Dances in The Country Dance Book (Part 3) (Cecil Sharp, 1912)

The Dancing Master, 3rd ed.

Althea		John Playford 1657 Cecil Sharp 1912	Colin Hume	Facing Couples Becket
Buckingham House 1657		John Playford 1657 Cecil Sharp 1912 Playford Ball	At Home Bare Necessities	Square
Chelsea Reach ~ Sharp		John Playford 1657 Cecil Sharp 1912 Playford Ball	At Home Bare Necessities	Square
Hunsdon House		John Playford 1657 Cecil Sharp 1912 Playford Ball	Bare Necessities	Square
Spring Garden ~ Sharp		John Playford 1657 Cecil Sharp 1912 Playford Ball	Colin Hume	4 Couple Longways

The Dancing Master, 4th ed.

The Phoenix

John Playford 1670 Cecil Sharp 1912 Playford Ball

Colin Hume

4 Couple Longways

The English Dancing Master

Adson's Saraband ~ Sharp		John Playford 1651 Cecil Sharp 1912	Brett Larsen	3 Couple Longways
Argeers ~ Sharp		John Playford 1651 Cecil Sharp 1912	Bare Necessities	Facing Couples
Broom, The Bonny, Bonny Broom ~ Sharp		John Playford 1651 Cecil Sharp 1912 Playford Ball	Bare Necessities	4 Couple Longways
Confesse, his Tune ~ Cecil Sharp		John Playford 1651 Cecil Sharp 1912	Colin Hume	Custom3
The Court Lady ~ Cecil Sharp		John Playford 1651 Cecil Sharp 1912	Colin Hume	Custom3
Fain I Would ~ Sharp		John Playford 1651 Cecil Sharp 1912 Playford Ball	Bare Necessities	Square
The Friar and the Nun		John Playford 1651 Cecil Sharp 1912	Colin Hume	Duple Minor
The Fryar and the Nun		John Playford 1651 Cecil Sharp 1912	Colin Hume	Duple Minor
Hide Parke		John Playford 1651 Cecil Sharp 1912 Playford Ball	Bare Necessities	Square
Hyde Park		John Playford 1651 Cecil Sharp 1912 Playford Ball	Bare Necessities	Square
If all the World were Paper ~ Sharp		John Playford 1651 Cecil Sharp 1912 Playford Assembly	Colin Hume	Square
Labour in Vain		John Playford 1651 Cecil Sharp 1912	Bare Necessities	3 Couple Longways
Lull Me Beyond Thee		John Playford 1651 Cecil Sharp 1912 Playford Ball	Bare Necessities	4 Couple Longways
Maiden Lane		John Playford 1651 Cecil Sharp (mod) 1912 Playford Assembly	Colin Hume	3 Couple Longways permutation: 231
The Merry, Merry Milkmaids		John Playford 1651 Cecil Sharp 1912 Playford Ball	At Home Bare Necessities	4 Couple Longways
The Old Mole		John Playford 1651 Cecil Sharp 1912 Playford Ball	Colin Hume	3 Couple Longways
Parthenia ~ Sharp		John Playford 1651 Cecil Sharp 1912 Playford Ball	Bare Necessities	Square
Row Well, Ye Mariners ~ Sharp		John Playford 1651 Cecil Sharp 1912	Bare Necessities	7 Couple Longways
Shepherd's Holiday ~ Sharp		John Playford 1651 Cecil Sharp 1912	Bare Necessities	3 Couple Longways
Upon a Summer's Day ~ Sharp		John Playford 1651 Cecil Sharp 1912	Colin Hume	3 Couple Longways

Number of dances	Number of interpretations	Number with music
20	20	20

After being disappointed by the country dances which he could find still extant in England Sharp turned his attention to the various editions of The Dancing Master — and only them, he did not publish interpretations of any later works.

Sharp clearly felt that Country Dancing fell into a decline after about 1670:

A critical examination of these successive editions (of Playford) shows that the dance degenerated very rapidly during the period covered by them, and the large number of dance-manuals subsequently issued by Walsh, Thompson, Waylett, and others furthermore proves that this decline continued during the two following centuries...

—Cecil Sharp, The Country Dance Book part 5, 1918, p. 9

I'm not sure what his metrics were for this decline, but he was convinced of it. Perhaps he just didn't like duple or triple minor dances?

Dealing with Playford's text presents challenges which do not arise when you record a living tradition. Playford is sometimes consise to the point of obscurity, he did not seem to employ a proof reader and there are mistakes in his text (in that the figures he describe don't work together, or don't fit the music, etc.), and finally he used words whose meanings have now been lost.

Sharp had to do his best to figure out what was meant from these descriptions. And he did an amazingly good job of it too. Not always perfect. Now with 100 years of hindsight we know things he didn't, but if he hadn't started we won't have that hindsight.

Playford frequently says "Sides all". What does that mean? The concept of siding had died out in the Country Dance tradition around 1700 (the last Playford dance that used it was in 1670) and no one in England in 1900 knew. Sharp came up with an interpretation, and later in his life a different interpretation. We don't know if either is correct.

Or take the word "salute" Sharp interprets that as "honour" — which certainly fits the modern meaning of the word (a respectful greeting). But the Lovelace Manuscript makes it clear that "salute" meant "kiss" on the dance floor.

Look at Row well ye mariners, Playford describes the dance as:

Lead up a D. forwards and back · That again :

First man two slips cross the Room one way, the woman the other · Back again to your places :

Fall back both · Meet again :

Clap both your own hands, then clap each other's right-hands against one another's; clap both your own hands again, then clap left-hands, then clap both hands again, then clap your breasts, then meet both your hands against one-another · The same again, only clap left-hands first :

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First man sides with the next wo. and his wo. with the next man, doing the like till you come to your own places, the rest following and doing the same.

The dance consists of two 16 bar parts. The first is well defined, but for the second we have only that people should "side" (whatever that is) with their neighbors and then (somehow) progress. Now siding is a move which takes 4 bars and leaves one where one started. It does not progress and it leaves 12 bars of music unaccounted for.

Sharp faced all these challenges and presented us with well over 100 danceable reinterpretations of Playford.

The various parts of the Country Dance Book are:

• The Country Dance Book (Part 1), 1909 — Country dances actually danced in England at the time.
• The Country Dance Book (Part 2), 1911
• The Country Dance Book (Part 3), 1912
• The Country Dance Book (Part 4), 1916
• The Country Dance Book (Part 5), 1918 — This is devoted to "The Running Set", an early form of Square Dance, and I have no animations of it.
• The Country Dance Book (Part 6), 1922

This website is copyright © 2021-2025 by George W. Williams V
My work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Most of the dances have more restrictive licensing, see my notes on copyright, the individual dance pages should mention when some rights are waived.