Surviving
Playford
Many will be familiar, at least by (the last) name, with
the English publisher John Playford (1623-1686) and his son Henry (1657-c.
1707), who published a long-running series of volumes under the title The English Dancing Master from 1651 to
1728. These volumes were manuals for country dancing and included instructions
for performing popular dances of the era, ‘longways’ (parallel lines) and
circle dances. The basic dance forms
are familiar to anyone who has engaged in modern contra-dancing or in English
Country Dancing.
Who were the Playfords?
John was quite simply, a publisher and bookseller, whose business was in
trading in books to meet the demands of an audience that was interested in
social pleasures of music and dancing. Although one supposes he must have been well-trained in music,
there is no record of either he or his son being musicians. John, who was born
in Norwich, apprenticed at age 16 to publisher John Benson, with whom he stayed
for about eight years, from 1639 to 1647, learning the trade. The times in England were tumultuous. The
same year John began his apprenticeship portions of Scotland revolted over
religious issues, a rebellion that continued to wax and wane for some
time. In 1641 the Irish also rebelled against
English rule, which again proved to be a protracted struggle. Finally,
Parliament, beset by pressures internal and external, and stressed by religious
differences with a Catholic monarchy, went into open revolt against Charles I
in 1642. During the latter years of John’s apprenticeship the country was in
the midst of the English Civil War, pitting the Parliamentarian forces, of
which Oliver Cromwell emerged as the leader, and the Royalist forces loyal to
King Charles Stuart—the Roundheads versus the Cavaliers.
How could such a momentous conflict not engulf a young
man? John had Royalist sympathies, and,
while he apparently did not take up arms he was working as a war correspondent
of sorts, presumably funneling information to his master John Benson for
publication. John was captured by
Cromwell’s men, and, while he was not executed or imprisoned by the Roundheads,
he did receive stern instructions to amend his sympathies along with his ways,
and to consider a change of career.
Playford heeded the warning, and as his apprenticeship ended, he forsook
reporting and established himself in London, where he opened a shop on the
porch of Temple Church to sell music.
First erected by the Knights Templar (hence the name), the Temple church
was actually a grand complex that included gardens, courts and halls, which had
gradually become secularized. Law professors who worked in the area began to
rent space in it, and by the 1600’s James 1 granted control of the complex to
their societies. As a retail location
near an educated, cultured population
who might be consumers of social dancing, the Temple area was probably ideal.
Meanwhile,
Cromwell consolidated power and in 1648, after a final defeat of Royalist
forces (who had managed to align themselves with Scottish forces, to no avail),
Parliament tried and executed Charles I, and England became a republic. The next decade saw Cromwell dissolve
Parliament to become the Lord Protector of Britain, after which he crushed
Ireland in a vicious war. They were difficult
years politically and militarily for many in and out of the country, but there
were also significant social consequences to the struggle. The Protestant
ascendancy reacted strongly to the perceived social excesses of the ruling
classes, and quickly acted to enforce austerity and sober, deliberate thought
and action. Indeed, one might recall
the Puritans and the ‘Puritan Ethic’ in America as a model (the Mayflower
generation was in its hey-day in Massachusetts). In fact, it was the Puritans
who closed English theaters in 1642. Christmas or yuletide celebrations were
frowned upon and curtailed.
It is somewhat curious then, that John published his first
important work, The English Dancing
Master, in 1651, at the beginning of the Cromwellian decade. It basically is an instruction book for
social dance. Dancing, if not outlawed outright, was frowned upon by many as a
source of unnecessary frivolity at best, and a dangerous dark seduction of the
young at worst. Why did Playford think
his volume of dances and airs would prove profitable? Was it simply his old Royalist sympathies bleeding through in his
shop on the church steps, or a literary protest? Whatever the case, The
English Dancing Master found a ready (if discrete) audience, and Playford
must have been encouraged, for several similar volumes quickly emerged from his
press, including A Musical Banquet
(1651), Catch that Catch Can (1652)—a
lovely pun of a title, for a catch
was a song sung in a round, for several voices—, Musick’s Recreation on the Lyra Viol (1652), a tutor for the
cithern (a type of early guitar), and a general music tutor. His Choice
Musick to the Psalmes of David (1656) may have been a sop to those in
political power, perhaps because he was having some success in printing and
selling more ‘seditious’ volumes and needed to retreat a bit.
