Dorothea (H)
SS008
The Dorothea was a Dutch brig, which ran aground on Blodscar Rocks, off Seaton Snook - this after it had already ran aground at Seaton Carew and been put back to sea. The wreckage occurred on 10th October 1868, the year of the incident(s) involving Jacob Cox's horse and one week after the third discovery. A report on the matter was found in the Shields Gazette and Daily Telegraph, and is partly included below. When we found our scan had been corrupted, we contacted North Eastern Press to obtain another copy, but they claimed not to be able to locate any such article.
NOTES ON THE PIECE
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Northumbrian Smallpipes characteristics:
Leaping intervallic figures in bar 7 [pink box]
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Snookish characteristics:
Major 7th interval in bars 5 and 6 [orange boxes]
Ends on Mediant (B or Mi) [purple circles]
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Other Comments:
The melody of the A section is clearly centred around A minor, which would have sounded very odd above the G5 drone of the Snook smallpipes. Most Northumbrian Smallpipes tend to be equipped with multiple, adjustable drones, which can easily produce an A5 drone; however, we believe from the G major tonality and 7-note range of the rest of the pieces, that whoever composed the piece only played the simple/primitive smallpipes, which were not capable of playing an A5 drone without some sort of modification.
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As the Dorothea was wrecked in an Autumn month, the Harvest Tempo has been assigned to the piece, possibly by Robson Booth, and is played before and after the main tune in the above demo.
The Peoples Mass recording of Dorothy
SS302
The following recording from c1966-67 contains George Brallisford of The Peoples Mass attempting a tune strongly resembling Dorothea.
The recording cuts off before the song is completed, but in any case it appears that Brallisford is not familiar with the words. We cannot find evidence of a song called Dorothy with this tune or lyric other than the above NSP piece. It is unclear as to whether Brallisford was trying to remember a forgotten folk tune, or whether he was working on adapting the NSP tune into a more conventional sounding song: the melody here is played over A minor, rather than the awkward G drone of the NSP (See Other Comments above)