Capering & Kickery

CD Review: Mozart: German Dances

I've collected a fair number of albums over the years in the optimistic hope that art recordings might somehow be usable for dancing.  Often, that doesn't work out terribly well.  But after teaching a Regency waltz class last weekend and deciding that I absolutely had to have new waltz pieces for this era, I dug up one of my really old CDs, Mozart: German Dances by Capella Istropolitana under the conducting of Johannes Wildner.  This is a 1990 CD from Naxos that features no fewer than twenty-five Mozart "danses allemandes" dated from 1789 and 1791, all between one and four minutes long.  I can't say whether they were specifically intended for waltzes rather than for ländlers or other 3/4 time dances, but they certainly make dandy waltzes.

True Lovers Knot

Sometime between first edition of An Analysis of Country Dancing in 1808 and the third edition in 1811, London dancing master Thomas Wilson started creating his own original country dance figures.  Not sequences of figures, which anyone could do, but actual new floor patterns:

As novelty in Dancing as in every other amusement, is the author and promoter of an enlivening vivacity...it is equally irksome for good Dancers to be always using the same Figures, as for a professed musician to be continually playing the tunes of “God Save the King,” and “Foot’s Minuet;” and from the repeated suggestions of several good Dancers, and at the particular request of a great number of the author’s Friends and Pupils; and in order to answer the purposes of novelty and variety...The author has been induced to compose and arrange a variety of New Figures...

I wouldn’t take the “particular request” part too seriously; almost every nineteenth-century dancing master who comes up with something new modestly attributes its publication to requests by his students.  I suspect Wilson himself was the one finding it “irksome” to use the same figures over and over again.

Most of Wilson’s new figures are not terribly exciting.  Overwhelmingly, they involve only the active couple making increasingly elaborate loops and circles around the other couples, leaving four dancers with nothing to do for eight or even sixteen bars.  There are only a few which I’ve found worth bothering with over the years.  The latest of these is the True Lovers Knot, shown at left (click to enlarge).  

Let me be perfectly clear: this is not a typical Regency-era country dance figure.  It is very specific to one dance teacher and his students and customers.  Wilson himself rarely used it in his published works, and I have never seen it used by any other author or publisher.

That said, it’s a really lovely figure.  So I finally decided to work out how to dance it.

Three "Scottish" Setting Sequences for Regency-Era Quadrilles

(This continues a very occasional series of posts on setting steps for quadrilles, with the previous posts including eight easy sequences and two French sequences.)

Calling these three sequences "Scottish" is really a bit of a misnomer, since the sources are Alexander Strathy's Elements of the Art of Dancing (Edinburgh, 1822), which is in large part a translation of a French manual by J. H. Goudoux, and an anonymous Scottish manuscript entitled Contre Danses à Paris 1818.  All three sequences are certainly French in their steps and style and quite possibly in origin.  They probably would not have caused anyone in Paris in that era to bat an eyelash.  But technically, they are documented to Scotland, not France, in the late 1810s-early 1820s.

Two French Setting Sequences for Regency-era Quadrilles

Several years ago I posted eight easy setting sequences for Regency-era French quadrilles and said in the comments I'd try to post more "soon".  That has now stretched to more than five years, but, better late than never, here are a couple of others, this time directly from a trio of French manuals by J. H. Gourdoux (or Gourdoux-Daux):

Principes et Notions Élémentaires sur l’Art de la Danse Pour la Ville (2nd edition, 1811)
Recueil d’un Genre Nouveau de Contredanses et Walses (1819)
De l’Art de la Danse (1823)

Once again, these are easy sequences, but a bit more interesting than the previous set.

Dancing to "Wakefield Hunt"

Continuing my mini-series of Regency(ish)-era figure reconstruction...

The figures that appeared with "Mutual Love" (and a couple of other tunes) are a good example of tune/figure interchangeability -- specifically, of figures being reused with multiple pieces of music.  The other half of that interchangeability is tunes being recycled for different figures.  For that, I'm going to move on to the figures that appeared with "Wakefield Hunt'.  And the other figures that appeared with "Wakefield Hunt".  Yes, two figures, both alike in dignity (but completely different otherwise), in the fair 1770s and 1780s, where we lay our scene.  Two is actually a very small number; very popular tunes didn't go out of style and might be found with a dozen or more different figures over the years.

Dancing to "Mutual Love"

I get a lot of requests to tell people what dance figures to do to a particular piece of Regency-era country dance music.  The correct answer is "any historical figures that you like", since dance figures and tunes were mix-and-match during this period rather than locked together into tune-figure pairings with specific names.  So it's rare for me to do a through dissection of any particular set of figures.

But most people nowadays don't want to (or can't) call their own figures, and even people who don't want to try for that level of historical accuracy often do want to do figures in historical rather than modern style.  So I'm going to do a little series of posts doing historical reconstructions of the figures set to various tunes, which can then be used for that tune or any other tune of suitable length. 

First up: the figures that appeared in the 1770s with the tune "Mutual Love".

And the award for lack of originality in choreography goes to...

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.

Figure Four?

In a post a while back on the Regency "figure eight" and the many meanings of the term "figure" in that era, I mentioned a joking suggestion made by a guest at one of my Regency balls that a half figure eight should be called a "figure four".  Much to my astonishment, while pursuing some research on American country dance of this era, I actually found a figure four!

The figure is in an American manual published in 1808 in upstate New York, in the figure given for the tune "Flowers of Glasgow":

Flowers of Glasgow
First couple figure four with second couple, cast down two couple, back again, cross over, down one couple, balance, lead up, hands round with third couple, and right and left at top.
    -- A Select Collection of the Newest and Most Favorite Country Dances, Otsego, NY, 1808.