In 1658 Oliver Cromwell died and was succeeded by his son
Richard as Lord Protector, a decidedly poor choice who was quickly overthrown
by the army. Parliament was reconvened
as the governing body of England, but it too displeased the army who were
looking for a strong, effectual leader and who had no patience with the
slow–to-mature republican process. Overtures were made to the King-in-exile,
Charles I’s son, in France, and in 1660 the younger Stuart returned to England
to full public acclaim and was crowned Charles II. He wisely restored the Church of England and attempted religious
reconciliation. The return of the
monarchy allowed social strictures to loosen, and all England seemed to
relax. Charles II, no stranger to the
pleasures of the court himself, became known as the ‘Merry Monarch’ as he was
conceived of as presiding over the tenor of the times. John Playford responded with further
editions and improvements of older works (such as the Dancing Master, in its third edition in 1665) as well as new ones,
although London in the mid-1660’s was severely disrupted by a major outbreak of
the black plague followed in 1666 by the disastrous Great Fire. John persevered with his publishing business
however, achieving great success with important volumes Apollo’s Banquet and Musick’s
Handmaid, both from 1678 and The
Division Violin (1685), a set of 26 tunes in which the core melody is
simply stated, followed by ever-increasingly complex variation sets.
By
the mid-1680’s John, who had brought his son Henry into the publishing
business, retired and allowed Henry to succeed him. Henry was John’s younger
son and only known surviving child. He
changed the venue for the business to a place nearby Temple Church, later
moving to Temple Change in 1695 and finally to Middle Temple Gate in 1706.
Henry continued with revisions to the Dancing
Master which, at the time of his death, had gone into twelve editions (the
maintenance and publishing of the book was continued by John Young, until the
18th and last edition, of around 1728). Henry also published Thomas
d’Urfey’s Wit and Mirth and composer
Henry Purcell’s Orpheus Britannicus,
but chiefly specialized in lesser and more transient musical publications, such
as those for consumption at the then-popular London pleasure gardens and for
other entertainments.
The
Playfords did not write the music in any of their publications, so far as we
know, and when ‘Playford’ is referred to it is not as composer, but as a unique
repository of music that is representative not only of the era in which they
published, but because the Dancing Master
and similar works preserved as well older melodies and dances popular from
generations before. Thus much of what
we call—generically—Playford was already old when it was published. Today we think of Playford in several ways,
depending on the ‘lens’ with which you approach the books. First, of course, they were dance volumes
and are studied by scholars for their record of period social dancing. Playford publications are primary texts for
English Country Dancing, still an entertainment for many today after its
revival in the early 20th century by Cecil Sharp, and are used not
only to replicate dances of the era, but also for material for new dances in
the genre. Thus, on a social level the
Playford dances are still viable. Outgrowths or relatives of English Country
Dancing include Scottish country dance, North American contra-dance, and some
square dance elements, so there is a derivative aspect of Playford as
well. As with the Playford dances, so
too can the music in the Playford volumes can be accessed. For classical music musicians Playford is
often considered one of the cut-offs for Early Music. Compositions contained in Playford often can be heard rendered in
a classical manner by early music groups playing period instruments—indeed,
John Young’s cover to the final edition of the Dancing Master in 1728 shows a trio consisting of an oboe, bassoon
and violin accompanying dancers. The
variation sets so carefully outlined in Division
Violin are models for how musicians, even ‘classical’ ones, approached
written music in the period—the melody was a jumping off place, a place to
start, and the true art of playing lay in spontaneous development of the music
in the course of the playing. Obviously, the revival of English Country Dancing
was accompanied by a revival of the music in Playford, and the music survives
played by musicians—classically trained or not—as the vehicle when social
dancing is the focus.
It
is the third ‘lens’ that interests me, however, the derivative one as it
relates to fiddlers and traditional music.
Since the Playford volumes contain older airs as well as airs from the
Restoration and other periods in the long life of the Dancing Master editions, the publications can be seen as
repositories of music in the tradition, and not as static compositions (as is,
for example, a composed classical music work).
In other words, they had a life in the tradition independent from John
or Henry’s harvesting of them into their published works. So, if they were in tradition earlier than
Playford, and during the long Playford era, how long did they survive, and
could any even be in tradition now, some three hundred or so years later?
