George P. Knauff's Virginia Reels and Fiddling in the Antebellum South
Chris Goertzen and Alan Jabbour
American Music, Vol. 5, No. 2 (Summer, 1987), pp. 121-144
Chris Goertzen teaches music history and ethnomusicology at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. Alan Jabbour is director of the American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
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American fiddle tunes, while primarily an orally transmitted repertoire, have also had a modest but unbroken history of publication in the United States since the 1790s. But in the course of the nineteenth century, while fiddling in oral tradition remained important (particularly in the South), the published repertoire reflected actual practice less and less. Reels, strathspeys, and hompipes of British parentage and of both British and American sustenance were pushed toward the backs of ever-larger collections by pieces in newly fashionable dance tune genres (polkas, mazurkas, and so on) and were usually drawn without change from earlier publications. Of the few pieces of instrumental folk music' that continued to find their way into print, most reflected northern tradition, simply because the North dominated the publishing industry throughout the century.
One publication does not fit the above generalizations. In 1839 the Baltimore publisher George Willig, Jr., issued a small collection of sheet music entitled Virginia Reels, Selected and Arranged for the Piano Forte by G. P Knauff. Although containing only thirty-five tunes, the four pamphlets that make up this collection comprise the only substantial extant compilation of nineteenth-century southern fiddle tunes. This innovative publication presents several long-lived melodies in early (often earliest) printed versions and, most important, offers a compelling array of clues suggesting considerable and longstanding continuity in southern fiddling. This essay discusses Knauff's career, the contents of Virginia Reels, and how this collection fared in the marketplace.
We know nothing about George P. Knauff's birth and youth. Several individuals surnamed Knouff lived in Frederick County, Maryland, by 1790.[2] Subsequent censuses record the growth of this family in Maryland and, between 1830 and 1850, the dispersal of branches of the Knouff clan into neighboring states. A Henry Knauff of Philadelphia played and taught keyboard instruments, published a few pieces of sheet music,[3] and built organs in the middle of the nineteenth century.[4] There was also a New York City piano tuner named Frederick Knauff. But the relationship among all these men, if any, remains unclear. George P. Knauff married Ann Bondurant of Farmville, Virginia, on November 21, 1832. Her father was among the wealthiest of Prince Edward County's planters.[5]
Nearly all marriages involving members of the county's upper class were announced in the Richmond Enquirer (then the principal newspaper serving this part of Virginia), but this marriage was not. Perhaps the omission was accidental, but more probably it indicates that the match was not welcomed by the bride's parents. (Oversight or slight, this is disappointing, for such announcements typically named the homes of both bride and groom.) Perhaps Knauff had been Ann Bondurant's music teacher in a "Female Seminary": young ladies of her station had their social graces polished in these institutions. If Knauff had been her teacher, and thus socially inferior to her, this would explain why Bondurant's parents did not care to advertise the marriage. And, if Knauff was employed in a "Female Seminary" in 1830, that might account for his not being listed as a head of household in the census of 1830.
Two months before his marriage, Knauff had purchased and arranged for the renovation of a home situated on the main street of Farmville.[6] These premises were soon transformed into the Farmville Fancy Store, through which Knauff offered domestic ("fancy") goods and musical merchandise to his largely rural clientele.[7] By mid-1834 the focus of his advertising had shifted from "fancy" to musical goods,[8] and he had acquired a business partner.[9] Knauff was the first music merchant in his part of the country to advertise in the wordy manner that would characterize nearly all advertising within a few years. His longest and most extravagant advertisement appeared in the Richmond Enquirer of October 13, 1835, and was reprinted an average of three times a month for nine months:
TO THE LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, Farmville Music and Fancy Store. -I have in store, am constantly receiving, and will be very glad to sell, the most splendid assortment of PIANOS; and all other kinds of musical instruments, strings, music, furniture, and many fancy substantives. As puffing is odious, I will merely state that Knauff's Virginia Reels 123 my Pianos are more beautiful, their tone sweeter and more powerful, that they remain in tune longer, and are better built than all inferior ones; and lastly, that they can be learnt to play on in half the time as some other instruments; in short, they are as much superior to many sold at other places, as a church organ is to a jew's harp, with the tongue broke out. As to other musical instruments, furniture and fancy goods, they are far above any comparison. I will sell lower than any other person in this state-- indeed, so low, that you will be astonished. All new Pianos, after sold, I will deliver gratis, any distance under 40 miles. I also warrant and keep them in tune 12 months. I hire out Pianos, repair old ones, and take them in exchange. I will sell Chairs lower than any other person, and be very polite, particularly to Ladies. GEO. P. KNAUFF
Rural music merchants invariably sold nonmusical goods, too, such as the "fancy goods" Knauff stocked or books and related items. They purchased their merchandise from larger retail stores in major cities. Knauff sold several brands of pianos, perhaps obtained through agents in Baltimore, where his music would later be published. He also gave private music lessons.[10] Knauff's publication of a "puff" ad was a then innovative and therefore risky move, perhaps inspired by the financial straits in which his business was apparently always mired. Late in 1835 he attempted to auction off most or all of his inventory and his family's household goods for ready cash." We do not know if this auction met with success. A year later fire consumed his home and store. A newspaper account indicated that "two small families" in addition to the Knauffs lived in the building at the time and that Knauff lost [11]every thing; his dwelling house, kitchen, smoke-house full of bacon, a number of very valuable Pianos and musical instruments, new furniture, music, and all his papers and books. Nothing was insured."[12]
Six months after he had lost "every thing" to fire, Knauff advertised a ""PIANO FORTE MANUFACTORY, at Farmville, the only one south of Baltimore." He stated that his expenses were "much less than those of manufacturers in large cities" and that his pianos would consequently cost the customer less, with no sacrifice in quality.[13] But Farmville was not yet a good location for a factory of any kind, since it lacked the deep waterways then essential for transportation of both material and products. It was also a dangerous time to launch any business in the United States.[14] The lower end of the piano market that Knauff intended to exploit was dominated within the year by the flamboyant and well financed E. P. Nash of nearby Petersburg.[15]
