As with my earlier reconstructions of Howe's figures for "Les Rats" and the third set of Simonet's Parisian Quadrilles, I was primarily motivated to reconstruct Paine's Twelfth Set of Quadrilles by the existence of a high-quality recording of the music. I'm not sure what prompted Green Ginger to choose this quadrille, out of more than a dozen of Paine's other sets of quadrille music (besides his most-famous and oft-recorded first) to include on their CD of Regency-era dance music, Music for Quadrilles, but it's an excellent set of tunes played beautifully.
I've used these recordings in the past as variant music for the standard quadrille figures, which they were structured to fit. But Paine's original sheet music also included new figures for those who didn't want to dance the usual ones, and they turned out to have some unusual figures which I quite like.
The booklet of liner notes for Music for Quadrilles includes instructions for each dance; the quadrille ones are clearly Ellis Rogers' work. I mostly agree with those reconstructions, but they are bare-bones figure lists with no steps or details of performance. I have a few minor quibbles with figure interpretations and some of the musical repeats, and I think there are reconstruction issues with the fifth figure that are worth pointing out.
The specific issues:
- Rogers almost invariably defaults to tour de mains meaning to turn by the right hand. I almost invariably default to it meaning to turn by two hands.
- It's not clear to me that "alternate figures for the same music" necessarily means "and the repeats for each figure must be exactly the same as the first set". For figures two and three, I believe that both standard practice and the instructions call for only two repeats, not four.
- Related to this is the question of whether with alternate figures the internal structure and length must be the same. If I were reconstructing the fifth figure exclusively from the figures, I would end up with a figure that was forty bars long with an eight-bar "coda" at the end. The printed music, structured for the first set, is forty-eight bars long with an eight-bar coda. This comes down to a question of whether one wants to tweak the figures to match the music or tweak the music to match the figures. Rogers and Green Ginger came down on the side of tweaking the figures. I don't entirely disagree with that, but I don't think it's the only option.
I think the number of repeats for two of the figures is not really ambiguous, but the other two points come down to judgment calls. Since this is meant to be not just a reconstruction of a quadrille but a demonstration of some of the process, I'll be including the original instructions (in English and rather dubious French) and enough of my thought process to make it clear why I made the decisions I did on any arguable points.
This series is aimed at dancers with significant quadrille experience, so while I will give step sequences or links to options for each figure, I am not going to explain the individual steps.
I'm breaking this reconstruction up into several pieces because a single post would be ridiculously long. The next post in the series will cover the first two figures.
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A note about the dating: both copies of the twelfth set that I have examined have a printed date of 1819, but are not first printings of the twelfth set, since they include the thirteenth and fourteenth sets in their listings of Paine's available works. I haven't been able to find a publishing record or London newspaper advertisement for Paine's twelfth set, but it was advertised in at least two regional newspapers on February 13th, 1819:
QUADRILLES.
JUST PUBLISHED, and may be had at JAMES FINLAY’S Music Warehouse, Mosley Street, Newcastle, the 12th Set of Paine of Almacks Quadrilles, Price 4s. where may be had, all or any of the preceding Numbers, at 4s. each; also, a Pocket Selection of Favourite Quadrilles, for Piano Forte or Flute, Nos. 1 and 2, 4s. each.
J. F. expects a Supply of Quadrille Cards, in a few Days.
-- The Newcastle Courant (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England), Saturday, February 13, 1819; Issue 7427. (from British Library Newspapers, Part I: 1800-1900.)
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QUADRILLES.
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JUST PUBLISHED.
PAINE’S, of ALMACKS, 12th Set of QUADRILLES, with New Figures, in French and English, 4s. Also, New Editions of Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11, as performed at Almacks, each 4s separately, or the whole Twelve Numbers complete, bound, £1 11s 6d.; the New Quadrille [unreadable], 6s.
Mr. PAINE begs to inform the Nobility and Subscribers at Almacks, his Quadrilles are published at FALKNER’S Opera Music Warehouse, 3, Old Bond Street, and none are Genuine without having his Signature written on them.
JAS. PAINE.
-- The York Herald, and General Advertiser (York, England), Saturday, February 13, 1819; pg. [1]; Issue 1485. (from British Library Newspapers, Part II: 1800-1900.)
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I'm not sure how quickly music was distributed across England, but even if this set were available slightly earlier in London, I doubt it would have been more than a few weeks back, so I'm quite comfortable with 1819.
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