Stories of Famous Songs, Vol 2

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STORIES OF
piece, a Galliard, bore a certain resemblance to the national anthem. Unfortunately, instead of submitting the " ayre" to some experts as he first found it, Mr. Clark tampered with the melody, and I give the story of the detection of the trick by W. Chappell told by himself. " When Clark played the ' ayre' to me with the book before him, I thought it to be the original of the national anthem; but afterwards, taking the manuscript into my own hands, 1 was convinced that it had been tampered with, and the re-semblance strengthened, the sharps being in ink of a much darker colour than the other parts. The additions are very perceptible, in spite of Clark's having covered the face of that portion with varnish. In its original state the opening of the ' ayre' does not quite strike one as re-sembling " God Save the King/ but by making the natural G sharp, and changing the whole from an old scale without sharps or flats into the modern scale of A major (three sharps) the tune becomes essentially like i God Save the King/ When I reflected further, however, upon the matter, it appeared very improbable that Dr. Bull should have composed a piece for the organ in the modern key of A major. The most curious resemblance between Dr. Bull's ' ayre' and ' God Save the King/ is that the
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