Annotation:I Fix My Fancy On Her A Round O
X:1 T:I fix my Fancy on her, a Round O M:C L:1/8 B:Henry Playford - A Collection of Original Scotch-Tunes, (Full of the B:Highland Humours) for the violin (London, 1700, No. 35, p. 15) N:"Most of them being in the Compass of the Flute." Z:AK/FIddler's Companion K:F cB|A2 (GF) AB cA|G2 d2d2 cB |A2f2f2 cB|A2f2f2|| c|dcde d2 cA|fefg a2 gf|g3a f3g|a2d2d3||
I FIX MY FANCY ON HER, A ROUND O. AKA - "Bright Cynthia's powers." Scottish, Air (whole time). Standard tuning (fiddle). One part (Thomson): AB (Playford). This country dance melody appears in London publisher Henry Playford's 1700 collection of Scottish tunes. The "Round O" of the title is a English corruption of the French rondeau and the Italian rondo, and is descriptive of a dance form popular in the 17th century. The 'round o' employs one stable strain that is repeatedly returned to, whilst other strains introduce new melodic material. The form ABACADA would be an example. The 'round o' fell out of favor as the 18th century progressed, and by the end it was seldom employed for country dances.
The melody appears as the indicated tune for Allan Ramsay's song "Bright Cynthia's powers" in Scottish singer William Thomson's Orpheus Caledonius, vol. II (1733, Song 31, p. 126). Ramsay's words (printed in his Tea-Table Miscellany) begin:
Bright Cynthia's power divinely great,
What heart is not obeying;
A thousand Cupids on her wait,
And in her eyes are playing.
She seems the queen o love to reign;
For she alone dispenses
Such sweets as best can entertain
The gust of all the senses.
