Annotation:Lover's Luck (The)

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LOVER'S LUCK, THE. English, Country Dance Tune (3/2 time). G Minor/Dorian. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The tune dates to the year 1699 when it was first published in Thomas Bray's Country Dances (p.40). It is attributed to Thomas Tollett, but probably takes its name from Dilke's The lover's luck: a comedy, as it is acted at the theatre in Little Lincoln's-Inn-Fields by His Majesty's servants, as published by Henry Playford in 1696. Tollett was a musician and composer who (according to Highfill, Burnim, and Langhans, A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, etc., 1993) was a member of the Dublin City Music from 1669 or 1678 to 1688, after which he removed to London, where he composed for the theater. Grove's notes he wrote music for The Cheats (c. 1693), The Virtuous Wife (1699) and The Lover's Luck (1696). He received an appointment to the King's Musick in 1695, but had to wait until 1696 before a seat with remuneration attached in that ensemble opened up. Unfortunately, by this time Tollett seems to have been in poor health or elderly, and it is recorded he was replaced in the King's Musick by John Eccles (1668-1735) in 1697. Eccles also contributed songs to Dilke's Lover's Luck, although not this tune. Grove's suggests he may have died in 1696.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Barnes (English Country Dance Tunes), 1986. Christian (The Playford Assembly), 2015; p. 64.

Recorded sources:

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