Knauff soon had to exchange the solid social position of a merchant specializing in music-related goods for the much more humble role of a live-in "music professor" at the Female Collegiate Institute in neighboring Buckingham County.[16] During his brief stay at the Female Collegiate Institute, Knauff composed a considerable number of songs and short pieces for piano (see the Appendix). He parted company with the institute for unknown reasons within a year or two.[17] In mid-1842 he stated in his last newspaper advertisement that he was available to tune pianos in a fourcounty area and that he would be willing to collect debts for others while on his rounds.[18] In letters dated 1843 and 1844, he dunned a planter of Halifax County at some length, closing one correspondence with the pathetic appeal that "you are rich and I am Poor.""' (It is not clear whether the debt in question was owed to Knauff or to someone else, with Knauff working on a percentage basis.) Knauff himself was pressed for the payment of assorted debts in numerous lawsuits during these years. He last appeared in the Personal Property Tax Lists of Prince Edward County in 1847.[20] Perhaps he moved again to Buckingham County, the records of which were lost in a courthouse fire. Or he may have traveled west: in 1882 a J. W. Knauff who may have been his descendant lived in Arkansas.[21] Wherever he may have gone, he still maintained business connections in Baltimore, where he published more music in 1851-52. We have found no information concerning his subsequent whereabouts or activities.[22]
Although Knauff published individual sheet music items as well as several small collections culled from the genteel sector of the popular instrumental repertoire, Virginia Reels was his largest and most widely distributed work. This unique publication owed its existence to a combination of desperate financial circumstances and a highly inventive mind. That Knauff turned his hand to a wide variety of music-related tasks was typical for music professionals of his time, particularly those based outside of large urban centers. But in addition to being a pioneering merchant in his part of the country and the first to operate a piano factory outside of a large city, Knauff was the only individual of his century to publish in any form a substantial collection of southern fiddle tunes.
Contents of the Virginia Reels
Virginia Reels appeared in several different editions, described in the last part of this essay. Here we will examine the Willig edition of 1839. Each piece in the collection is a straightforward bipartite dance melody in 2/4 time, arranged as an easy piano solo. The left-hand parts include the alternating of notes with their upper octaves, block chords, a simple Alberti bass, and slight variations of these patterns (see ex. 2). These accompaniment figures usually change for the second strain of a given Knauff's Virginia Reels 125 piece and may also change at the midpoint of either strain. Such lefthand parts were typical in arrangements of simpler dances and of marches at this time. The melodies (see exx. 1 and 2) in most ways resemble the many British fiddle tunes that had been appearing in print in the United States for decades. The following discussion explores the ways in which they were unusual.
Both the individual pieces that make up Virginia Reels and their ordering within the collection are instructive. Each of the four, small, separately bound pamphlets has its own character and represents a category of tunes in fiddlers' repertoires. The contents of the various volumes of Virginia Reels are listed in figures 1, 2, 3, and 4, along with concordant titles from different periods for many pieces. The first volume, which contains ten tunes (see fig. 1), may be subdivided into two distinct parts. The first five tunes, or close relatives of each, were being played in both the North and South; that they were often published attests to their popularity in the North. But several factors suggest that Knauff did not take his versions from other published sources. Four of the five do not carry their usual (i.e., "northern") titles. Also, Knauff's versions generally differ from northern cognates more than northern versions differ from each other. This suggests that in the South these and other popular dance tunes in oral tradition were less susceptible to the stabilizing influence of a parallel written tradition than were their northern counterparts.
One tune, "Natchez on the Hill'," is moderately distinct from a northern relative, "Old Zip Coon." The figuration heard in the first two measures of "Natchez on the Hill" (closely paralleled in mm. 5-6) is clearly different from the corresponding parts of "Old Zip Coon," although the tunes are otherwise nearly identical (see ex. 1). "Old Zip Coon" had been popular in printed form for several years before Virginia Reels appeared. Jabbour has collected the "Natchez" tune, with that title, from Virginia and from West Virginia fiddlers. Knauff's version is the earliest record of both tune and title, but both may antedate the publication in 1834 of "Old Zip Coon." In an early history of blackface minstrelsy, Col. T. Allston Brown stated that "the tune of 'Zip Coon' was taken from a rough jig dance called 'Natchez under the Hill; where the boatmen, river pirates, gamblers and courtesans congregated for the enjoyment of a regular hoe-down, in the old time."[23] Of various ancestors more recently suggested for "Old Zip Coon,"[24] only the reel "The Rose Tree" seems apt. This stable tune first appeared in print as the melody of a song in William Shield's Poor Soldier in 1782.[25] It was used as a reel for violin in Scotland by ca. 1788. Versions like the Scottish ones reappeared in early U.S. anthologies of instrumental music. One such example[26] is transcribed in example 1, along with Knauff's "Natchez on the Hill" and two northern versions of "Old Zip Coon."[27]
Brown may have been correct in asserting that the tune "Natchez'," a rhythmically enlivened "Rose Tree'," served as a way station between this tune and "Old Zip Coon." Originally issued as a song, "Old Zip Coon" follows "Natchez on the Hill" closely in form, detail, and harmonic implications, but the opening arpeggios of the latter are replaced by a more linear figure somewhat better suited to vocal performance. Of the four other popular tunes from the first volume of Virginia Reels, Knauff's "Killie Krankie" is a straightforward example of the extremely popular "Money Musk'," which by this time was often associated with the dance called "Killie Krankie." "Speed the Plough" is the name of another favorite tune and associated dance. "Republican Spirit" and "The Two Sisters" appeared in several Elias Howe publications as "Missouri Hompipe" and "Beaux of Oak Hill," respectively.[28]
The remaining tunes of volume 1 either were used rarely or did not appear at all in other nineteenth-century publications. They may have been composed locally or, if from elsewhere, experienced an exclusively regional popularity. Only one melody, "Forked Deer," is well known today in the tradition of the upper South. To the best of our knowledge, Knauff gives the earliest printed version of this famous and widespread southern fiddle tune.[29]
