G'day Dicho (... if you're still out there 11 months later!),

Your problem in 'comparing' the tunes seems to arise at the point where you say:

"Now compare this with the music for the "Queensland version" at the Univ. Queensland site, which seems to be the sheet music published in 1903: Queensland score ..." (My bolding).

The "Queensland version" is not the 1903 published version ... it is a completely independent (folk?) setting of Banjo Paterson's published words ... and only found in the 1950s.

The progression of tune versions in the Craigielea line is:

1805: W Barr's setting of Craigielea
1893: Bulch's quickstep arrangement of Craigielea tune (Her husband claimed her composition only after her deat in 1939.)
1903: Marie Cowan's version, which she only ever claimed to 'arrange'.

If you listen to, or read, the appropriate section of Craigielea, followed by the two further steps, you will hear/see that each varies little from the other. I can supply a 2-page set of tunes showing these (plus the dodgy 'Berriman' "cut & paste") as well as a MIDI file of each played in the same key and tempo.

Virginia,

It is interesting that Waltzing Matilda survives all criticism ... and shameless parodies ... and still says something about Australians. Perhaps we are too close to say just what that is!

Regards,

Bob Bolton