Annotation:Ah! Sure Such a Pair

The jig was originally English, appearing as the air for the song "Ah, sure a pair was never seen" from Richard Sheridan's (1751-1816) comic opera The Duenna (1775). The work was staged at Drury Lane and Covent Garden, London. The music of it was composed by a father and son, both named Thomas Linley, although the opera is chiefly remembered for its libretto, the work of Sheridan. In fact, the libretto was well-enough thought of to form the basis of an opera by Roberto Gerhard, and for Prokofiev's Betrothal in a Monastery. Linley the son was a friend of the young Mozart, while the elder Linely was Sheridan's father-in-law.

The melody appears in the American publication Riley's Flute Melodies (New York, 1814). New Hampshire flute player Newt Tolman, author of Quick Tunes and Good Times (1972) and the Nelson Music Collection (1969), was wont to spontaneously launch into this tune when playing at contra dances (no matter what anyone else was playing!), just as a buxom young lass would dance by the band (Dudley Laufman, Fiddle-L 2007).

The melody can also be found in print in Sara Johnson's A Further Collection of Dances, Marches, Minuetts and Duetts of the Latter 18th Century (1998; p. 5) and Newt Tolman's Nelson Music Collection (1969; p. 3).