When I heard this music I could dance in the room. The English news only on the television was the terrible news that there was a fire in Paris in the Notre Dame. Has nothing to do with the cheerfulness of Arany Zoltán music that I am a big fan of and has been boned for years...! But coming from cheerful English dance to the rough reality of French history is a reason to emphasize this again...... Also Zoltán has made a lot of France music.
Glad to hear it. English folk music is often ignored in favour of Irish. In fact, a lot think English folk music is nothing but The Wurzels and the Maypole Dance.
Yes, it's odd, this and another Playford dance (The Health) are quite close to the Praetorius "Bouree" tunes, although Praetorius's treatment of The Health has a 12-bar second section that Playford lacks. Years ago, a dance director at the original Renaissance Pleasure Faire, the late David Ricker, added an adaptation of Praetorius's longer tune to The Health as a B section - which at least makes it more interesting to play and dance! - and also introduced the practice of performing the two dances sequentially (in another nod to Praetorius). Since Playford wrote down his dances much later, I think Ricker's conceit (not to be taken seriously) was that he was 'restoring' an earlier version of The Health that Praetorius might have heard, keeping in mind that the Renaissance Faire portrays late 16th-century England. You can hear Ricker's arrangement at ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-3Sl6eGf0qtM.html For a proper scholarly treatment of this, suggesting ways in which Praetorius might have been exposed to these English tunes, see Luis Torres. “Michael Praetorius and Two English Country Dances.” Folk Music Journal, vol. 2, no. 5, 1974, pp. 389-395. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/4521937 .