I had a few minutes of excitement there, but further digging suggests that rather than inventing a new dance figure or a new way of phrasing a "double figure eight" done by four dancers, or perhaps using an odd term for some sort of reel for four, the editor or typesetter seems to have simply made a mistake.

Colonial dance specialist Kate Van Winkle Keller noted in her bibliography of American dance sources that the 1808 manual "seems to be derived from almost every dance book printed in the [previous] 15 years, including some English ones."  I've observed this as well; there are a number of figures in it that go back to English manuals as far back as the 1770s.  The figure given for "Flowers of Glasgow" is one of many copied directly from an 1807 Boston manual, which is itself copied extensively from other sources:

Flowers of Glasgow
First couple four hands round with second couple, cast down two couple, back again, cross over, down one couple, balance, led up, four hands round with third couple, right and left a top.
    -- "Saltator", A Treatise on Dancing..., Boston, 1807

Since the other figures copied from Saltator are word-for-word the same, I suspect the editor or typesetter of the 1808 manual accidentally substituted "figure four" for "four hands round".  The previous figure in the 1808 manual begins with "First couple do the figure of eight round, the second", so it would be easy to mix them up visually.

Sorry, Casey!

Progressing Wilson's New Reel of Four

A postscript to my mini-series of posts on Regency-era Scotch reels:

There is not an iota of evidence that Regency dancing master Thomas Wilson intended his new reel of four to have any sort of progression (dancers moving from one starting location to another for each iteration of the reel), and, indeed, his lack of inclusion of a progression argues against one.  But it turns out to be remarkably easy to progress this reel, and my dance students, who have spent much of the last month patiently working through my experiments with reels, have been enthusiastic about this new variation. 

The concept of a progressive reel was not unfamiliar to Wilson; he mentions progression in his description of the classic reel for three and uses it in his new reels for five.  Here's how to do it in his new reel of four:

Setting Steps for Reels: the Aisig-thrasd

Winding up this mini-series of posts on early-nineteenth century reels, here's another interesting setting step from Scottish dancing master Francis Peacock, published in Sketches relative to the history and theory, but more especially to the practice of dancing (Aberdeen, 1805).  The Aisig-thrasd is subtitled "Cross Passes".  Peacock explains its Gaelic etymology as "From Aiseag, a pass, and Trasd across."

Peacock's description of the Aisig-thrasd:

This is a favourite step in many parts of the Highlands.  You spring a little to one side with the right foot, immediately passing to the left across it; hop and cross it again, and one step is finished; you then spring a little to one side with the left foot, making the like passes with the right.  This is a minor step; but it is often varied by passing the foot four times alternately behind and before, observing to make a hop previous to each pass, the first excepted, which must always be a spring, or bound: by these additional motions, it becomes a single step.

Wilson's New Reel of Four

Like his new reel of six and new reel of three, this reel of four is another of London dancing master Thomas Wilson's attempts to create variety in the dancing of reels in the early nineteenth century.  While this reel keeps the classic interweaving pattern of the standard reels for three and four, it contains no setting at all, which makes it a particularly accessible dance for those whose strength is more in floor patterns than complicated steps. 

The earliest source I have for this reel is the third edition of Thomas Wilson's An Analysis of Country Dancing (London, 1811), from which the diagram at left is taken.  The same diagram and description appear in Wilson's The Complete System of English Country Dancing (London, c1815).  The 1808 edition of An Analysis... included a different reel for four, which also appears in the fourth edition in 1822.

Wilson's New Reel of Three

This simple choreographed reel is another of English Regency dancing-master Thomas Wilson's attempts to create new and interesting dances in the Scottish style, centering around the characteristic figure-eight pattern known as a reel or hey.  It is an easy and delightful little sequence, and it is one of the few Regency-era dances that can be done with only three people. 

The earliest source I have for this reel is Wilson's An Analysis of Country Dancing (London, 1808).  The diagram at left is taken from the third edition of Analysis, dated 1811; click to enlarge.

Wilson notates this as a reel for two gentlemen and a lady or two ladies and a gentleman, but there is no reason it can't be danced by three dancers of the same gender. 

Setting a higher standard

Moving on from what ought to be the rock-bottom minimal standard for anything calling itself a "Jane Austen ball", even in the modern English country dance community, let me talk a little about higher standards, and what you'd want to do if you were interested in actually approaching as close as is practical to period practice.  I've made two lists, one of what I consider to be important and one of elements that I do not consider as critical.  Some items are characteristics of the dancing itself, and some have to do with ball format, because the latter is just as important as the former in establishing a period atmosphere and breaking people out of the modern mindset.

Modern English country dance groups are unlikely to want to try most (or any!) of this, but I hope it's interesting to see how different an experience a ball would have been two hundred years ago.  Some people have the bizarre idea that by suggesting that using "dances" (in the modern sense) from Jane Austen's lifetime for something called a "Jane Austen ball", I am somehow trying to impose actual historical practices on them.  No, really, not!

For simplicity's sake, I've limited this to just things pertaining to country dancing, rather than trying to cover the entire range of possible dance forms for either Austen herself or the actual decade of the Regency.

Jane Austen balls for dummies

First off, let me note that the title of this post is not a comment on anyone's intellect.  It's a riff on the titles of the popular series of "For Dummies" books, which are intended simply as accessible how-to guides for people who are not familiar with a topic.  I have a couple of them myself.  Neither I nor this post have any actual connection with these books, and no copyright infringement is intended.

