Moving right along with the Royal Lancers quadrille for sixteen: the fourth figure is the first figure to really take full advantage of the large-square format, with each repetition bringing the active couples (heads or sides) exactly halfway around the square to the diagonally opposite position. In this, it has more in common with the fourth figure of Allen Dodworth's later New York Lancers (here) than with that the standard Lancers, a version of which is described in the same post.
The formation for the Royal Lancers is shown in the first post in this series, here; reference to that diagram will be useful in sorting out the perambulations of the various couples.
8b Wait (not repeated)
4b Head couples lead to side couples on their right and all salute
4b Head couples lead around their neighboring head couples to the directly-opposite side couples, and all salute
4b All face partners and chassez right and left
4b All turn partners to nearest places (heads have changed places with their neighboring head couple)
4b Head couples forward and back to opposites
4b Head couples half right and left (heads end diagonally opposite their original starting place)
The figure is repeated three more times: once more for the head couples then twice for the side couples.
In the rather clever progression, each active couple first changes places with the couple that shares their side of the square and then changes with their opposites to end, with each repetition, halfway around the set (diagonally opposite their starting position). It is important not to cross to the opposite side of the set until the half right and left at the end of each repetition; the "lead around" when the heads go to salute a second side couple is done only with the neighboring head couple, ignoring the two head couples on the opposite side of the set who are also leading around each other only.
The music should be extended slightly at the end of the first two figures to provide time for the salutes. Many recordings also stretch out the music slightly at the end of the third (all chassé across) figure because in the most popular regular Lancers the parallel figure included a salute. Salutes themselves, as in the third figure, are more brief passing salutes than elaborate bows and courtesies, for which there is simply no time.
Hillgrove calls for the half right and left to be performed by passing right shoulders (no hands) and then giving left hands, though other sources do use the right hand. Men flip around at the end to face in.
Reconstruction notes
I have once again added the standard eight-bar wait at the beginning of the figure, which is found in Koncen but not in Hillgrove. The bows and courtesies are done only in the first figure and are not repeated.
This figure, if done as above, presents a practical musical problem. Early in the nineteenth century, the fourth figure of the Lancers often took twenty-four bars. But at some point, twenty bars became the dominant length for the figure, though twenty-four bar versions continued to exist. So sheet music and recordings for mid- to late nineteenth-century Lancers quadrilles will often not quite fit this version of the Royal Lancers. Either music of a suitable length must be found or the music must be modified to fit. But I am following Hillgrove above; Koncen, the later source, gives a slightly different version of the fourth figure that is only twenty bars long:
4b Head couples lead to side couples on their right and all salute
4b
Head couples turn halfway as a couple, lead around their neighboring
head couple to the directly opposite side couples, and all salute
4b All chassez across
8b All turn partners [to nearest places?] and take new places [half right and left?]
The final figure compresses Hillgrove's twelve bars of movement into eight and is not very helpfully described; how exactly do the couples "turn partners and take new places," which must (to match the Hillgrove progression) be some sort of change with their opposites? The solution closest to Hillgrove is to do a half right and left with the opposite couple, skipping the preceding forward and back. This does not flow quite as gracefully coming out of the heads turning partners to nearest places, but it works. Promenading halfway round with their opposites would also be a possibility.
Figures one, two, and three of the Royal Lancers may be found here, here, and here. Figure five of the Royal Lancers will be examined in the final in this series.
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