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Annotation:Brunswick Waltz
X:1 T:Mrs. Lester, or the Brunswick C:Weippert M:3/8 L:1/8 R:Waltz B:Campbell - 10th Book of New and Favorite Country Dances (1795, p. 20) Z:AK/Fiddler's Companion K:F F/G/|AAB|c2 (f/d/)|.c.c (d/B/)|.A.A F/G/|AAB|c2f|g(g/f/)(g/a/)|f2:| |:Tc|{eg}.b.b Tc|{f}.a.a f|.e(e/g/)(f/a/)|.g.g Tc|{eg}bb c|{f}aa f|g e/c/d/e/|ff:| |:A/B/|.c(cd)|.c.c (A/c/)|.B.B (G/B/)|(AF) F/A/|cc d|ccf|(.f/.e/.d/.c/.d/.e/)|f2!fermata!:|]
BRUNSWICK WALTZ. AKA - Brounswick Waltz." AKA and see "Mrs. Lester," "Ramsgate Assembly." "Rotunda Waltz (The)." English, Scottish, American; Waltz (3/4 time). G Major (Kerr): F Major (Campbell, Howe/Diamond, Wilson): C Major (Howe/Accordeon): D Major (Kennedy, Sumner). Standard tuning (fiddle). AABBCC (Campbell, Kennedy, Kerr, Sumner): AABBCCBB (Howe). A popular early waltz melody that appears in several early 19th century instrumental tutors and collections, as well as musicians' manuscripts on both sides of the Atlantic. However its origins are in the latter 18th century, at the beginning of the popularity in Britain of the waltz form. According to Bruce Olson's index, the "Brunswick Waltz" first appears in Longman and Broderips 5th collection (30) c. 1791-96. However, a competing claim is to be found in Thomas Budd's Fourteen Favorite Cotillons and Country Dances, The Twenty Fifth Book For The Year 1795 where the melody can be found as "Ramsgate Assembly." It also appears (as "Brunswick Waltz") in the Cahousac's Complete Tutor for the German Flute (London, 1798). In William Campbell's 1795 collection the tune is attributed to "Weippert."
The tune was entered in the Thomas Kiernan MS (c1846) of Co Longford, Ireland as "The Rotunda Waltz". This title may refer to its performance in the Rotunda Concert Hall in Dublin, also known as The Round Room at the Rotundo, which was one of Ireland's earliest concert halls built in the mid 1700s. Conor Ward finds that a variant of "Brunswick Waltz" entered tradition in Donegal as "Meenbannad Mazurka (The)"[1], named for a townland in the center of the Irish county.
According to Highfill, Burnim & Langhans' A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers (1993, pp. 335-336) John Erhardt Weippert (1766-1821) was the German born son of musicians who emigrated to England with his family while a young man. He was said to be proficient on violin, viola, cello, clarinet, horn and pedal harp, and performed at various times at the Covent Garden and Drury Lane theaters, although he performed almost exclusively on the harp. Weippert often teamed with the popular uilleann piper Denis Courtney until the latter's death in 1794.
One of their early (1792) collaborations was their accompaniment of Incledon and Mrs. Mountain in a 'Scotch Duetto'. But on an occasion (31 June, 1792) when Courtney absented himself, "Weippert, with his harp, undertook the whole piece himself, with wonderful "execution and taste."
The title perhaps has associations with Princes Charlotte Augusta (1737-1813), granddaughter of king George II and sister of George III. She married, in 1764, Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick, a ducal house to which she already belonged. During the Napoleonic Wars the Duke was commander of the Prussian forces at the battle of Auerstadt (1806) where he was mortally wounded. Princes Augusta fled with her family to Jutland and a year later prevailed upon her brother to allow her to move to England. She settled at Montague House, Blackheath, Greenwich, but fell out with her daughter with whom she lived, and purchased the house next door, renaming it Brunswick House.
- ↑ "The Meenbannad Mazurka" was printed in Caoimhin Mac Aoidh's and Roisin Harrigan's Cairdeas na Bhfidleiri: an Ceol. Vol. 3, 1996, published by Cairdeas na bhFidleiri.