It's been pointed out to me that negative critiques of historically ludicrous "Regency" ball programs, however justified, are not actually helpful for people who are not dance scholars and whose audience is not interested in serious study of historical dance, but who would like to do a decent job programming such a ball, or at least avoid making obvious idiots of themselves by calling seventeenth-century dances at a Regency- or Jane Austen-themed event.  

That's a reasonable complaint.  It's always easier to criticize than to be constructive.  And most of Kickery delves too deeply into the details for a modern country dance caller who just wants to do their gig.

I'm not going to write a modern caller's guide to doing such balls (not as a blog post, anyway!)  But I can at least give some basic help to people who don't have the time (or motivation) to go for higher levels of authenticity.  

I went with "Jane Austen" in the title rather than "Regency" because I think the name recognition and audience are higher for the author than for the era and because the single easy-to-find reference I'm using has more dances drawn from sources published in Austen's lifetime than from the years of the actual Regency.  But everything below would be acceptable, if not exactly the latest fashion, for country-dance-focused Regency balls as well.

They ought to be ashamed of themselves

A while back, a friend sent me a flyer and the dance program for a "Regency ball" (the organizers' term, not mine) in their area.  I'm not going to tell you where, or when, or who the caller was, because there are plenty of similar events going on all over (at least) the English-speaking world.  But I am going to tell you one thing:

This program is utter bullshit.

CD Review: The Pride & Prejudice Collection Volume III

After their first and second Pride and Prejudice Collections, I knew just what to expect from the Pemberley Players' Pride and Prejudice Collection Volume III: a very beautifully performed set of dance tunes, of which many are considerably out of date for Jane Austen's lifetime, let alone her novels, and of which none of the reasonably period tunes are played in a useful repeat pattern.  I was actually wrong about one thing: two of the tunes are played in a historical repeat pattern!  What luck!

Otherwise, this CD is about what I expected: eighteen tunes, of which eleven are way too early for a Austen-oriented collection.  Despite the name, these CDs are really mixes of tunes covering a century and a half or so, mostly before the Austen era.  The Pemberley Players are superb musicians and extremely nice people who let me use some of their tunes in our stage production of Pride and Prejudice back in April, but I do wish they would make an all-Austen-era recording rather than a modern English country dance mix.

Revisiting Swing and Turn Corners

When I discussed the Regency-era figures "Swing Corners" and "Turn Corners" a few years ago, I touched briefly on an earlier source, Nicholas Dukes' A concise & easy method of learning the figuring part of country dances (London, 1752) that contained an earlier version of "Turn Corners" which used single hands (right, left, right, left) rather than two hands for the turns but had a different pattern than the Regency version of "Swing Corners".

For the sake of completeness, I need to add one more version to my little timeline. 

Traveling Step for Reels: the extended Kemshóole

Along with the standard traveling step for early nineteenth-century Scotch reels, the Kemshóole, Scottish dancing master Francis Peacock, in Sketches relative to the history and theory, but more especially to the practice of dancing (Aberdeen, 1805), also describes a possible variation:

...if you wish to vary the step, in repeating the measure, you may introduce a very lively one, by making a smart rise, or gentle spring, forward, upon the right foot, placing the left foot behind it: this you do four times, With this difference, that instead of going a fourth time behind with the left foot, you disengage it from the ground, adding a hop to the last spring. You finish the promenade, by doing the same step, beginning it with the left foot.

This is very much like an extra-lively version of the "four-slide galop" of the later nineteenth century: spring-close-spring-close-spring-close-spring-hop.  Dancers should be careful not to turn it into a simple shuffling along. 

As in the basic Kemshóole, lead with the shoulder matching the lead foot.

While Peacock recommends this step for the "promenade", the reeling (hey) part of a reel, this extended Kemshóole actually does not always work as well as the regular version.

For a non-progressive reel of three with all three dancers returning to their original places, four extended Kemshóole steps work splendidly and feel graceful to the dancers.  The four changes of place match up nicely with the longer step.  It works equally well in a "corner reel", such as those found in London dancing master Thomas Wilson's first new reel of six.

For a progressive reel of three, however, there are five changes of place, and the dancers must move further on each step, and the extended Kemshóole becomes rather awkward; the dancers will end up taking tight curves on the ends in mid-step.

For a reel of four, it doesn't work at all.  There are six changes of place, resulting in faster and sharper turns, and there just isn't enough forward motion without the extra momentum provided by the hops in the standard Kemshóole.

Despite its limited utility, it adds some pleasant variation to a figure which doesn't allow for much.  Lately I have been encouraging its use whenever practical.

Chassé-Croisé Sequences for Regency-Era Quadrilles (3 of 3)

(This is the third and final post in a mini-series covering Regency-era step-sequences for the quadrille figure chassé-croisé.  Previous posts are here (with a general introduction) and here.)

My third and (so far) final sequence for an eight-bar chassé-croisé comes from Elements and Principles of the Art of Dancing, a translation of J. H. Gourdoux published by Victor Guillou in Philadelphia in 1817.  The translation, presumably of the 1811 Principes et Notions Élémentaires sur l’Art de la Danse Pour la Ville, is inconsistent in how closely it hews to Gourdoux's original.  This step sequence for chassé-croisé does not appear in the 1811 manual at all and may have originated with Guillou himself.

Even more than Gourdoux's own sequence, this one features different footwork for the gentlemen and the ladies.

Chassé-Croisé Sequences for Regency-Era Quadrilles (2 of 3)

(This is the second post in a mini-series covering Regency-era step-sequences for the quadrille figure chassé-croisé.  See the first post for a general introduction to the figure.)

