Hi all
I have to play at a napoleonic historical reconstruction, could you please suggest me some appropriate tunes?
thank you very much!
Cristiano
Bonaparte’s Retreat, Madame Bonaparte, Napoleon Crossing the Rhine, quite a few other tunes and songs naming him, commemorating battles etc. Mind, I’m not sure how contemporary they’d be. But there are certainly collections of English tunes including military ones and social dances that would be. And don’t forget La Marseillaise.
‘Oh, Napoleon Bonaparte, you’re the cause of all my woe,
For my bonny light horseman to the wars he did go.’
… then there’s Boney & Clyde, anything by Boney M, Steptoe & Son (rag ‘n’ bone[y] men) …
I manfully refrained from those… But since we’ve gone there, there’s always ‘Waterloo’ by the unmentionable..
thank you!
here is what I’ve gathered:
The Battle Of Waterloo
Bonaparte’s Expedition
Bonaparte Crossing The Alps
Bonaparte Crossing The Rhine
Bonaparte’s Retreat
Soldier’s Joy
Waterloo Fair
Madame Bonaparte
La Marseillaise
i’m still having good time looking for some old french tune
cheers
I know this one as Napoleon’s Grand March and Terry Moylan has it as that name, in a book of Napoleonic songs and tunes.
http://www.lilliputpress.ie/listbook.html?id=72
it’s here as Buonaparte’s March, in The Fiddler’s Companion.
http://www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/BUL_BUS.htm#BUONAPARTE’S_MARCH
Try looking in The Fiddlers Companion - alphabetic listing of tunes by name and very much the place to go for your purposes as it gives background info on many of the tunes, including their origins where known, so helps you sort out the ones that actually come from or were in use in the period from those composed or just given associated names later.
So, I scanned “Battle” tunes - found e.g. a reference to (but no ABC for) “BATTLE OF MARENGO, THE. Irish. Composed by Dubliner Tom Cooke (1782‑1848) in 1804.”, similarly The Battle of the Nile, The Battle of Trafalgar, The Battle of Waterloo (apparently the same tune as N. Crossing the Alps); next cf Bonaparte tunes - plenty, with info. Not all are contemporary to the Napoleonic Wars. Some are much older but, perhaps due to their melodies being used for (period) ballads, acquired extra names with Nappy references. Others may be rather later, so not appropriate if you want to be period authentic. _Bonaparte’s March_es #1 and #4 are attributed to contemporary sources.
There are several “Nelson” tunes, as might be expected, ditto “Wellington” the blurb on The Wellington New Waltz (a dance that came into vogue following the 1815 ) is very helpful - refers to a collection which would be exactly what you need! Down with the French is also worth checking out, as is The Victory 3.
Doing that brief survey of obvious themes, I saw quite a few references to tune collections made and published in the Napoleonic era - if you garner and research those, you may even find complete sources somewhere online? There’s certainly no shortage of relevant period material.
BTW, I recorded this clip for other reasons today, but checking up on the background of the tunes, turns out all three were pre-Napoleonic C18th compositions and current/popular during the Napoleonic era.
Sounds lovely Jem 
Now I want an F flute…
We used to play those together a very long time ago, Jem. Funny then, that my versions are quite different from yours, especially with the last one, although to a fair old degree with the others as well. Evolution, I guess.
Indeed. I think we, or certainly I, had rather devolved-from-the-original-source (not to say garbled) versions in my minds ear (from familiarity at barn dances, in my case). I still have the sheets from those days - dunno if we wrote them out by ear or copied 'em from books. I haven’t played them seriously for years - pretty much revived them for this clip (though without looking up the sheet), partly inspired by that octave-jump thread here recently, which reminded me of them. I think I may have changed the key of the first one from where we used it, though not the others (except for playing them on an F instrument 
) You have probably learned more “authentic” versions in the interim… My setting of the last one is certainly different in some significant details from the ones on Fiddlers Companion.
Well, I thought I learnt those tunes from Roly. If I’m right, you must have copied them out later …
Dunno. The sheet is not in either your hand nor mine, and I very much doubt it’s Roly’s - nor Helen’s. Is it Nick’s? If not, I think we must have had it from a third party. Anyway, these versions are more-or-less what I learnt and still play, save for “straightening out” the last tune rather, which I think I always did - probably from bad reading/never actually learning it correctly back then plus, as I said, mind’s ear memory of hearing it played for dancing!
The Bonny Bunch of Roses
The Green Linnet
The Bonny Light Horseman
From the Sharpe’s Rifles series of movies - Sean Bean as ‘Sharpe’
the Salamanca - as played by Sargeant Harper
Boney would have hated it…
I guess I don’t need to point out that tunes of the Napoleonic era don’t necessarily have titles referring to Napoleon. I guess Jem has already done so … 
If the goal is authenticity, with Napoleon’s reign as the terminus ante quem, then any pre-19th century sources will do. Such as Bunting, Playford (John and Henry), Carolan. Also American colonial and revolutionary sources, such as the fife and drum tradition, the music of Colonial Williamsburg, Yankee Doodle, etc. The fifers here can probably point to online collections. Both song melodies and dance tunes would be likely flute material.
Of course, this is all very Anglocentric. As for the popular music of Napoleonic France, Italy etc. that might have been played on flute, I haven’t a clue.
Flexi Smart , could you try linking that again ? the Salamanca , i mean , as your link didn’t link , like. Thanks.
Sorry, that wasn’t a link to the Salamanca. (only an emphasis)
Harper does play the tune around a campfire in the Sharpe’s movie, (on some sort of D whistle), but I’ll have to spend some time trying to figure out which of the 15 films, and where in the film.
…a little later…
Here it is - at 4:30 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-Flli3J8K4&feature=related
edit:
If you haven’t seen the Sharpe’s series, it’s 14 1.5 hour films featuring Sean Bean & Daragh O’Malley as buddies, with music by the amazing Jon Tams. I’d recommend them highly. The books by Bernard Cornwell are also exceptional.
In fact most of the music in the Sharpe series is pretty appropriate I think. Or at least it evokes the era for me…
One in particular would be over the hills and far away. The website warof1812.ca quotes a few songs from that era including Lochaber No More which is great on a fiddle ringing the empty strings.
“Have you heard how the wars began…?”