I'm accustomed to finding duplicate dance figures in the little country dance tune books of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. That's why I've taken to calling them tune books, since calling them dance manuals implies that the dance figures themselves are new, unique, or special. What was exciting about them was the music; the figures were repetitive and uninspired. In the little tune books, with twelve or twenty-four tunes, I'll often notice that the same dance figures (the complete sequence given for a tune) appear with two different tunes. In the larger books, with two hundred or more tunes, I'll find several instances of repetition without much effort, with some figures being used several times.
And sometimes I find a doozy of a tune book whose publisher repeated so many dance figures -- even by the low standards of the era -- that more than half are duplicates. That's unusual enough to be worth talking about by way of an example of how blithely indifferent dancers of this era were to originality in their country dance choreography. And it can serve as Exhibit A for any future discussions of the interchangeability of Regency dance tunes and figures, which many present-day dancers have trouble accepting.
Twenty Four Country Dances, for the Year 1803 Composed by Mr. Gray, Adapted for the Violin, German Flute, Oboe, &c. with Figures was published by Thompson's Music Warehouse, home of the publishers of the long-running series of annual Thompson's Twenty Four Country Dances for the Year ___ as well as the periodic volumes of Thompson's Compleat Collection. But this book does not appear to be part of the standard Thompson's series. Having a named composer is unusual; all of the Thompson series books I have seen are anonymous. And its lack of the typical Thompson's tagline, "As they are Perform'd at Court, Bath and all Publick Assemblys" implies to me that this music was not performed in any such venues, though perhaps the composer had hopes of it. Was Mr. Gray such a noted composer or musician that Thompson's decided it was worth publishing a book of his tunes? Or was this the equivalent of a modern vanity press publication commissioned privately by Mr. Gray?
I'm not qualified to judge Mr. Gray's talents as a composer, but judging from their names, the tunes do appear to be unique. While a few of the titles ("Sleepy Moggy", "Bartholemew Fair", "Golden Farmer") match those in other publications, comparing the music shows that they are actually different tunes. I can't rule out the possibility that Mr. Gray cribbed all of his music from elsewhere and gave it new titles, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.
Note the phrasing of the book's title: Dances...Composed by Mr. Gray...with Figures. Mr. Gray is the composer of the music ("dances"). He may or may not have been responsible for setting figures to his tunes; it may have been someone at Thompson's, or some poor freelancer, or maybe a friend or relative of Mr. Gray's. Whoever it was did perhaps the shoddiest job I've ever seen. They should win some sort of prize for the highest overall percentage of duplicate figures.
Of the twenty-four tunes, only ten are given dance figures that are unique within this book. Eight tunes share four dance figures, each being used twice. The other six tunes share only two dance figures between them, each appearing three times. Here are the repeating figures:
Foot it change sides & back again. lead down 1st Cu: up again & cast off. hands 6 round & back again. chain pousette with the top & bottom Cu:
Appears with "A House a Fire" and "Edinburgh Races"
1st. Cu: sett to the 2d. Lady & hands 3 round, the same to the 2d. Gen: lead down the middle, up again, Allemand & Swing Corners.
Appears with "Trip to Preston Guild" and "Madame Recaimer’s Waltz"
1st. Lady set to the 2d. Gen: & turn the 3d. lead down the middle up again & Allemand.
Appears with "Bartholemew Fair", "The Lawyer’s Fee", and "Miss Randle’s Whim". Note that this figure is also carelessly edited; there needs to be a parallel set-and-turn for the first Gent!
1st. & 2d. Cu: set hands across back again lead down the middle, up again, right & left.
Appears with "Jack Tar’s Delight" and "Ratling Morgan"
The 3 Ladies lead round, the 3d. Gen: the Gen: round the 3 Ladies, lead down the middle, up again, cast off, & Allemand.
Appears with "Sleepy Moggy", "Lord Lotherdale['s] Favorite", and "The Voice of Nature"
Change, sides back, again, hands across, back again, lead down the middle, up again, Allemand.