My second sequence for chassé-croisé actually comes from a French source, the second edition of Principes et Notions Élémentaires sur l’Art de la Danse Pour la Ville (Paris, 1811) by J. H. Gourdoux.  The same sequence reappears in his later manual, De l’Art de la Danse (Paris, 1823).  It is similar to the Strathy sequence described in my previous post, but the differences are quite intriguing.

I won't cover steps in this post, since I just summarized them in the previous one and no additional ones are required for Gourdoux's sequence.

Chassé-Croisé Sequences for Regency-Era Quadrilles (1 of 3)

By far the most common sequence variations to be found in quadrille manuals of the early nineteenth century are those for setting, forward and back, chassez-dechassez, and crossing over.  But a few manuals give sequences for more elaborate figures such as chassé-croisé, in which two dancers, side by side, change places and back.  There are quite a few ways to perform the figure, but the most common is probably that danced with one's partner in eight bars as follows:

2b    Change places, gentlemen passing behind ladies
2b    Set
2b    Change back, gentlemen again passing behind ladies
2b    Set

This can be performed just by two couples (heads or sides) or by all four at once, as in the classic Finale figure of the first set of French quadrilles. 

Simonet's Parisian Quadrilles, Third Set, c1820

There are many, many sets of early nineteenth-century quadrilles, most of which are simply new music for the First Set or include only minor variations on the standard figures.  While I don't normally publish reconstructions of the figures for random sets of quadrille music, this set is of particular interest because a high-quality recording of it is available on The Regency Ballroom CD by Spare Parts.

The music is from the first series of T. Simonet's Fashionable Parisian Quadrilles, Performed by the Bands of Messrs. Michau, Musard and Collinet, with their appropriate Figures as danced at Almack's, the Argyll Rooms and at the Bath & Cheltenham Assemblies.  The manual is undated, but in February, 1823, the fashionable magazine La Belle Assemblée reported the publication of "Nos. 42 and 43" of the series, commenting positively:

This is really an elegant little work both in its contents and its typography.  We recognize many of the quadrilles as being great favorites in the French metropolis, and the whole of them are composed in a very characteristic and original style.

The typography of this edition is certainly eye-popping by modern standards of design; the front cover alone features a dozen different fonts.  The first series includes only sets one through six and presumably is dated somewhat earlier.  

CD Review: The Pride & Prejudice Collection Volume II

After my experience with the first Pride & Prejudice Collection from the Pemberley Players I wasn't in a big hurry to get their second CD, The Pride & Prejudice Collection Volume II, which is subtitled "The Jane Austen Dance Kit".  Once again, the music is beautiful and the playing expert...and the selection of tunes bizarre (though better than the first collection) and the repeat structures unusable for actual historical dancing without modification.  Since I knew what to expect this time, I was not as disappointed as before, but I remain exasperated at the gap between the advertising and the actual music.  This is a nice collection for modern English country dancers doing dances modern-style from a wide range of eras, but it is not by any stretch of the imagination a "Jane Austen Dance Kit".

Three Lead Round

An instruction that turns up repeatedly in late 18th and early 19th century country dance figures is some version of "the three ladies lead round the gentlemen, then the three gentlemen lead round the ladies."  I've selected this particular figure to discuss because it's one in which a straightforward-looking title omits an important performance detail and also because a closer look at its use in dance figures illustrates how country dancing evolved in subtle ways even over a relatively short period of time.  It's also a fun, lively figure that I use fairly often myself, so it's nice to examine how "mainstream" my style is for the Regency era.

Revisiting Chassé Out

Almost four years ago, I discussed the quadrille figure "chassé out", or chassé ouvert, in a post discussing the reconstruction of a mid-century quadrille.  I've revisited the figure occasionally since then, both in its Regency-era context and in its unusual mid-19th century appearances in the quadrille calls of American dancing master Elias Howe, and found enough new information to be worth a fresh post on the topic and to make me reconsider how I would reconstruct the figure both for early quadrilles of the 1810s-1820s and for the quadrille sets published by Howe in 1858 and 1862.

Lancers, Lancer's, or Lancers' ?

My old dance buddy Chris Imershein of the North Carolina group Triangle Vintage Dance writes:

Just curious if you have any historical sources for the proper "spelling" of The Lancers Quadrille(s).  Spare Parts has it as "Lancers" on the original [Civil War Ballroom] CD, but as "Lancer's" in their sheet music book.  I've also seen it as Lancers' on the web.  Any thoughts?

Thoughts on stepping the Grand Chain in Regency quadrilles

It's not unusual for new sources to turn up that make me go back and reconsider a reconstruction.  It's a little irritating for it to happen less than a month after I finally get around to publishing one here on Kickery, and doubly irritating for it to be not a new source but old sources I simply hadn't looked at recently.  Fortunately, this is less a change in my reconstruction than further background and options.

In reconstructing the fourth figure of the Mid-Lothians, an early 1820s quadrille, I wrote in my reconstruction notes that "I've never found any description of what step sequence to use for this figure," referring to the grand chain.  Actually, I had come across such, many years ago, and they had simply slipped my mind.  But I was looking through quadrille sources for a different project and found them again, so here is a little more information about performance options for the grand chain.

The Mid Lothians (1820s Quadrilles), Figure 6

This is the sixth and last in a series of six posts covering the six figures of the Mid Lothians, a set of quadrilles from the 1820s.  Previous posts: The first figure; background information; and sources, second figure, third figure, fourth figure, fifth figure.

