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Being a composition entirely new; and the whole cast different from all that have yet been publish'd; with bass and treble to each dance. Also, the newest French dances in use, entryes, genteel and grotesque, chacons, rigodoons, minuets, and other dancing tunes. By Thomas Bray.
London: printed by William Pearson next door to the Hare and Feathers in Alders-gate-street, for the author; and sold by Mr. Playford, at the Temple-Change-Fleetstreet, Mr: Crouch in Princes-street near Convent-garden, Mr. Couthbutt in Russel-street near Convent-garden. And all other musick shops, 1699.
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of transcription
Some background and a brief biography :-
From a conference article ''CIRCLING THE SQUARE'' by Diana
Cruickshank, published in the conference report ''On Common Ground
3: John Playford and the English Dancing Master, 1651'' DHDS (The
Dolmetsch Historical Dance Society) March 2001
https://historicaldance.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/conferences/OnCommonGround3-Cruickshank.pdf
''THOMAS BRAY
Little is known of Bray, the man, other than the fact
that, from 1689, he was a dancer with the United Company,
working at Drury Lane and Dorset Garden Theatres. There he
worked with Josias Priest whom he subsequently replaced as
dancing master in 1693. Two years later, he moved to the
Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre with Thomas Betterton’s new
company. In all these theatres, Bray worked with professional
dancers, many of them from France. His wonderful legacy to us is
a small book of twenty country dances, published in 1699. Many
of the dances use music from productions staged at the theatres
where Bray was working. There is, therefore, always a
possibility that they may have been created for, and used as,
the country dance often performed at the end of the
entertainment. Most of them are markedly different from the
average country dance of the period – several of them, without
doubt, relatively complicated! If some were indeed performed on
stage, Bray’s ability to expand dances both vertically and
horizontally must have provided admirable viewing from all parts
of the theatre.''
There is a copy of the original, with pages jumbled up, available
to view on the VWML website. The page numbers in both the original
and the later edition, in the condition that they survive, are
confusing in the extreme, and it is not at all clear what tunes,
titles and dances go together. Nevertheless two USA researchers
produced a print edition in 1988, complete with interpretations of
the dances, plus an added alto line and chords that don’t seem to
be original. They may have been written by the editors (Christine
Helwig and Marshall Barron).
''Thomas Bray's Country Dances, 1699 / dances interpreted by
Christine Helwig ; and music edited and arranged by Marshall
Barron. 1988 Playford Consort Publications. For 2 melody
instruments and 1 bass instrument; includes chord symbols.
Includes prefatory material, dance instructions, bibliographical
references, and index.''
This would seem to be out of print.
In 2011 John Chambers transcribed this into ABC Music Notation, complete with the added alto line and chords. He comments in his introduction:-
“Several local dance leaders had given me copies of pages
from this book, to learn the tunes, so I borrowed a copy and
transcribed all the tunes. [hence JCs transcription
includes the 20thC material, which I have removed] This book is
reportedly the earliest known example of a dance collection that
includes bass lines with the tunes. It is known that Playford
sold such bass lines earlier, published as separate books, but
no known copies have survived. ...the chords are presumably the
editors' work.''
The version I offer here is essentially John Chambers’ previous
transcription, but with the alto line and the chords removed, and
some other changes to reflect the original book. I believe there
is value in seeing and hearing the clarity of the original music.
I may have added one or two extra bits of information in the
headers where I thought appropriate. Errors are my responsibility
of course. The various previous editors have made some attempt to
marry the correct titles to the tunes, but admit to the
possibility of occasional wrong guesses.
There is (17/06/2024) another copy on the Library Of Dance
website, which may clear up some of the inconsistencies. PDF
Chris Partington, 2024
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