Knauff's seventh arrangement in this volume, "Mississippi Sawyer," is not a cognate of the tune called by that name today. "Love from the Heart,"' however, which is found in volume 4, is a typical example of the tune now called "Mississippi Sawyer." Knauff may have confused these titles himself, or perhaps the colorful title "Mississippi Sawyer" and the compelling tune here called "Love from the Heart" became linked after Knauff's day. "Whiskey Barrel" is a version of the rarely printed "Madam Parisott's Hornpipe,"[30] commonly abbreviated "Parisott Hompipe" by mid-century.[31] "Love in a Village" is a version of one of the rarer of several eighteenth-century tunes bearing this name. The tune appeared first in an eighteenth-century Irish collection[32] and was being played in the United States by ca. 1800.[33]
Volume 2 of Virginia Reels (see fig. 2) contains tunes linked only by the local associations of their titles. Although the headings "Villalave," "The Hero'," and "Island" remain ambiguous, all other tune titles in this pamphlet are clearly associated with people or places in Virginia. "Peter Francisco,' a Virginian whose deeds during the Revolutionary War were widely celebrated, was a member of the Virginia state legislature until his death in 1831.[34] "The 22nd of February" heralds the birthday of one of the most famous Virginians, George Washington. "Richmond Blues,"' the name of a militia unit, is here attached to an extremely popular Scottish tune, "My Love She's but a Lassie Yet." "Richmond Hill" is a version of the uncommon reel "Perthshire Hunt,"[35] and "Old Virginia" renders a tune widely distributed then and now, "The Flowers of Edinburgh."[36]
A comparison of Knauff's "Hero" with a frequently printed northern cognate, "Miss Brown's Reel,"[37] and a typical twentieth-century version of the ubiquitous "Wagoner" (spelled variously)[38] exemplifies several ways tunes in this repertoire change to fit stylistic norms (see ex. 2). The first strain of "The Hero" is in the double-tonic mode alternating scales derived from the major chords on the tonic and supertonic. This particular double-tonic mode, although common in Scottish fiddling, was already old-fashioned in the United States at this time. Indeed, the nineteenth-century American "Miss Brown's Reel" and the twentieth-century "Wagner" (one of many similar versions of "Wagoner") suppress the exotic major chord on the supertonic in favor of that on the dominant.[39] "The Hero" is also progressive in its internal symmetries. In both its strains, for example, measures 3-4 closely parallel measures 1-2. This type of symmetry is also present in "Wagner" and most modern tunes but is less evident in "Miss Brown's Reel."
Volume 3 of Virginia Reels (see fig. 3) contains a particularly striking array of tunes, none of which appears elsewhere in eighteenth- or nineteenth-century American anthologies of instrumental music, although most are popular in southern fiddling. Four tunes ("Colonel Crocket," "Rose on the Mountain,' "Lockwell," and "Lady of the Lake") share a harmonic underpinning common in Scottish fiddling, the double-tonic mode on the chords i (or I) and VII. Although not uncommon in southern fiddling today, this harmonic feature is found seldom in tunes published in the United States during the nineteenth century.
The four tunes cited may be representatives of a substantial body of melodies related to double-tonic Scottish tunes, but possible connections within this compact subrepertoire have been obscured by the absence of the stabilizing influence of nineteenth-century printed editions. Regardless of their origins, the tunes serve as a reminder that a major part of the repertoires of nineteenth-century fiddlers seldom or never surfaced in print. The sampling of extant printed tunes constitutes a significant fraction (exact size unknown) of northern repertoires but completely neglects important groups of tunes played in the South.
Three tunes in volume 3 do have clear Scottish antecedents. "Scott's Favorite" is a version of "The Duke of Gordon's Rant."[40]Knauff's "Billy in the Low Grounds,' one of two tunes currently known by this name, is similar to the rare Scottish fiddle tune "Johnny in the Nether Mains."[41] Its counterpart, frequently printed in the nineteenth century as "The Beaux of Albany'," is the more widely distributed melody and may have begun to share the title "Billy in the Low Grounds" with Knauff's tune because of its identical implied functional harmonies and similar con tour.[42]
Whether or not this is the case, tunes from this repertoire typically exchange a title associated with one locale for that of another. Knauff's "George Booker" provides an important link in the history of the air, which became a popular and very stable tune in Scottish fiddling. First published as "The Marquis of Huntley's Farewell" in Scotland in 1781,[43] the tune did not appear in early American instrumental anthologies but was issued in sheet music form in Baltimore as late as ca. 1824.[44] Unlike early versions of the tune, Knauff's "George Booker" does not possess circular endings, i.e., strains ending on notes other than the tonic (generally the supertonic) in order to lessen closure and facilitate repetition. Such endings remain common in Scottish and Irish fiddling but are rare in the United States.45 That neither strain in Knauff's version reveals this characteristic ending documents how quickly the feature was abandoned when tunes came to America. The tune's title has changed in some parts of the country; in central West Virginia it is often called "Camp Chase" in commemoration of the Fiddler Sol Carpenter, who is said to have used the tune to win his freedom from the Northern prison at Camp Chase, Ohio, during the Civil War.[46]
Volume 4 of Virginia Reels includes several tunes associated with blackface minstrelsy (see fig. 4). "Sich a Gittin' Up Stairs'," based on the morris dance tune "Getting Up Stairs'," was first published as a minstrel song in the early 1830s.[47] Thomas "Daddy" Rice included the song in his repertoire, and, according to Spaeth, it "is said to have been sung at one time by P. T. Barnum in black-face. Its publication mentioned as interpretor 'Mr. Bob Farrell, the Original Zip Coon.' "[48] "Midnight Serenade" is a version of the widely circulated song and fiddle tune "Buffalo Gals,"' usually called "Round Town Gals" in the highlands of the upper South. Bayard has established the tune's internationality and probable origin in Germany,[49] but credit for composing the song has generally gone to Cool White, a blackface minstrel with the Virginia Serenaders, who in 1844 published the song under the title "Lubly Fan," so Knauff's publication of the tune may have appeared five years earlier (see the discussion below on the problem of dating the fourth volume). His arrangement is in a theme-and-variation pattern, which suggests that the tune was already well established. The title "Midnight Serenade," of course, alludes to the words of the song and indicates that the text (or at least its general theme) and tune already may have been associated by 1839.