The sixth and final figure of the Mid Lothians is set to a combination of two similar Jacobite tunes, "Lewie Gordon" and "Over the Hills".  My ear isn't sophisticated enough to sort through Evans' arrangement and figure out which (or whether) individual strains are drawn from each tune.  Lewie Gordon was a son of the Duke of Gordon who fought for Bonnie Prince Charlie and was exiled after Culloden.  "Over the Hills", also known as "O'er the Hills and Far Away" and "Over the Seas and far away", has a complex history and may have originally been from England.  It is familar to many today as the theme music for the Sharpe television series based on the Bernard Cornwell novels about a British rifleman during the Napoleonic Wars.

Lyrics and background on each tune as well as MIDI files for listening may be found at Christian Souchon's collection of Jacobite songs; there are individual pages for both "Lewie Gordon" and "O'er the Hills".  Note that all Souchon's pages play music immediately upon opening!  More lyrics for "O'er the Hills" may be found on the song's page at The Compleat Sean Bean, a Sean Bean (Sharpe in the television series) fan site created by writer Winona Kent.

The Mid Lothians (1820s Quadrilles), Figure 5

This is the fifth in a series of six posts covering the six figures of the Mid Lothians, a set of quadrilles from the 1820s.  The first figure, background information, and sources are discussed in the first post in the series.  Second figure here.  Third figure here.  Fourth figure here.

The fifth figure of the Mid Lothians is set to the famous march of Clan Campbell, "The Campbells are Coming", with its rousing chorus, presumably not sung while dancing a quadrille:

The Campbells are coming Oho, Oho!

The Campbells are coming Oho, Oho!

The Campbells are coming to bonnie Lochleven

The Campbells are coming Oho, Oho!

There are many, many recordings of this tune available.  Though the lyrics were partly rewritten by Robert Burns in the late eighteenth century, the tune dates back at least to the Jacobite rebellions of the first half of the century.

The Mid Lothians (1820s Quadrilles), Figure 4

This is the fourth in a series of six posts covering the six figures of the Mid Lothians, a set of quadrilles from the 1820s.  The first figure, background information, and sources are discussed in the first post in the series.  Second figure here.  Third figure here.

The fourth figure of the Mid Lothians is set to a combination of "Peggy's Love" and "Auld Robin Gray", though my ear is not good enough to pick out which strains are from each tune when filtered through Evans' arrangements.

"Peggy's Love", or "Little Peggy's Love" is a strathspey which has also been used for a Scottish Country Dance.  It is said to have been composed by William Marshall and published as "Lady Louisa Gordon's Strathspey" in 1781.  It was apparently used as the musical basis for a ballet at the King's Theatre Opera House (the professional home of Regency-era dancing master Thomas Wilson) in the 1790s.  Evans mostly retains the strathspey rhythm in his arrangement.

"Auld Robin Gray" was written in 1772 by the Scottish poet Lady Anne Lindsay, with a tune by Reverend William Leeves.  The song is something of a sequel to the classic Jacobite song "Logie O'Buchan" (note: music plays immediately upon opening this page) which mourns for the Old Pretender under the guise of a woman missing her lover Jamie while being pressured to marry someone richer.  In "Auld Robin Gray", she actually ends up married to Robin Gray before her true love Jamie returns for her.  The tune may be heard in a MIDI file created by Christian Souchon (plays immediately upon opening).  An arrangement by Hadyn may be found at Ball State University's Digital Music Repository.

The Mid Lothians (1820s Quadrilles), Figure 3

This is the third in a series of six posts covering the six figures of the Mid Lothians, a set of quadrilles from the 1820s.  The first figure, background information, and sources are discussed in the first post and the second figure here.

The third figure of the Mid Lothians is set to "Riggs O'Barley", previously known as "Corn Rigs are bonie" but taking on a new name after being used by Robert Burns for his 1783 poem, "The Rigs O' barley".  Numerous recordings (with the Burns lyrics) are available.  It is also found on the sound track of a classic 1973 horror film, The Wicker Man, under the title "Corn Rigs".

Evans' arrangement consists of three eight-bar strains (ABC), with the A strain having an alternate second ending as well.  The thirty-two-bar figure is noted on the sheet music as starting on the A strain, so I would expect a repeat structure of A (ABACx4) with the initial A using the first ending and subsequent ones the second.

The Mid Lothians (1820s Quadrilles), Figure 2

This is the second in a series of six posts covering the six figures of the Mid Lothians.  The first figure, background information, and sources are discussed in the previous post.

The second figure of the Mid Lothians is set to a highly simplified arrangement of the "Lassie wi'the Lint-White Locks", a tune actually called "Rothiemurchies Rant" but so strongly associated with the Robert Burns poem from 1794 that Evans seems to have adopted the poem's title for the tune.  It is also known today as "The Graf Spee".  The tune is traditionally used for a Scottish Country Dance and can be heard on numerous recordings.  Some interesting background may be found at The Mudcat Café. 

Evans' version is in a different key and consists almost entirely of relatively sedate eighth notes, unlike the dotted strathspey rhythm of the original, which is given below the quadrille arrangement for comparison.

Evans trims the four strains of the original tune to three strains (ABC) of eight bars each, with the third strain being a repeat of the first with a slight variation in the last bar.  The figure is repeated four times.  Instructions on the music indicate the that the (thirty-two-bar) figure begins on the A strain, which also has repeat markings. so a repeat structure of A (ABACx4) or possibly A (AABCx4) seems indicated, which leaves the figures concluding on the same music (since C = A) as they began, as is typical for a quadrille figure.  Either way, the A strain ends up getting repeated three times in succession multiple times.  A (ABBCx4) would also be a possibility, albeit a somewhat odd one for a quadrille, and somewhat reduces the repetiiveness.  If not for the figure instructions on the music, I'd be inclined to go with A (BABCx4) just for a bit more variety.

