The four categories for this series are: (1) simple examples of rising lines, with appropriate focal tones; (2) play of registers common in—and congenial to—the violin; (3) "long" cadences where the lower and upper registers are connected by a stepwise sequence; (4) modal tunes, or tunes showing a modal heritage.
Here I continue with tunes that mix categories (1) and (2).
"The Runaway Bride." A jig. This may be a good moment to note that, as with the many old English and French country dances, titles usually have little if any obvious relation to their music (unless texted, of course). At (a) a simple line creates focus on B4 (^3) but the register jumps upward at (b) in the violinistic pattern I describe in the first post. In the consequent phrase (a) is repeated but (b) is transformed at (c) into a simple rising cadence. The same registral pattern is repeated at (d) and (e).
"Donald Dow." Here I can thank the Highland Music Trust (link) for making available a number of collections transcribed via music notation programs (link to free downloads page). "Donald Dow" is a strathspey that could be nothing other than a violin tune. I have parsed the registers in this initial example (thicker rectangles with downward or upward pointing arrows).
As in "The Runaway Bride," the upper register follows and enables a rising cadence gesture. The strong "violin fifth"—though F4-C5 here, not open strings—with its repeated neighbor D5 (at (a) below) creates a focal tone C5 and so what I call a "primitive rising line" ^5-^7-^8, as C5-E5-F5 (beamed).
As in "David Grady's Reel" (see the first post in the series), every phrase ends with this cadence. Phrases 3 & 4, however, alter the earlier part of the phrase to make a space of the triad—at (b) and (c)—or A4-C5-F5, and by this means F5 becomes the focal note. An interesting moment at (d) brings a bit more emphasis to the bottom of the triad, so that one can hear—and in some variation a player might very well literally generate—a subsidiary line A4-G4-F4. See my small added notes in parentheses at (e).