Knauff's "Ohio River," a version of the tune associated with the song "Boatman's Dance'," was popularized on the minstrel stage under this later title by Dan Emmett. Emmett's 1843 edition is advertised as "An Original Banjo Melody," but Nathan has shown that Emmett was reworking older lyric material;[51] if volume 4 was typeset in 1839, then Knauff's arrangement of the tune shows that the melody was already in circulation - evidently associated with Ohio River boatmen - before Emmett brought it to the eastern stage.
Conceivably, these and other tunes in the last volume of Virginia Reels were, in 1839, already connected with blackface entertainment, which, although not yet nationally fashionable, was already important as rural fare. Of the various sorts of entertainment advertised as visiting Richmond in the 1830s, only circuses, then routinely featuring blackface performers, traveled to small towns as well, among them Knauff's hometown, Farmville.[52] "Sich a Gittin' Up Stairs," the most popular tune in the fourth volume of Virginia Reels, was said by Brown to have been featured by Barney Bums, a low comedian connected with the circus.[53]
The three tunes from volume 4 that we have discussed are still played in the South. That these and other tunes popularized through minstrelsy were frequently printed in the mid-nineteenth-century anthologies of instrumental music illustrates a general point, that popular songs with attractive tunes were always welcome in the popular and often folk instrumental repertoires. More specifically, we have known that southern fiddling is indebted to blackface minstrelsy. If this volume actually dates from 1839, it appears that the converse might also be true.
Virginia Reels as a Fleetingly Successful Publication The foregoing discussion took for granted that Knauff arranged rather than composed the pieces making up Virginia Reels. Evidence supporting this assumption is not hard to find, and, most important, we have Knauff's own testimony. In the complete titles of his publications (see the Appendix), he made a laudable (if rare for the time) distinction between pieces "by" him and pieces "arranged by" him. That some of the pieces seem not to have been published previously simply reflects that the fiddlers (or possibly other instrumentalists) from whom Knauff learned the reels, whether musically literate or not, were seldom or never working from published sources. That some of these tunes are known to have already been in oral tradition, that many have survived as fiddle tunes in twentieth-century Virginia and elsewhere, and that nearly all are idiomatic for fiddle demonstrates that these dance tunes were primarily fiddlers' tunes in oral tradition in Knauff's time.
The tunes published in Virginia Reels may have been performed in a variety of settings, either by young and mostly female pianists or by other instrumentalists, who were at this time almost always male. Of course, any given performance of some form of these pieces might have been from oral tradition, from the arrangements themselves, or even from a memorization/re-creation of the arrangements. Before Knauff's publication appeared its constituent pieces were almost invariably played from memory. Publication would have afforded a few musicians not conversant with oral tradition a first chance to play these tunes but would not have significantly influenced contemporary and subsequent shapes of individual tunes in oral tradition.[54]
The principal performers of such pieces were fiddlers in Knauff's and neighboring counties and throughout the United States. These players included slaves, indentured servants, farmers, gentlemen amateurs, and both foreign-born and locally nurtured dancing masters, sometimes playing for their personal pleasure and sometimes for dances. Dances in Knauff's area took place in homes, on large plantations, and at the ubiquitous resorts built around springs whose waters were thought to have medicinal value. Advertisements for these resorts yield the most detailed descriptions of ensembles or performers who played at dances. Within a few years of the publication of Virginia Reels, and within a few dozen miles of Knauff's home, instrumental accompanists at dances ranged from an individual slave fiddler[55] and the band (instrumentation not described) he led,[56] to flexibly constituted groups of violinists and flutists, and to bands composed of professional instrumentalists who wintered in Baltimore or Washington. These highly touted bands included five to eight players performing on violins, flute, and some type of bass instrument. One group featured a violinist/leader/caller, while another had a first violinist, a second violinist doubling on horn, a flutist, and a bass viol player doubling on trombone." [57] Virginia Reels and similar pieces must have been performed by such groups on occasion.
That a body of folk music was available for commercial exploitation is far less surprising than that anyone would have thought this a potential source of income. While fiddlers enjoyed playing this music, they did not have to purchase it in printed form in order to do sothey could just remember the tunes. Nonetheless, Knauff's arrangements, doubtlessly transcribed from the playing of local fiddlers, remain apt for performance on the fiddle. Many surviving melodies from his collection are presented in the keys in which they are performed by fiddlers today, and nearly all of Knauff's versions "lie well" under the fiddler's hand. It was common in Knauff's day for players of treble instruments to read the melody lines of piano pieces. Knauff's publications date mostly from 1839-40, the period of his brief stay at Buckingham County's Female Collegiate Institute, and are either for easy piano solo or for voice with easy piano accompaniment. The circumstances surrounding their appearance and his dedication of pieces to local individuals or groups (see the Appendix) seem to indicate that Knauff sought to market Virginia Reels and other works primarily, if not exclusively, among the genteel young ladies who were studying or had studied at nearby finishing schools.
Aiming at a specific demographic group, in this case debutantes-toKnauff's be, was not the only means by which Knauff targeted and circumscribed a market for his publication. While it was not uncommon to try to catch the eye of prospective purchasers of sheet music through local associations of title, dedicatee, or both, Knauff did this to a remarkable degree. The text of one piece, "The Toothache or the Quilting," goes so far as to describe events at a neighborhood party, listing many present at that affair. Knauff's apparent drawing on local oral tradition for his version of "Blue Bonnetted Scots," the song "Three Farmers Went a Hunting" (the text of which is structured like that of Child Ballad no. 274, "Our Goodman"[58]), and Virginia Reels is simply the most striking expression of his reliance on immediate surroundings for both sources and sales of music.