The Mid Lothians (1820s Quadrilles), Figure 1

The Mid Lothians, A new Set of Quadrilles, was a set of traditional Scottish tunes selected by J. S. Pollock, "Professor of Dancing / late of Paris /", with the tunes arranged by R. W. Evans and new quadrille figures (given in French and English) choreographed by Pollock.  The undated music was published in London in the early 1820s (Google Books dates it to 1821), and the figures additionally appear in Pollock's La Terpsichore Moderne, Ninth Edition (London, c1824) and in Henry Whale's Hommage à Taglioni, A Fashionable Quadrille Preceptor and Ballroom Companion (Philadelphia, 1836).  The English-language instructions in all three sources are extremely consistent, though there are a few discrepancies between the French and English versions given on the sheet music. 

The set is cannily dedicated to Lady Gwydir, more familiar to students of upper-crust Regency society as one of the famous Patronesses of Almacks under her former name, Mrs. Drummond-Burrell.  Born in 1786, Lady Sarah Clementina Drummond, heiress of Lord Perth, married Peter Burrell in 1807, whereupon they both hyphenated their names to Drummond-Burrell to preserve the prestigious Drummond name.  In 1820, the couple succeeded Peter's parents to double honors as Baron and Baroness Gwydir (or Gwydyr) and Baron and Baroness Willoughby de Eresby.

The Mid Lothians refers to the area of Scotland around Edinburgh.  The title of the set and the use of well-known Scottish tunes may be an attempt to play off the success of Sir Walter Scott's popular 1818 novel, The Heart of Midlothian, or simply a reflection of the popularity of all things Scottish at the time.  Some of the tunes used are versions of those famously used by Robert Burns for his poems in the late eighteenth century.

Wilson's New Reel of Six

In the early nineteenth century, London dancing master Thomas Wilson set out to choreograph new Scotch reels which expanded the standard reel combination of heys and setting to include figures taken from country dances.  He explained this in The Complete System of English Country Dancing (London, c1815) as follows:

...being well aware, that but the trifling variety could be produced in the dancing of the old Reels...and from the natural consequence of frequent complaints being made by good Ball Room Dancers; that from their sameness they were rendered but a dull alternative, and from a variety of suggestions, made by his friends, frequenters of Balls and Assemblies, to remedy the evil; he has been induced to compose a variety of such new and more difficult ones, as no doubt will answer the expectation of those; who, as well as the author saw ground for complaint...

It is not unusual for a dancing master in the nineteenth century to modestly suggest that his inventions answer some demand from other, nameless dancers, or even his own students, so I would not necessarily conclude that anyone but Wilson himself was bored by the classic reels for three or four.  Wilson claims that his new reels were well-received:

It is a matter of great encouragement to the author, and has been productive of that sensible pride...that the "new Reels"...have so far been found worthy of notice, and have become such general favorites, as to have been danced at most of the public Balls and Assemblies held within the United Kingdom.

He would hardly claim otherwise, of course!

While this particular reel has more complex figures than the classic reel for three or four dancers, it is less technically demanding, since there are only four measures of setting out of the thirty-two of the dance, and no improvisation is required.  This makes this reel particularly well-suited for beginners or dancers whose strength is more in figures than in elaborate footwork.

Scottish Roots?
The idea of a reel for six was not entirely unknown in Scotland in the early nineteenth century.  In The Popular Superstitions and Festive Amusements of the Highlanders of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1823), William Grant Stewart describes the "shemit reel" danced at weddings as follows:

The bridal pair and their retinue then dance a sixsome reel, each putting a piece of silver into the musician's hand.  Those desirous may then succeed, and dance with the bride and the two maids of honour; and are gratified at the commencement and termination of each reel by the usual salutes.

Given the general liveliness of the wedding celebration as described by Stewart, I suspect that the "usual salutes" meant kisses.

Wilson makes no attempt to pretend that his new reels are Scottish in origin, so they are something of an interesting hybrid: an English dancer's attempt to compose dances in the Scottish spirit. 

Setting Steps for Reels: the Lematrást

The Lematrást is another step suitable for setting (footing) in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Scotch reels.  It was described by Scottish dancing master Francis Peacock in Sketches relative to the history and theory, but more especially to the practice of dancing (Aberdeen, 1805).  Peacock explains its Gaelic etymology as "From Lèum, a leap, a spring, and Trasd, across."  It is subtitled "Cross Springs".

Peacock's description of the Lematrást:

These are a series of Sissonnes.  You spring forward with the right foot to the third or fifth position, making a hop upon the left foot; then spring backward with the right, and hop upon it. You do the same with the left foot, and so on, for two, four, or as many bars as the second part of the tune contains. This is a single step; to double it, you do the Springs, forward and backward, four times, before you change the foot.

Setting Steps for Reels: the Minor Kemkóssy

The Minor Kemkóssy is another of the "Setting or Footing" steps for late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Scotch reels described by Scottish dancing master Francis Peacock in Sketches relative to the history and theory, but more especially to the practice of dancing (Aberdeen, 1805).  It is a shorter, faster version of the Single Kemkóssy.

Peacock's description of the Minor Kemkóssy:

This is an easy familiar step, much used by the English in their Country dances.  You have only to place the right foot behind the left, sink and hop upon it, then do the same with the left foot behind the right.

The Swedish Dances, Part Three: Characteristic Setting Figures

(Third in a series of posts discussing and analyzing the Swedish dances.  Links to the full series are at the end.) 

