Annotation:Valentine's Day
VALENTINE'S DAY. AKA and see "Maid in the Moon (2) (The)." English, Country Dance Tune (6/8 time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The tune dates to John Playford’s (1623-1687) 4th edition of his Dancing Master [1], 1670, where it appears under the title "Maid in the Moon", with "Valentine's Day" given as an alternate title. It was retained in the long-running Dancing Master series through the 18th and final edition of 1728. However, beginning with the 6th edition of 1679 the primary title was "Valentine's Day," and in the 7th and 8th editions both "Valentines Day" and "Maid in the Moon" (using the same tune) were printed with different dance figures; "Maid" in a three-couple round dance, while "Valentine's" is a longways dance. Graham Christian (2015) points out the Valentine's Day customs had been discouraged by Commonwealth England, as were numerous folk and rural observances, but found renewed vigor in Restoration times.
London publisher John Walsh picked up the tune and country dance for his Compleat Country Dancing Master, editions of 1718, 1731 and 1754. The dance “Valentine’s Day” is also recorded in the c. 1688 manuscript record (the second of two) of French Court dancing master André Lorin (now in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris), who visited England c. 1685 to collect English country dances in response to the growing interest stimulated by Madame la Dauphine. Later it was printed by Feuillet in 1700 in his treatise Choregraphie. Feuillet published subsequent editions of his work as the popularity of English country dancing took off on the Continent, several taken from The Dancing Master.
