"Brilliancy", also known as "Brilliance", "Brilliancy Medley" or "Louisville Hornpipe" is an old-time, Texas style breakdown in A Major. The parts are played AABB (Christeson, Phillips/1994), AABBCC (Phillips/1995) or AABBCCDDEE (Brody). The tune was recorded by Eck Robertson in 1929 as "Brilliancy" and as an extended version known as "Brilliancy Medley".
"Brilliancy" was Eck Robertson's name for the set of variations he developed for "Drunken Billy Goat" (also known as "Rocky Mountain Goat"). Other components were parts of "The Miller's Reel", "Dew Drop Hornpipe" and "Wake Up Susan". The tune is related to "Passaic Hornpipe" (also known as "Trafalger Hornpipe") and some versions include portions of "Billy Wilson" and "Bill Cheatam".
"Brilliancy Medley" was one of Robertson's best known pieces and sold over 2,600 copies when it was released in September, 1930. Harry Smith (notes to Anthology of American Folk Music, 1952) writes:
"'Eck' Robertson was one of the pioneer rural recording artists, with unaccompanied solos issued by Victor thirty years ago. His playing in the present recording is quite archaic in its studied and exultant formality, but the medley of traditional tunes is more suited to the popular dance steps of the 1920's than for the square dance".
It was printed in R.P. Christeson's Old Time Fiddlers Repertory, vol. 2 (1984), Brody's Fiddler's Fakebook (1983) Phillips' Traditional American Fiddle Tunes, vol. 1 (1994) and Phillips' Traditional American Fiddle Tunes, vol. 2 (1995).
It was recorded by Eck Robertson on Old-Time Fiddle Classics, American Folk Music, vol. 2, Master Fiddler and a 78RPM recording in 1929 and Mark O'Conner on National Junior Fiddle Champion.