“Bonaparte Crossing the Rhine” is a tune that is pretty much always played in a medley of marches to accompany “the Grand March” that Doug leads on the first night of Maine Fiddle Camp.

BONAPARTE CROSSING THE RHINE is an American march, set in D Major, and normally played in standard or ADae tunings on fiddle. Most play it AABB which makes it a 64 bar tune. The tune is considered “traditional” (no known author), but the first part of the tune shows up in several melodies from Ireland, Scotland and England; these variants include the Irish “Centenary March” and “Comhra Donn (An),” and the Scottish “Caledonian March” (printed, for example, by George Willig in Philadelphia in 1837 and Elias Howe in his Musician’s Companion of 1842). Barry Callaghan (2007) says the core tune was current as a military march in the Peninsular War, and probably earlier, although he cites no source for this assertion. However, the tune has melodic similarity to an English hornpipe (possibly a march) called “Durham Rangers” or “Sherwood Rangers.” Samuel Bayard, a tune collector and historian from western Pennsylvania in the early to mid-twentieth century was familiar with “Bonaparte Crossing the Rhine” as a common march tune in his primary collecting area, and one which circulated under a variety of names including (in Fayette County) “Bruce’s March” and (in Greene County) “The Star of Bethlehem.” As with several of the other ‘Bonaparte’ titled tunes it is sometimes confused with similar names; for example, Bayard once heard it played by a New Jersey fiddler who gave it the ubiquitous name “Bonaparte’s Retreat”, a totally different tune.

So many bands have recorded this tune. One of my favorite recordings, though, is by the North Carolina old-time band, “the Fuzzy Mountain String Band”. The recording is from 1972. (See below for a few tidbits about “Fuzzy Mountain”)

Here’s Fuzzy Mountain playing the tune:

The FMSB was formed in the late 1960s and early ’70s by a bunch of college kids at UNC Chapel Hill in North Carolina. They liked to refer to themselves as “young fogeys”I, and my band mates in Scrod Pudding, had an opportunity to meet and play with one of the band’s original members, (and later a founder of the Red Clay Ramblers), fiddler Bill Hicks. Bill is front left in the picture to the left. At a music session with Bill and his wife, Libby, at their home on Okrakoke Island, NC., Bill spun many yarns about Fuzzy Mountain. One that stuck with me was that the original FMSB recording (the one above), was recorded at home using several old portable cassette tape recorders. These recorders had two inputs which could be configured to a single mono output. That was the basic mixer for the recording. By connecting together a bunch of these units they had a 6 track recorder and the “master” came out eventually on a cassette tape. Can you believe it?? The recording quality, as you can hear above, really isn’t that bad. Read some more here.

Bringing it a little closer to home, here’s a recording with Jon Cooper (Maine fiddler and violin maker) Lincoln Meyers (Maine bluegrass guitar whiz), Brittney Haas, and others. This video was ewcorded at Acoustic Artisans in Portland, ME in 2012. This is a really fun arrangement!

Finally, don’t forget to tune in to Pam Weeks’ and my weekly Tuesday night online mini-concert and jam. here’s the info: Tuesday night Online jam session and mini-concert with Pam Weeks and Bill Olson – FolkWorks

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