A Catalogue of the ‘French Dances’ in The Dancing Master and Apollo’s Banquet (c. 1662-87)

Abstract

French-style dance music circulated extensively in the seventeenth century, as reflected in its widely dispersed sources of various types, many of which were created for use outside of ballroom contexts (e.g. keyboard sources). In England over 180 such dances were published as ‘The Tunes of the Usual French Dances at Court and Dancing Schools’ by John Playford, Zachariah Watkins and Henry Playford between c.1662 and 1687 in a supplement to The Dancing Master and its successor, Apollo’s Banquet. Most of the ‘French Dances’ in these publications are unknown outside of English sources and were probably composed by dancing masters and other musicians associated with dancing schools in London, though a significant number are of demonstrably French origin. The intended market for these publications was amateur violinists. However, their single-line (melody-only) notation suggests they drew directly from sources belonging to dancing masters who habitually used this form of notation. The present catalogue includes all the identifiable ‘French Dances’ published in The Dancing Master and Apollo’s Banquet, up to and including the 1687 of the latter, providing musical incipits and identifying a wide range of concordances for each tune. The sources are also listed alphabetically, accompanied by references to secondary literature, modern editions, published facsimiles and digital reproductions available online. The musical incipits are encoded numerically following the system developed by Bruce Gustafson, which captures both melodic and rhythmic information while offering ease of use and flexibility. An index lists the codes separately in numerical order according to genre.