Greet manuscripts

The Greet manuscripts are a set of 21 tunes found, when working in his loft, by Peter Hill who was then living at Littleworth, Greet, near Winchcombe. They were entitled “a few favourite airs adapted for the German (ie transverse) flute”. Many are dance tunes, though four seem to have been somebody’s “party pieces” for the flute: the two scotch airs, Myrtle Sprig and Soldier Laddie. They may be a similar selection of material as described in George Eliot’s Middlemarch: “so Fred was gratified with nearly an hour’s practice of Ar Hyd y Nos, Ye Banks and Braes, and other favourite airs from his instructor on the flute; a wheezy performance, into which he threw much ambition and an irrepressible hopefulness.”

Poor Mary Ann is All Through the Night or Ar Hyd y Nos. It was also collected from William Shepherd at Winchcombe Union by Percy Grainger and, a few months later, by Cecil Sharp.

Notes by Charles Menteith and Paul Burgess