Appears with "Second Thoughts are Best" and a second tune whose title is cut off at the top of the page. Note that the incorrect punctuation (more careless editing!) is misleading; the opening figure is "change sides, back again."
The ten tunes appearing with dance figures that show up only once in this particular manual are:
"Tom Jones Waltz" "Lord Guilford's Whim"
"Miss Mary's Frolick" "Lord Duncan's Favorite"
"Monsieur Garnarin's Flight" "Lord Nelson's Whim"
"Miss Derby's Waltz" "Now or Never"
"Lady Howard's Waltz" "The Golden Farmer"
Note that figures being used only once within this manual does not mean they are unique in general; the dance figures I have spot-checked, including the ones with duplicates in this book, all have multiple matches in other books as well, which is exactly what I would expect.
I should add a note of thanks here to Robert Keller for his Dance Figure Index: English Country Dances, 1700-1827, which makes it terrifically easy to search for duplicate dance figures and is a tremendous resource for researching historical country dance.
For what it's worth, Thompson's published a second collection by Mr Gray for 1805: http://folkopedia.efdss.org/images/9/92/ThompsGray_24_1805.PDF . It also features duplication.
The Thompson music shop changed hands many times. By this era it was being managed by Henry Thompson, the last of the dynasty. He eventually sold the business (c.1805), but it seems to have been in decline before he did so. I'm tempted to make some kind of 'fading to Gray' reference...
Posted by: Paul | November 16, 2013 at 05:35 AM
Paul: Oooh, thanks, didn't have that one. I'm particularly enamored of page 2, where both tunes on the same page have the same figure! I've seen consecutive-page and facing-page repeats before, but I think same-page is a first.
I don't generally feel a need to write up specific country dance tune books, but I do get tired of explaining to people that wanting specific names for Regency dance choreographies ("What is the NAME of the DANCE?") is a modern-mindset thing that does not really apply in this era.
Now I can point them at this post. :)
Posted by: Susan de Guardiola | November 16, 2013 at 10:47 AM
On a tangential theme, do you have any idea what the 'chain pousette with the top & bottom Cu' in Edinburgh Races means? I published an essay recently on the Pousette, but didn't have a good answer for that. [If interested, my essay is available here: http://regencydances.org/paper002.php - feel free to delete this comment if the off-topic question isn't appropriate]
Posted by: Paul | November 16, 2013 at 01:50 PM
Is this a trick question? :) I've never seen the term "chain pousette" defined, but I'd guess that it's the double poussette. Can't think what else it could be, and the full instruction to "chain pousette with the top & bottom Cu" seems to bear that out.
You did read my post enough to know that the dance figures are not called "Edinburgh Races", right? That's the name of the music.
Regencydances.org is, sadly, one of the prime websites spreading misinformation about dance of this era. I wasn't too impressed when they bought music from me and used it on their site without permission, either.
Posted by: Susan de Guardiola | November 17, 2013 at 07:24 PM
Dear Susan,
As editor-in-chief of RegencyDances.org I must correct a specific point. We track all of the copyright permissions we receive and we don't publish any copyright material without explicit written permission. With over 400 dances researched and animated this is no trivial task. If if something has gone wrong tell me and I will correct that mistake. In another context I believe you have mentioned The Royal Scotch Quadrilles as being used without your permission whereas in fact permission was given by the actual copyright holder, who is not you but Bill Mattheisen, in an email dated 11/Jan/2011. I admire your column and enjoy reading it but please try to avoid unverified public accusations.
Garth Notley
http://RegencyDances.org
Posted by: Garth Notley | November 19, 2013 at 03:55 AM
Susan, I use your site a lot to inform my hist-dance teaching (nfp classes in SW UK). Is it OK for me to print off some of your text, with credit given, for my dancers to get some background? I'd particularly like to print this page to go with a download of the book itself from VWML.
I refer dancers to the site as well, but some don't use Internet.
Regards,
Ann Hinchliffe
Posted by: Ann Hinchliffe | March 02, 2015 at 10:19 AM