Anybody know where "March to the Battlefield" comes from?
The earliest version I've seen was in a Scottish manuscript flute tutor
of 1838 (much the same as it's played now). The earliest print version
I know of is in Kerr's Violin Instructor and Irish Folk-Song Album
(1890ish?); that one is rather different. It's played today as an Irish
polka, the name of which I forget. It sounds more Irish than Scottish
to me, though it can't have started out as a polka (there were no Irish
polkas by 1838). Or is it derived from an opera? - I could imagine a
Verdian soldiers' chorus yo-ho-ho-ing it on their way to do something
stirringly heroic.
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