Although valuable to scholars today for its novelties, Virginia Reels must have conformed in some ways to mainstream, nineteenth-century sheet music for it to become a financial success. Fiddle tunes had long been part of American popular music, and they continued to be published in large numbers at this time. But that their popularity had become tenuous was shown in several ways. When given pieces of popular music were at their most fashionable, they appeared as single sheets in multiple editions, much as popular songs today are "covered" by several artists. Many fiddle tunes appeared in multiple editions between ca. 1790 and 1820,[59] but almost none was being so honored by 1839. Less popular pieces appeared along with the "hits" in anthologies.
As pointed out above, fiddle tunes by this time usually were placed in bunches toward the end of such collections. Individuals also assembled their own anthologies by binding together sheet music that they owned.[60] Such collections often mirrored the ordering of published compilations, and it is not surprising that both binder's volumes we have located containing copies of Virginia Reels relegate its pieces to near the end of the volume.[61] Thus, although Virginia Reels had a potential place in mid-nineteenth-century popular music, its niche fell on the outer edges of a repertoire that had itself become marginal.
The publication history of the collection illustrates how it actually fared in the marketplace. It exists today in roughly a dozen copies, some fragmentary, in major U.S. libraries. The 1839 Willig edition is represented by most extant copies. We have found two copies of the first pamphlet[62] that do not mention a publisher or date of publication and that also lack plate numbers. Otherwise the two copies are identical to the first number of the 1839 Willig edition. Perhaps this undated, partial edition was issued first, to test the market for an unusual collection by an inexperienced arranger. But it would not have preceded the complete collection into print by long, since Knauff seems to have begun publishing in 1839.
Volume 4 of Willig's edition presents a significant problem in dating. The first three volumes (plate numbers 1535, 1536, and 1537, respectively) were copyrighted 1839. The fourth pamphlet, rarer than the others in libraries today, lacks a copyright date. The few extant copies carry the plate number 2459. Many of Willig's plate numbers follow in chronological sequence, i.e., they are synchronized with dates of copyright. But a sizable minority (roughly one-fourth of them in ca. 1835-45) do not seem to fit into this chronological ordering. If plate 2459 did appear in sequence, copies of the fourth pamphlet that we have located would be dated 1852. But the volume's title page is that of the third pamphlet (with appropriate additions), and in absolutely all other ways its format and type faces match those of the first three pamphlets. Further, Knauff's other pieces published and copyrighted by Willig (i.e., all but the collection Gatherings) are from 1839. Our best guess remains that some form of volume 4 was first set in 1839, whether or not the rare extant copies of it were printed later. It is far from unlikely that the original form was issued in 1839 without plate number, like the unnumbered version of volume 1 discussed above.
A pirate edition (from new plates) of the first three volumes of Virginia Reels, adding a few pieces and omitting Knauff's name, was issued piecemeal by E D. Benteen of Baltimore. The first two pamphlets came out in 1842, the third following in ca. 1844 (see the Appendix). Benteen published an edition of all four volumes (from another set of plates) in 1851 or 1852. Knauff's name was restored in this edition-he was now publishing exclusively through Benteen. We believe that the pieces appearing in the Benteen editions but not in the Willig edition were quite likely not chosen by Knauff or arranged by him, and they have therefore not been considered in this study. Music stores in Baltimore and Philadelphia stocked copies of some edition of Virginia Reels at least as late as 1870.[63]
All of this evidence suggests that Virginia Reels, despite poor prospects, became a reasonably successful publication, although the 1839 Willig edition seems to have been more successful than any of the later printings. It may seem odd that similar publications did not follow. But the appeal of a collection like Virginia Reels to fashionable taste, upon which the success of comparable publications would have depended, was subsumed by the overwhelming popularity of blackface minstrelsy, which took the country by storm in the mid-1840s. The title pages of the 1851 Benteen edition exhibit a transparent attempt to associate the complete collection with minstrelsy, an association that the fourth pamphlet in fact merited. The elegant, delicate decoration of the title pages of all earlier editions is replaced by thick, rough-hewn letters surrounded by dark swirls, creating an effect much like that of the title pages of contemporary minstrel sheets. Minstrelsy as marketed nationally was initially a northern and midwestern product, however, and Knauff's Virginia Reels 139 had no room in its early years for groups of truly southern tunes. Thus, southern fiddling's tiny foothold in the world of publishing was lost.
Summary
The contents and ordering of Virginia Reels highlight the different types of tunes that made up the antebellum southern fiddler's repertoire. Ideas about the sources of this repertoire also emerge from an examination of this collection. Some tunes came from the English/New England repertoire, including a few Scottish airs. Other Scottish tunes and techniques of building melodies seem to have come to the South without passing through the sieve of English taste. Yet other melodies evince a specifically American flavor, including one tune of German provenance, popular in a species of entertainment somehow influenced by the presence of blacks in America. Quite possibly some of these tunes were composed or radically adapted in America.
While fashion dictated that most published pieces of instrumental music (with the exception of some marches) would be from Europe, not all fiddlers were held in thrall by fashion. We have no reason to suppose that the ferment that transformed dance music in the British Isles in the latter half of the eighteenth century, producing the repertoire of reels, strathspeys, hompipes, and jigs, did not affect the compositional inclinations of American fiddlers. A fair number of those pieces in Virginia Reels for which we have been unable to trace a European source may in fact be from Europe, but either did not reach print there or have not come to our attention despite their having been published. Many others were almost certainly as American in genesis as all were in sustenance and formed part of the vanguard of the distinctively American body of music belonging to modem southern fiddling.
The 1839 edition of Knauff's Virginia Reels has a value to scholars out of proportion to the size of the collection. It helps to extend our knowledge of the southern repertoire back a century further than would be possible in its absence. When examined in conjunction with modem field collections, it presents evidence for a fairly stable traditional repertoire in the upper South over a period of at least 140 years.
