F2 B2 e2 | BA GF ~E3F |
G2 G2 Ge2d | (3dcB (3BAG GF2D | d2 Be A2 (3ABc | B2 A2 G4 :|
When Wars Alarmes
This tune is no. 372 in the William Winter's Quantocks Tune Book. William Winter was a West Country village fiddler who compiled his tune book towards the end of his long playing career, which extended from the 18th century well into the 19th.
The tune is clearly 18th century, and I believe was originally a song, perhaps a soldiers' marching song, which should give an indication of the appropriate playing speed - it is certainly not a reel tempo. Some of the ornamentation in the original manuscript is clearly vocal, particularly in the B-part, and especially in bars 5 and 6. In these bars I have changed the ornaments to make it more appropriate for instruments, and in any case an accurate transcription of the original ornaments (which may have been transcribed by WW from an actual performance) would be difficult to read and interpret.
"When Wars Alarmes" is used in the 14th track of the Spiro Band's new album "Kaleidophonica", published on 20th February 2012.
The William Winter's Quantocks Tune Book is published by Halsway Manor Society, ISBN 978-0-9556397-0-8, and is regularly updated as more information comes to light about the music therein, some of which has remained unknown since William Winter's death in the mid-19th century until the manuscript was discovered a few years ago.
# Posted on February 11th 2012 by Trevor Jennings
When Wars Alarmes
If anyone would like to play bar 6 of the B-part as it is in the manuscript here it is in ABC (if I've done the conversion right):
{d}c>B {B}A>A GF2D
# Posted on February 13th 2012 by Trevor Jennings
When Wars Alarmes
An amendment to my initial post - although I am correct in believing this was from the 18th century it was not in fact a marching song, but a love song of a maiden bewailing the departure of her beloved to the wars. (Incidentally, this revised understanding should slow down the tempo of the tune from that of a march to that of an air.)
The song comes from Richard Brinsley Sheridan's play "The Camp", Act I Scene ii, in which Nan, the forsaken maiden, is in a military camp disguised as a soldier in order to find William, her lover. Nan sings,
When war's alarms enticed my Willy from me,
My poor heart with grief did sigh:
Each fond remembrance brought fresh sorrow on me;
I waked ere yet the morn was nigh.
No other could delight him;
Ah! why did I e'er slight him,
Coldly answering his fond tale?
Which drove him far,
Amid the rage of war,
And left silly me thus to bewail.
But I no longer, though a maid forsaken,
Thus will mourn like yonder dove;
For ere the lark to-morrow shall awaken,
I will seek my absent love:
The hostile country over,
I'll fly to seek my lover,
Scorning every threatening fear:
Nor distant shore,
Nor cannons' roar,
Shall longer keep me from my dear.
A brief historical background to the play:
In the 1770s there was the possibility of a French invasion of Britain, in connection with the problems of the secession of the American colonies, matters which were taken very seriously throughout the country. Sheridan wrote the play in 1778 as a commentary. It was a sell-out in Drury Lane.
Thomas Linley the younger (1756-1778) was an outstanding musician and composer of the time and composed music for his brother-in-law Sheridan's opera "The Duenna" in 1775. It is therefore possible that Linley composed the music for "The Camp", including the song "When Wars Alarmes", but this is difficult or even impossible to verify because a lot of Linley's work was destroyed in the Drury Lane Fire of 1809.
"When Wars Alarmes" is William Winter's spelling of the original. Spelling was not his strong point.
# Posted on February 21st 2012 by Trevor Jennings
When Wars Alarmes
I've been told there is a very slightly different version of the tune where there's a D-nat instead of a D# in the first bar of the B-part. Convenient for the D-G box where the D# (E-flat) is nearly as far away from the E as it can get (but the E-flat and E are both pull, anyway, so it's not all that important).
# Posted on February 25th 2012 by Trevor Jennings