Although
many Playford melodies have dropped by the wayside, some can still be heard in
derivative form in modern fiddling repertoire, and a very few still sound
little changed from their original.
Perhaps the best example of the latter can be seen in the jig tune—one
of my favorites—entitled “The Frost is all Over,” which begins: (insert
two bars)
In and of itself, this jig has some interest,
because there is a knot of titles associated with it, including “The Frost is
Gone,” “The Loughrea Jig,” “On a Monday Morning,” “The Praties are Dug,”
“Praties in the Bag,” “Kitty Lie Over,” “What would you do if you married a
soldier?” “What would you do if the Kettle Boiled Over?” and a few others, more
obscure (including the Clare tin whistle player Micho Russell’s idiosyncratic
but evocative alternate title “The Dancing of the Rabbits in Honan’s Garden,”
after a local Doolin man who owned a field north of Fisherstreet). The plethora of alternate titles are
interrelated and embedded in the words associated with the melody—sets of
ditties, really, rather than lyrics:
What
would you do if the kettle boiled over?
What
would I do but fill it again.
What
would you do if you married a soldier?
What
would you do but follow the drum.
or, these, sung by Mrs.
Anastasia Corkery in the 1930’s, collected in by Pennsylvania by Samuel Bayard:
What
would you do if you married a soldier?
What
would you do but carry his gun?
What
would you do if he died in the army?
What
would you do but marry again?
or, these, sung by Johnny
Moynihan of the group De Danann:
The
praties are dug and the frost is all over,
Kitty
lie over, close to the wall.
What
would you do if the kettle boiled over”
What
could I do but fill it again?
What
would you do if the cows eat the clover?
What
could I do but set it again?
What
would you do if you married a soldier?
What
could I do but to follow the gun?
Singing the above with the
melody one understands how these lyrics were powerfully associated with the tune,
for, as has been suggested by others, the repeated mono- and bi-syllabic words
mimic exactly the tripleted (6/8) melody. This may have been a kind of “mouth
music” to diddle the melody sans instrument, or a mnemonic to help a musician
recall the tune. If the latter, it
didn’t quite work, for the same lyrics are powerfully associated as well with
another—unrelated—jig melody that often goes by the title “Paddy’s Return” or
“Young Tim Murphy.” (insert two bars)
Seamus Ennis and Elizabeth
Cronin sang the “kettle” lyric to this jig, for example. If a lyric is
‘married’ to a tune, then “What would you do if you married a soldier” is
definitely in a polygamous relationship!
What does this have to do with Playford? Let’s trace back a bit the primary “Frost is
all Over” tune from the first example, the one which concerns us. The melody is common in modern Irish
collections from the mid-20th century on, and even some North
American ones, as it is a good vehicle for contra-dancing. Its ubiquity attests
to its popularity in modern times, although it is associated with the Irish
repertoire. Most of the time it appears as a two-part tune, although a
three-part version was played by the late Kerry accordion player Johnny
O’Leary, picked up by Cork accordion player Jackie Daly for his band Patrick
Street. Under the title “The Frost is all Gone” the jig appears in the first
volume of the printed music collection of the Roche brothers, compiled in the
early 20th century.
The
melody also has a history in America. “Owl Creek” is a title for the melody in
fifing repertoire, perhaps named for an early settlement in Ohio. In the 1930’s
“The Praties are Dug and the Frost is all Over” appears in country dance tune
lists from Orange County, New York, and Sam Bayard collected it as an untitled
cotillion from Pennsylvania fiddlers in the same decade. In 1921 one of the first sound recordings of
the tune was made in New York by County Sligo fiddle master Michael Coleman. It
was recorded again in 1923 by the trio of Chicago piper Tom Ennis, fiddler Tom
Quigley and piano player John Muller, and in yet again in 1928 by the Flanagan
Brothers. All were released on 78 RPM
in the United States. English collector Peter Kennedy printed the tune with the
baffling title of “American Dwarf” in his 1951 Fiddler’s Tune Book, but gives
no source information. What the title refers to is unknown.
The “Frost is all Over” tune also appears in Irish
collections of the 19th century, and here things start to get
interesting musically. Collector George
Petrie (1789-1866) collected the melody with the “Frost is all Over” title in
County Armagh in the first half of the 19th century, appearing in
print in 1855 (and again in 1902 in the Complete
Petrie Collection of Irish Music, edited by Charles Villiers Stanford).