APPENDIX
Works by George P. Knauff
Note: In all cases the extended title is given as printed on the title page of a piece or collection.
Amelia Springs Cottillion, by Geo. P. Knauff. Baltimore: Geo. Willig, Jr., 1839. (Above Blue Bonnetted Scotts on a broadside)
Awake My Love and Come with Me, Written, C omposed a nd Dedicated to Miss S. A. Irene Knauff by Geo. P. Knauff. Baltimore: F. D. Benteen and Co., [ca. 1852] (plate 2397).*
Blue Bonnetted S cotts: A Cottllion [ sic] A rrangedb y Geo. P. Knauff[ see above].
Colonel Hubard's March & Quick Step, Composed for & Dedicated by Col. Edmund W. Hubard of Buckingham Va by His Friend G.P. Knauff. Baltimore: G eo. Willig, Jr., 1839.
Gatherings: A Collection o f Choice P ieces of Music f or the Piano Forte, A rranged by Geo. P. Knauff. Baltimore: Geo. Willig, Jr., [1839]. This collection contains "Bonaparte's Quick Step," "Quick Step by G. P. Knauff," "Polonaise,"' "Beautiful Waltz by Beethoven" [not really by Beethoven], "Napoleans Grand March,"' "Fishers Waltz," "Eccosaise," and "Ladies Waltz."
Irene Waltz,C omposedfo r & Dedicatedt o Miss S. A. Irene Knauff, by Geo. P. Knauff. Baltimore: Miller and Beachem, 1853 (plate 2449).
Ladies Quick Step, Arranged by Geo. P. Knauff. Baltimore: F D. Benteen and Co., [ca. 1852] (plate 2399).
Louisa & Mohegan Waltzes, Composed by Geo. P. Knauff. Baltimore: Geo. Willig, Jr., 1839.
Mount Elba Waltz, Composed & Dedicated to Miss Virginia A . B. Shields by Geo. P. Knauff. Baltimore: F D. Benteen, [ca. 1852] (plate 2400).
Three Farmers Went a Hunting, Comic Song Arranged b y Geo. P. Knauff. Baltimore: E D. Benteen; New Orleans: W. T. Mayo, 1851 (plate 2162).*
The Toothache or the Quilting, a Comic Song Written & Composed by George P. Knauff. Baltimore: F D. Benteen and Co.; New Orleans: W. T. Mayo, 1852 (plate 2259).*
Trumpet March, Arranged and Partly Composed by Geo. P. Knauff. Baltimore: Geo. Willig, Jr., 1839.
Turkish March, Composed & Dedicated to the Ladies of Oldenplace Seminary (Dinwiddie Co. Va.) by Geo. P. Knauff. Baltimore: F D. Benteen; New Orleans: W. T. Mayo, [ca. 1852] (plate 2398).
Virginia Cotillion by Geo. P. Knauff. Baltimore: Geo. Willig, Jr., 1839. This piece is not included in any of the following collections.
Virginia Cotillions, Composed for the Piano Forte and Dedicated to the Ladies of Virginia, Geo. P. Knauff, No. 1. Baltimore: F D. Benteen; New Orleans: W. T. Mayo, [ca. 1851-52] (plate 2199). This collection contains "The Richmond Ladies,' "The Belle of America," "Roberta," "Oldenplace," "Sweet Sally," and "Virginia."
Virginia Cotillions, Composed for the Piano Forte and Dedicated to the Ladies of Virginia by Geo. P. Knauff. Baltimore: F D. Benteen; New Orleans: W. T. Mayo, [ca. 1851-52] (plate 2200). This collection contains "Grand Round," "Petersburg," "March Cotillion,"' "Old Point Cotillion," "The Butterfly," and "The Bird of Liberty."
Virginia Quick March, by Geo. P. Knauff. Baltimore: Geo. Willig, Jr., 1839.
VirginiaR eels, Selecteda nd Arrangedf or the Piano Forteb y G. P. Knauff. The contents of this collection are identical to those of Virginia Reels, No. 1. Knauff's Virginia Reels 141 The plates of the two are identical, but the title page of this copy is
decorated differently and lacks publication information.
Virginia Reels, Selected and Arranged for the Piano Forte by G. P. Knauff. Vols. 1-3. Baltimore: Geo. Willig, Jr., 1839 (plates 1535, 1536, and 1537; contents listed in figs. 1, 2, and 3).
Virginia Reels, Selected a nd Arranged fo r the Piano Forteb y G. P. Knauff. Vol. 4. Baltimore: George Willig, Jr., [perhaps as late as 1852 but possibly 1839, as explained near the end of this essay] (plate 2459).
Virginia Reels, a Collection of the Most Admired Reels, Dances &c., Selected and Arranged for the Piano Forte, No. 1. Baltimore: F. D. Benteen, [ca. 1842] (plates 45-50). This ed. of vol. 1, omitting Knauff's name, adds as its fourth and last pieces "Virginia Reel, [ ] Mrs. McLeod's Reel" and "The Ridge'," respectively. We have not located the second vol. of this first
Benteen ed. However, since Benteen used unchanged plates (title pages excepted) when reprinting the other vols. (see entries below), we strongly suspect that this missing 1st ed. of vol. 2, like its later incarnation, does not add pieces to those present in the Willig ed. The missing vol. was probably printed as Benteen plates 51-56, which constitute an unusually large gap in the Benteen series in the Library of the Maryland Historical Society, and which appear in the later Benteen printing with the new title page.