As mentioned in my introductory post in this series, there are distinct sequences of figures involving setting for dances suited only to a majority of one gender or the other and for dances suited to either an equal number of each or a majority.  In this post I'll take a look at the characteristic setting figures for each type of dance.

Right & left: hands or not?

By the mid-nineteenth century, the only American dance manuals that contain large quantities of contradances are those from the New England area.  Others may have a few here and there, but not the pages and pages of them, or entire manuals of nothing but contras.  And, alas for reconstructors looking back 150 years later, the authors simply don't bother to explain how to do specific figures.  Presumably, everyone knew.

For most figures this isn't a particular problem; they're self-evident from the name or unchanged from earlier eras.  But there is one figure that is especially ambiguous to dance historians, and that is "right and left" or "rights and lefts".  The major reason for the ambiguity is good old Thomas Wilson, a dancing master in early nineteenth-century London and a prolific author.  Wilson wrote some of the most useful books on English country dance in all of dance history, with explanations, diagrams, and occasionally even steps for each figure.  But he had a somewhat unusual take on right and left.

The Swedish Dances, Part Two: A Trio of Swedish Dances

(Second in a series of posts discussing and analyzing the Swedish dances.  The first post may be found here.)

To introduce some of the typical Swedish dance figures, here are a three simple thirty-two-bar figure combinations, as given by Chivers in his various manuals, which are a nice mix of standard country dance figures with ones that are particularly characteristic of Swedish dances.  For information about the specific sources of these dances, please see the introductory post in this series.

The Swedish Dances, Part One: Introduction

(First in a series of posts discussing and analyzing the Swedish dances.)

I’ve recently spent some time focusing on a trio of early sources for the unusual form of country dance known as “Swedish Dances,” which originated in the very late 1810s or early 1820s and after their early burst of popularity continued to turn up occasionally in dance manuals throughout the nineteenth century.  Their distinguishing feature is that instead of the usual long column of couples, the dancers form a column of trios with either one lady between two gentlemen, one gentleman between two ladies, or a mixture of the two.  The Swedish dances were created in the wake of the quadrille’s introduction into the London ballroom in the mid-1810s, which spurred a great deal of choreographic innovation as dancing masters adopted figures and formations from the quadrille and merged them into the old-fashioned country dances, which had become increasingly formulaic.  Along with the Swedish dances, this burst of creativity resulted in, most notably, the Spanish dances, Mescolanzes, and Circassian circles. 

An Easy Dos-à-Dos Sequence, 1822

Once a dancer moves past the basic chassé, jeté, assemblé step sequences for early nineteenth-century French quadrilles, the very next step sequence I teach them is this alternate dos-à-dos sequence taken from Alexander Strathy's Elements of the Art of Dancing (Edinburgh, 1822).  In this sequence the dancer advances moving forward, travels sideways for the actual back-to-back part of the figure, then makes a half-turn to travel forward back to place before completing the turn on the final measure.  This is quite beautiful to watch, but the steps are very simple.

I would consider this sequence slightly too elaborate for country dances, which are supposed to use simpler steps.

Here's the sequence:

1b    Chassé forward, passing opposite dancer
1b    Jeté (left foot), glissade dessous to the right
1b    Making a half-turn to face original place, chassé forward, curving slightly
1b    Completing the turn, make a glissade dessous to the left and a final assemblé

The counts are "and ONE and TWO, THREE and FOUR, and ONE and TWO, and THREE FOUR."  Note that the two halves of the figure have slightly different rhythm patterns.  It may help when learning it to clap or chant them several times.

Here's a quick summary of the necessary steps as used above.  These are not full descriptions!  All of them can be led on the opposite foot.

Chassé: after an initiating hop on the left foot on the upbeat, move the right foot forward, close the left foot behind it, and move the right foot forward again.  This move takes one measure ("and-ONE-and-TWO").

Jeté: extend the left foot out directly to the side (second position raised) then, bringing it in front of the right, leap onto it, raising the other foot behind to point straight down, close along the leg.  This is a linear "out and in" motion rather than a curving ronde de jambe.  The step is initiated on the upbeat and lands on the first beat of the second measure above ("THREE").

Glissade dessous: slide one foot to the side and close the other foot to fifth or third position behind.  The slide to the side is performed on the upbeat with the close coming on the downbeat.  This is "and FOUR" in the second measure above, where it occupied the second half of the measure, and "and THREE" in the fourth measure, where it takes up the first half.

Assemblé: extend the left foot out directly to the side (second position raised) then hop, bringing the left foot behind the right in either third or fifth position with weight equally on both feet, bending the knees slightly when landing rather than locking them.  Again, this is an "in and out" motion.  The step is initiated on the upbeat and lands on the downbeat, ("FOUR") in the fourth measure above.

Setting Steps for Reels: the Seby-trast

The Seby-trast is another of the steps for late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Scotch reels described by Scottish dancing master Francis Peacock in Sketches relative to the history and theory, but more especially to the practice of dancing (Aberdeen, 1805).  It is subtitled "Chasing Steps, or Cross Slips", but since it clearly is not a traveling step, it is presumably meant for the footing (setting) part of reels.  Peacock explains its Gaelic etymology as "From Siabadh, to slip, and Trasd, across."

Peacock's description of the Seby-trast:

This step is like the Balotte.  You slip the right foot before the left; the left foot behind the right; the right again before the left, and hop upon it.  You do the same, beginning with the left foot.  This is a single step.

