Bonaparte’s Retreat (Ed Haley)
As is so often the case with fiddle tunes, there are at least 3 distinct versions of Bonaparte’s Retreat, which are all fairly different from each other. The one I am posting here is the longest and is not quite as recognizable as the one that Aaron Copland used famously in Rodeo (and which was later used in a beef commercial). This one is the version played by Ed Haley, a blind fiddler who played music professionally but never recorded much for fear of being taken advantage of by the record companies. His family did make some recordings to preserve his playing, however. These found their way to John Hartford who learned and recorded many of the tunes. The Hartford recordings helped to bring Ed Haley’s repertoire to a wider audience. (Hartford also helped get the home recordings released commercially as well.)
Musically speaking, this a a hoedown if played fast but can also be more of a March if slower. With the title to play on the imagination, it makes me think of marching soldiers and military marching music. Ed Haley seems to have described the low strings as representing cannons and the high section as fleeing soldiers. More an illustrative piece than a normal dance tune, I can’t help but wonder if perhaps this story aspect has helped to make it so popular.
Now let’s talk about Napoleon. You may or may not recall that he tried to invade Russia and failed (with the Russians strategically using the coming of winter to force him to flee). There were massive casualties (about 1 million according to Wikipedia) and the invasion’s failure pretty much led to Bonaparte’s decline and eventual exile. So that, in a nutshell, is the history that inspired the tune or at least the tune title.
Notes on Playing the Tune
The bowings I have included are my own and some of them may take some practice. I decided not to try to write in Hartford style bowings since he varies the slurs (as well as notes) through each repeat. Interesting note though, I read in an interview that Hartford liked to try to not rely on bowing patterns, and you can hear he has kind of a wild bowing style if you listen to the recording (linked below). Feel free to adapt the bowings if mine don’t suit you, however the first few measures have a key bowing that I use all over for rhythmic effect, so that one will come up again and is probably worth working on. (Hint: it requires a fast down bow to make enough room for the up bow slur after.)
Both the Hartford and Haley recordings are in the alternate tuning DDAD. It sounds fine in standard tuning as well, so that’s a good place to start. The ring of all the D strings is great though, so learning the melody in alternate tuning is a good challenge, especially if you haven’t done much cross-tune playing. (Perhaps it’s saying the obvious, but the notes on the E string will all be fingered differently.)