Virginia Reels, a Collection of the Most Admired Reels, Dances, &c., Selected & Arranged for the Piano Forte. Vol. 3. Baltimore: F. D. Benteen, [ca. 1844] (plates 369-74). This ed. adds several pieces to those in the Willig ed., including no. 3, "Colonel Crocket: A Virginia Reel" (a different piece from the one given this title in the Willig ed.); no. 5, "Billy in the Woods"; no. 6, "Juniper Hall"; no. 9, "Miss Clark's Hornpipe"; no. 10, "Old Dominion Reel"; no. 11, "The Fox Hunt"; and no. 12, "James River Reel." No. 4 of Virginia Reels, Dedicated to Thomas Ritchie Esq. of Washington City by Geo. P. Knauff. Baltimore: G. D. Benteen, [ca. 1851-52] (plates 2196 and 2198). This ed. has the same contents as the Willig ed. The previous three vols. of the Benteen ed. were reprinted at this time with title pages like that of this fourth vol. It is from this ed. that we postulate the existence of the 1st ed. of vol. 2.
Wait for the Wagon, Arranged by Geo. P. Knauff. Baltimore: F. D. Benteen, 1851 (plate 2169).* * for voice and piano.
NOTES
Alan Jabbour first researched George P. Knauff in the 1960s and delivered a paper on the Virginia Reels at the American Folklore Society's annual meeting in 1967. In the early 1980s Chris Goertzen retraced Jabbour's research paths, unaware of the earlier research until the two met at the Library of Congress. The present article reflects considerable subsequent research by Goertzen and was written by him, incorporating elements of Jabbour's earlier paper.
1. The instruments referred to here would include any contemporaneous instrument used in performing orally transmitted music but would feature the fiddle, to a lesser degree the fife, and to a much lesser degree the banjo. For instrumental folk music "oral" tradition involves a mixture of aural, visual, and tactile factors.
2. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Heads of Families at the First Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1790 (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1965), pp. 64, 66, 68.
3. One such sheet was a broadside for solo piano entitled "Golmick's Rondo, Arranged for the Use of His Juvenile Pupils by H. Knauff" (n.p., n.d.), a copy of which is on deposit in the sheet music collection of the New York Public Library. A "Metamora
Waltz" (Philadelphia: n.p., 1847) and "Music of the Service" (Philadelphia: n.p., 1871) contain advertisements for his organ factory. Copies of these publications are on deposit in the Music Division of the Library of Congress.
4. See Robert A. Gerson, Music in Philadelphia (Philadelphia: Theodore Presser, 1940), for more information on Henry Knauff.
5. Population Schedules of the Sixth Census of the United States. Virginia. Volume 13 (157-302). Powhatan, Princess Anne, Prince Edward, Prince George, and Prince William Counties. National Archives Microfilm Productions Microcopy, no. 704, roll 574 (Washington: National Archives, 1967), p. 207.
6. Prince Edward County Deed Book, no. 20, p. 597, deed dated Sept. 12, 1832. This deed constitutes our earliest trace of Knauff's existence.
7. Richmond Enquirer, May 24, 1833. 8. Ibid., May 27, 1834.
9. Ibid., July 17, 1835.
10. Receipts for lessons given to Miss M. J. Jeter from Sept. 15, 1835, through May 11, 1837, are included in the Jeter family papers, Mss 2J5107b, Virginia Historical Society. Knauff charged the going rate of seventy-five cents per lesson. The Jeter family was prominent in Amelia County and sponsored small female seminaries in their home on several occasions.
11. Richmond Enquirer, May 6, 1835.
12. Ibid., June 3, 1836. The Farmville correspondent of the Richmond Enquirer reported the fire on May 30, 1836.
13. Ibid., Nov. 15, 1836. This ad ran an average of three times a month for a year.
14. Knauff and other American businessmen faced a severe credit shortage in 1833, a massive crop failure in 1835, and a progressively less stable monetary situation culminating in the panic of 1837, which was followed by a depression lasting about six years.
15. Richmond Enquirer, Apr. 18, 1837, and for several decades. Nash introduced ads based on customer testimonials to piano sales in Virginia and was the first Virginia music merchant to employ this and other mass-marketing techniques successfully.
16. Ibid., Nov. 6, 1838.
17. A small window on Knauff's character is offered through oral history in Prince Edward County. Scott Hart, "Town of Farmville," in Today and Yesterday in the Heart of Virginia [a reprint ed. of the Farmville Herald of Mar. 29, 1935] (Farmville: Farmville Herald, 1935), p. 164, reported that Knauff "was a gentleman of high sensibilities and culture and a musician of some renown in his time. He had moments with his cup, but even so could handle his instruments with such power and authority that ladies would sit enraptured as he musically dreamed and aspired over masterly compositions in concert."
18. Richmond Enquirer, June 24, 1842.
19. These letters were written to a Captain Thomas Spraggins on Sept. 4, 1843 Knauff's Virginia Reels 143 (concluding with the appeal cited here), and June 9, 1844. They are part of the Spraggins family papers, 1809-1967, Mss 1Sp7166-133-134, Virginia Historical Society.
20. Vol. for 1830-50. Our thanks to Mrs. William S. Morton of Farmville for her diligent search of the courthouse records of Prince Edward County. A search by Goertzen, done without knowledge of Mrs. Morton's much earlier work, exposed almost exactly the same evidence, leading us to believe that further information from this source will not be forthcoming. Our thanks also to Herbert Clarence Bradshaw, whose voluminous History of Prince Edward County (Richmond: Dietz Press, 1955) gives some information on Knauff, and who gave further assistance by private communications.
21. Prince Edward County Deed Book, no. 34, p. 626. This deed, dated July 5, 1882, reads: "J. W. Knauff and Emma J. Knauff of Presario [sic?], Arkansas convey to J. J. Bondurant their interest in the farm 'Pleasant Green' in Prince Edward County, now in possession of J. J. Bondurant, for Twenty Dollars."
22. Many other individuals named George Knauff are so listed, but none is the man being sought due to their unsuitable ages, names of family members, middle name, or a variety of other straightforward reasons. If Knauff was again employed at a female seminary at this time, both the inspiration of his second period of publishing and his not being listed as a head of household in the census of 1850 would be explained.
23. "The Origin of Minstrelsy," in Charles H. Day, Fun in Black, or Sketches of Minstrel Life (New York: Robert M. Dewitt, 1874), p. 6.