Setting Steps for Reels: the Single and Double Kemkóssy

The Single Kemkóssy and Double Kemkóssy are two "Setting or Footing" steps for late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Scotch reels described by Scottish dancing master Francis Peacock in Sketches relative to the history and theory, but more especially to the practice of dancing (Aberdeen, 1805).  Peacock gives the Gaelic etymology of the term Kemkóssy as "Cèum-coisiche, from Cèum, a step, and Coiseachadh, to foot it, or ply the feet."

These steps also appear in a few English dance manuals from later in the century, including The Ball Room Annual (London, c1844) and Rudolph Radestock's The Royal Ball-Room Guide (London, c1877) with slightly different descriptions that were obviously derived from Peacock.  I will refer to these descriptions only when they add something useful.

Traveling Step for Reels: the Kemshóole

In Sketches relative to the history and theory, but more especially to the practice of dancing (Aberdeen, 1805), Scottish dancing master Francis Peacock describes the standard traveling step for Scotch reels:

Kemshóole, or Forward Step.-- This is the common step for the promenade, or figure of the Reel. It is done by advancing the right foot forward, the left following it behind: in advancing the same foot a second time, you hop upon it, and one step is finished. You do the same motions after advancing the left foot, and so on alternately with each foot, during the first measure of the tune played twice over...

Go Figure!

At our recent Regency Assembly, one of the dancers challenged my call of a "half figure eight" in a country dance, asking why it wasn't called a "figure four".  Casey, being an experienced dancer, knew exactly why, but he has excellent comic timing, and the comment broke up the room for a moment.

A geekier question would be why I was using the term "half figure eight" rather than the more typical plain "half figure".  That was for added clarity for modern dancers, who may not be as familiar with the nuances of Regency terminology, in which a sentence like "The figure of the dance is a double figure made up of five figures, the first being the figure" makes perfect sense.  Since it doesn't for everyone, let's figure out all those different usages of "figure"!

Although every Country Dance is composed of a number of individual Figures, which may consist of "set and change sides," "whole Figure at top," "lead down the middle, up again," "allemande," "lead through the bottom," "right and left at top," &c. yet the whole movement united is called the Figure of the Dance.
    -- Thomas Wilson, in The Complete System of English Country Dancing, London, c1815.

Fixing Fandango

There's a popular dance in the modern English country dance community which I often cite as a dance that has a Regency "feel" to it, albeit with some quibbles about the details.  That doesn't make it a Regency-era dance (it's decades too early), but it's an earlier version of the same style popular in the Regency and uses some figures that remained popular into the first quarter of the nineteenth century.  That makes it a reasonable dance to use for a Regency/Jane Austen event in the absence of dancers and/or a caller who can handle dancing in actual period style.  But it doesn't make the modern dance a good historical reconstruction even for its own era (leaving aside how close that is or isn't to the Regency era) without some major fixing up.

Swing Corners vs. Turn Corners

Two figures that turn up frequently at the end of country dances in the Regency era are "Swing Corners" and "Turn Corners".  The two are not interchangeable; in the early nineteenth century, "swing" meant to turn by one hand and "turn" meant to turn by two hands.  That's not the only difference between the figures, however.

Ladies' Double Chain vs. Ladies' Grand Chain

Sometimes, musicians and prompters for Quadrille dancing, when they intend "Double Ladies' Chain," say "Ladies Grand Chain." This is wrong: the figures are entirely dissimilar.
        --- William B. De Garmo, The prompter (New York, 1865)

A century later, this problem is still with us, as modern-day dance historians confuse the two figures when reconstructing quadrilles.  The problem is made worse by the plethora of terminology.  Though the first of the two is called either a Ladies' Chain Double or a Ladies' Double Chain, the second can be known variously as the Chain of Four Ladies, Les Chaine des Dames Continue, Ladies' Grand Chain, Ladies' Right and Left Around, or Ladies' Grand Right and Left. 

Let's take a look at the difference between the two figures.

What did Regency-era dancers dance?

I combine the two as a category because people who are interested in the one are often interested in the other, but what was danced by Jane Austen (1775-1817) and what was danced during the English Regency era (1811-1820) are actually questions with slightly different answers.  Austen's dancing days were more of the late 18th century, and the Regency era was a time of rapid change in social dance, mostly emanating from Paris and London.  Austen would have missed out on much of this by being country gentry and by her death just as things were starting to get really interesting dancewise.

Having addressed dance in Jane Austen's lifetime in my previous post, which I recommend reading first for background, let me now talk a little bit about the 1810s.  What did they dance during the Regency era?  Around 1810, people probably weren't doing much that was different from the previous two or three decades: country dances and reels, with a cotillion perhaps still making an appearance now and then, and occasionally an oddity like the Boulanger, Sir Roger de Coverley, or (in Scotland) the Bumpkin.  But change was coming.  The upper classes and the residents of London would soon find themselves with a much wider set of options.

CD Review: The Pride & Prejudice Collection

I'm always interested in suitable dance music for the Regency/Jane Austen era, but having expected that, I was very disappointed in The Pride & Prejudice Collection from the UK-based Pemberley Players that is subtitled "A Selection of Dances Popular in the 18th and 19th Centuries."

But first, the good parts:

The Pemberley Players are an English quintet under the leadership of David Fleming-Williams that specializes in playing country dance music.  They have an absolutely lovely sound: a piano, two violins, a cello, an a flute.  I suspect they aren't using an 18th-century piano, but I don't know enough about the difference in sound for it to matter for me.  The strings are beautiful, and the instrument mix very suitable for the era.  You can tell this is an experienced dance band: they keep their tempos steady and avoid artsy tricks that make things difficult for dancers.  It's a lovely listening experience.

As a source of usable period dance music, however, it's got some problems.