Annotation:Lord Mayor's Delight

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LORD MAYOR'S DELIGHT. English, Country Dance Tune (3/4 time). F Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. "Lord Mayor's Delight" appears in Henry Playford's Second Part of the Dancing Master (London, 1698), a second-edition supplement to the 9th edition of the Dancing Master. With the exception of the 10th edition, the dance and tune appeared in all subsequent editions of the Dancing Master until the end of the long running series in 1728, the 18th edition (then published by John Young). The melody also was printed in the Walsh's Compleat Country Dancing Master (London, 1718, reprinted in 1731).

Graham Christian (2015) suggests the dance may be associated with the Lord Mayor's Show and accompanying Triumph, an annual tradition dating to the 16th century that continues today. Henry Purcell was commissioned to compose music for the Lord Mayor's Show in 1682. Christian finds that playwright and poet Elkanah Settle, employed by the City of London, staged all the Lord Mayor's pageants between 1691 and 1708 (with the exception of the years 1695-98), and although his skills as a dramatist left no mark, he did have a penchant for spectacle that suited the task. In 1698 (the year the dance and tune were published by Playford) Settle seems to have made an extra effort to revive interest in the ceremony, as communicated in his name for that year's pageant, "Glory's Resurrection." The pageants were elaborately designed, and printed copies containing the dedications, directions, speeches, and songs were adorned with "sculptures" of the various floats.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Barlow (Complete Country Dances from Playford's Dancing Master), 1985; No. 379, p. 89. Barnes (English Country Dance Tunes, vol. 2), 2005; p. 77. Christian (The Playford Assembly), 2015; p. 60.

Recorded sources:

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