24. Hans Nathan, Dan Emmetta nd the Rise of EarlyN egroM instrelsy( Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1962), pp. 166-68. The most extensive discussion of "Natchez" is in the album notes for Alan Jabbour, ed., American Fiddle Tunes from the Archives of Folk Song, AFS L62 (Washington, D.C.: Music Division, Library of Congress, 1971), pp. 31-34. Another kindred tune, "Turkey in the Straw," does not appear in the printed record till much later.
25. (London: J. Bland, [ca. 1782-83]); appeared in a variety of editions. "Old Lee Rigg; or, Rose Tree, Strathspey," in Niel Gow, A Second Collection of Strathspey Reels &c. (Edinburgh: author, [1788]), p. 29, is a typical Scottish instrumental arrangement of this well-known tune.
26. New and Complete Perceptor for the German Flute (Albany, N.Y.: Steele, [1824-26]), p. 11.
27. Elias Howe, Howe's School for the Violin (Boston: Howe, 1851), p. 43; and Mellie Dunham, Fiddlin' Dance Tunes (New York: Fischer, 1926), p. 6.
28. Elias Howe, The Musician's Companion, 3 vols. (Boston: Howe, 1844), 3:75; 1:44.
29. Jabbour has collected traditional versions of the tune in North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia. Popular on early hillbilly records, the tune's migration westward is suggested by its being printed in W. H. Morris, Old Time Violin Melodies (St. Joseph,
Mo.: author, 1927), no. 31.
30. Edward Riley, Riley's Flute Melodies (New York: author, [1814-16]), p. 73.
31. Howe, The Musician's Companion: 160.
32. Forty-eight Original Irish Dances, Never before P rinted, vol. 2 (Dublin: Hime [179-?]), no. 3.
33. MS. VM 1450 M29 [MS collection of dance tunes], p. 49, Newberry Library, Chicago.
34. Richmond Enquirer, June 18, 1831.
35. See Gow, A Second Collection, p. 2. Richmond Hill is a neighborhood in New York City, and there is a Richmond near London. This seems to be the first publication of this tune in the United States, just as "The 22nd of February" seems to be the earliest printed version of today's "Miller's Reel":'
36. "Abel Shattuck's Book'," MS. M63.S5, p. 71, Music Division, Library of Congress, as well as other manuscript sources and almost all printed sources of fiddle tunes.
37. Howe, School for the Violin, p. 36
38. Ira W. Ford, Traditional Music in America (New York: E. P. Dutton and Co., 1940), p. 28.
39. Modem ears might well prefer a minor ii chord in this location in "Miss Brown's Reel":' We have not located accompanied versions of this tune in nineteenth-century publications. In instrumental anthologies that contain many such pieces arranged in
several parts, e.g., Elias Howe, The Instrumental Musician (Boston: Howe, 1843), and Elias Howe, Young America's Collection of Instrumental Music (New York: Henry Tolman and Co., 1858), the dominant is encountered where modem ears might prefer the ii chord in accompaniments of reels and similar dances.
40. See Alexander McGlashan, A Collection of Strathspey Reels (Edinburgh: author, [1780-86]), p. 7.
41. Neil Gow and Sons, Part Second of the Complete Repository of Original S cots Slow Strathspeys and Dances, 3d ed. (Edinburgh: Robert Purdie, [1828]), p. 2.
42. See Chris Goertzen, "'Billy in the Low Ground': History of an American Instrumental Folk Tune" (Ph.D. diss., University of Illinois, 1983), pp. 125-26.
43. William Marshall, A Collection of Strathspey Reels (Edinburgh: McGlashan, [1781]), p. 1. Many nearly identical versions appeared in later collections.
44. (Geo. Willig, Jr.), printed on one side of a single sheet with "Braes of Balquehither."
45. Jabbour, however, has collected a performance retaining circular endings, by Henry Reed, recorded on June 18, 1966, in Glen Lyn, Va. Reed, then eighty-two years old, was born and grew up in Monroe County, W.Va.
46. Similar stories are associated with quite a few fiddle tunes.
47. (Baltimore: Willig, [n.d.]), according to Nathan, Dan Emmett, p. 166.
48. Sigmund Spaeth, A History of Popular Music in America (New York: Random House, 1948), p. 42.
49. Samuel P. Bayard, Dance to the Fiddle, March to the Fife (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1982), p. 117.
50. Spaeth, A History, p. 6.
51. Nathan, Dan Emmett, p. 291. Emmett's 1st ed. is reprinted on p. 320.
52. Richmond Enquirer, June 20, 1837.
53. Day, Fun in Black, p. 6.
54. Bayard, Dance to the Fiddle, p. 2.
55. Richmond Enquirer, July 2, 1840.
56. Ibid., July 13, 1827.
57. From a letter written Mar. 29, 1842, on deposit as Mss 1K2964a, item 194, Virginia Historical Society.
58. Compare with "Our Goodman" in Jan Philip Schinhan, ed., The Music of the Ballads, vol. 4 of The Frank C . Brown Collection o f North Carolina Folklore (Durham, N .C.: Duke University Press, 1957), pp. 103-11.
59. Sheet music publications of "Flowers of Edinburgh" (Knauff's "Old Virginia"), "The Marquis of Huntley's Farewell" ("George Booker"), "Money Musk" ("Killie Krankie"), "My Love She's but a Lassie Yet" ("Richmond Blues"), and "Speed the Plough"
are listed in Richard J. Wolfe, Secular Music in America, 1801-1825 (New York: New York Public Library, 1964), 1:282; 2:543, 575, 623, and 834.
60. See Chris Goertzen, "Philander Seward's 'Musical Deposit' and the History of American Instrumental Folk Music," Ethnomusicology 26 (Jan. 1982): 1-10.
61. R.B.R. B124 and R.B.R. B4, Perkins Library, Duke University.
62. At the Library of Congress and in the Perkins Library, Duke University (R.B.R. B4).
63. The Board of Trade Catalogue of Music 1870 (1871; rpt., New York: Da Capo Press, 1976), p. 513.