English Bagpipe Music
What people played in the early centuries of the English piping tradition is open to a wide interpretation and very little has come down to us. Also, as an instrument (with the drum) of the lower classes, knowledge was passed on first hand until the age of printing made communication easier.
As with most aspects of English culture, music also tended to be imported from Europe, where (circa mid 16th century) various Continental composers, such as Susato and Arbeau, were compiling and publishing collections of tunes for dances. Some of which (brawls, for instance) were pan-European. The one exception, appearing about the same time, is the hornpipe, not the familiar “sailor’s hornpipe”, but a more obscure though clearly robust dance including both rounds and solo stepping. In fact an example of a Hornpipe is playing now, Mr. Preston's Hornpipe, early C18th.
In the 17th century the English family, Playford, performed a similar feat to their continental counterparts, writing down both tune and dance of those popular in their day, leaving a wealth for the generations that followed.
However, at the same time as the Playfords recorded, the tradition was in decline. Although English composers, such as William Byrd and Purcell, were creating music inspired by what they heard about them (Byrd calling one piece “Bagpipe and Drone”) the music was set to be played on more “refined” instruments.
However, there remains much that is clearly pipe-able music from previous centuries and where the English piping tradition is relatively unbroken (Northumberland and the Borders) the music has developed up to the present day.
A Brief History of the Bagpipe
It is difficult to know for how long a simple reed instrument has been attached to a bag. Images of people possibly playing bagpipes are said to be carved into various works of stone right across ancient lands of Middle East.
Depending on to whom you are talking their arrival in the British Isles is due the Romans, then others, right up to Crusaders bringing them back as part of their prize. And if a fervent follower of the "Celtic Fringe", then bagpipes bypassed most of England entirely! Argument is rife, fact hard to find.
However, bagpipes were certainly well know in England by the time of Chaucer for his character, Robin Miller, played as the pilgrims set off from Southwark in “The Canterbury Tales” (1387). And, even before his time, there is reference to a piper playing at the court of Edward I; “To a certain young man with a bagpipe piping before the King, the King gave him two shillings” (Household Accounts for the year 1285/86). If only the pay was relatively as good now!
By the 16th century we have James IV of Scotland paying for an English bagpiper to play; Henry VIII, a noted musician, owning 5 sets of bagpipes and there were town pipers, such as Henry Halewood, playing in Liverpool in 1571, well, actually, being hauling up in front of the local magistrate for playing on a Sunday!
Sir Thomas Browne wrote in 1662 his Derbyshire Journey: “When we had viewed this famous town of Bakewell, we returned to our inn to strengthen ourselves against what encounters we should meet with next, where at our entrance we were accosted with the best music the place could afford, an excellent bagpipe, and breakfast being ready, I think our meat danced down our throats the merrier.” However, by the last quarter of that century, the bagpipe, as a popular instrument in England, was in decline and the fiddle ascendant.