The very short version of this review is: historical dance band Spare Parts' The Regency Ballroom is one of the very best and most diverse recordings available for Regency-era dance music, and everyone should go out and get their own copy to support the making of such recordings.
The longer version follows.
But first, a disclaimer: the musicians of Spare Parts are personal friends, the band has played for my Regency Assemblies for the past several years, the selection of dances on this CD parallels the program of those Assemblies, and I served as one of the dance consultants for the recording and thus received a copy of it for free. Unsurprisingly, I am very pleased with it. I do not, however, receive any financial benefit from its sales or anything like that.
So what's on the CD?
The modern perception is that dancing of this era consisted entirely of longways country dances; that's what people see in movies. But the 1810s were actually an exciting era in which dance started the transition from the older dances of the eighteenth century (country dances and reels) to the new dances of the nineteenth (quadrilles and couple dances). The Regency Ballroom reflects this diversity by including dance forms like the reel and sauteuse that are not usually recorded.
The contents:
- four Regency-era waltzes
- two sauteuse waltzes
- a full five-figure quadrille set
- two country dance medleys
- a brief march
- two Scotch reels
- La Boulangere
- Sir Roger de Coverley
In more detail:
The waltzes include one by Mozart and two from Regency dancing master G. M. S. Chivers' The Modern Dancing Master (1822), including one named for Chivers' wife. One of the latter ("Patriot's Waltz") is arranged to also be usable for a short (three-couple) waltz country dance or Spanish dance set with six repeats of the forty-bar arrangement.
The duple-time sauteuse waltzes are quite special; I am unaware of any other recordings of freestanding sauteuses of this era. Usually they are found only as a part of a sequence of specific tunes tracing Thomas Wilson's slow-sauteuse-jeté-slow waltz progression. These are different tunes from the ones given in Wilson's waltz manual.
Likewise, the quadrille set is not the oft-recorded Paine's First Set. It is taken from a c1820 London book of quadrille sets and is structured for the first set of figures (Pantalon, Eté, Poule, Trenise, Finale). If you are as tired of dancing to Paine's music as I am, this quadrille is for you.
The country dance medleys are structured for particular lengths of set. The first includes three tunes from the 1790s and is for a thirty-two bar figure danced by a four-couple set using a historical progression (twelve times through the tune). The second includes two tunes from the 1819 book L'Asssembleé and is for a twenty-four bar figure danced by a three-couple set (six times through). Given how many modern recordings play country dance tunes an odd number of times (seven! three!) it is a huge relief to have recordings that can be used for historical dancing without having to be looped to do anything with them. For longer sets some editing will still be necessary, of course, but there's only so much one can fit on a CD.
The march is a brief one, meant for Regency dancing master Thomas Wilson's suggestion that country dances should begin with a brief march by the couples.
Scotch reels consisting of alternate setting and reeling (hays) for three or four dancers were popular in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Wilson also choreographed a number of "new reels" for three, four, five, and six dancers. Both are thirty-two bars played four times through, which is less reel than the Scots of the era would have danced but more than enough for modern purposes.
La Boulangere (Le Boulanger, the Boulanger, the Boulangeries, etc.) has the distinction of being the only dance mentioned by name in Jane Austen's correspondence or novels. Yes, Jane Austen actually danced this one. Based on a French cotillon figure, it is not a country dance but a simple full-set dance for couples standing in a circle. The progression is based on how many couples are dancing; this recording is for three-couple sets.
"Sir Roger de Coverley" is the famous dance performed at Fezziwig's Ball in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. It is another full-set dance and was the immediate ancestor of America's Virginia Reel. Wilson called this a "finishing dance", and it is so simple to do that it is perfect for late nights at the end of a ball when everyone is exhausted and not up to complicated figures. I published the full instructions for this dance here.
The Regency Ballroom is structured properly for dancers, with nice steady tempos and the flute-piano-violin combination is a pleasure to listen to as well as being a suitable instrumental mix for dance of this era. Liner notes provide the date and source for each tune and a few words of historical background, all of which are duplicated on the CD's webpage, where you can also hear a couple of audio samples.
The only real nitpicks I have are that the piano is a modern one rather than a period pianoforte and that the quadrille tunes are played at a modern dance tempo, which is somewhat faster than the period tempo seems to have been. Since the latter is more my fault than anyone else's, I can't complain too much about it!
To end as I began: anyone with a serious interest in historical dancing of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century should purchase The Regency Ballroom.
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