Both parts of Petrie’s Armagh version are substantially the ones heard today in
Irish sessions. Another version was collected by Irish antiquarian Patrick
Weston Joyce (1827-1914) from in an earlier collection by William Forde, who
compiled his manuscript around 1840-50. Joyce printed the tune in his Old Irish Folk Music and Songs (1909,
No. 516) as an untitled air in the key of F major. The first part is pretty much the familiar “Frost is all Over”
melody, although the second strain is a different one than is usually
heard—actually, the form of Joyce’s melody is AA’BA’ (if each four-bar line is
labeled as a part), which is a common traditional song structure, and since he
(or Forde) labeled it as an ‘air’ we must assume that it was sung. Finally, a
version appears in the manuscripts of a third great Irish 19th
century collector, James Goodman (1828-1896), a Church of Ireland cleric who
was an Irish-speaker and an uilleann piper.
Goodman collected from traditional musicians in County Cork and
elsewhere in Munster, and also obtained tunes from manuscripts and printed
sources. His melody, called “D’Imthig an Sioc” (The Frost is all Gone), is an
unusual setting in which the ‘B’ part is cognate with the standard tune played
today, although the ‘A’ part is completely different. The only time “The Frost is all Over” appears in 19th
century American collections is in Ryan’s Mammoth Collection (1883), printed by
Boston publisher Elias Howe. It does
not appear in earlier Howe publications, to my knowledge, and thus may have
been introduced to the firm by William Bradbury Ryan, an employee.
The “Frost” tune does not appear in Irish publications
earlier than the 19th century. However, it appears in Lowland
Scottish and English publications throughout the 18th century,
albeit under a different name entirely, “Hey to the Camp.” It’s a curious
title, at least to modern ears. A ‘hey’ was another word for ‘meander’, and
referred more specifically to a type of dance movement in which two lines of
dancers weave past each other in single file in opposite directions. It’s a
common movement in English Country Dancing, and derivatives of it remain in
contra and square dancing in such movements as the Grand Right and Left. Why
would one hey to a camp, and what camp might be referred to is unknown. It hardly seems to refer to a military camp,
although that’s possible, but undoubtedly some sort of impermanent location is
to be understood. Whatever its meaning, the melody was popular as a jig for 100
years, and appears in publications from Gow’s Complete Repository (Part 2, 1802), to Oswald’s Caledonian Pocket Companion (Book VIII,
c. 1755), to London publisher John Walsh’s Compleat
Country Dancing Master, both 3rd and 1st volumes
(1731 and 1718, respectively).
Which leads us, finally, back to the Playfords, for the
“Hey to the Camp” title first appears in the second supplement of Henry
Playford’s 7th edition of the English
Dancing Master, published in 1688.
It also appears in subsequent editions of the work, occasionally
elaborated. Curiously, “Hey to the
Camp” is not the primary title in the 1688
supplement, but rather the second, alternate title, the first being “The
Mask.” This suggests that the tune was an older one that had two primary names
attached to it when it was harvested from tradition by the Playfords. Indeed,
the two titles (same tune) have separate entries in Dancing Master editions 11 through 16 (1701-1716). The ‘Mask’ title probably refers to the
Masque, a form of courtly entertainment popular with the Elizabethan and Stuart
courts. The masques had begun as
costumed balls around a theme, and costumed guests would be invited to perform
a dance in front of the company, after which they would invite the spectators
to join them. Later, professional stage
designs and speaking and singing parts were added to the dance, making the
event pageant-like and of high drama. Often classical or allegorical stories
were used as themes, sometimes with political overtones to the times. Both Henry VIII and Charles I performed in
masques at their courts, and courtiers regularly participated. Popular
especially at Christmas and weddings, the Masques could sometimes degenerate
into revelry, sometimes unruly—in 1605 one post-masque banquet “was so
furiously assaulted that down went tables and trestles before one bit was
touched.”
The
Cromwellian era had, of course, put a stop to all this. It is true, however, that the masque as an
entertainment had long since peaked to be replaced by English semi-opera
developed by John Dryden and composer Henry Purcell. It is perhaps for this
reason the “The Mask” title did not survive Playford, while his “Hey to the
Camp” survived.
Andrew Kuntz
8 Veatch Street
Wappingers Falls, NY 12590
09/08/07