X:1
T:Sprigs of Laurel for Admiral Nelson
M:2/4
L:1/8
R:Country Dance
B:Preston's 24 Country Dances for the Year 1799 (p. 168)
Z:AK/Fiddler's Companion
K:D
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SPRIGS OF LAUREL. AKA – “Sprigs of Laurel for Admiral Nelson." English, Country Dance Tune (2/4 time). D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. “Sprigs of Laurel” is a tune that appears in a few country dance collections at the end of the 18th century. It was printed in Samuel, Ann and Peter Thompson’s Twenty-Four Country Dances for the Year 1794 (p. 63), and, in America, in Norris & Sawyer’s Village Fifer (Exeter, N.H., 1808). The tune was also entered in the mid-19th century music manuscript of William Winter (1774-1861), a shoemaker and violin player who lived in West Bagborough in Somerset, southwest England.
Country dance directions (without melody) appear in a printed collection of country dances from Walpole, N.H. (1799), James Evans’ The (New) Ladies Memorandum Book for 1794 (London), and the Phinney’s Select Collection of the Newest and Most Favorite Country Dances (Ostego, N.Y., 1808). In Daniel Henry Huntingdon’s manuscript tutor for the flute (Onondaga, N.Y., 1817) “Sprigs of Laurel” appears as an alternate title, with “Lamp of Hope” as the primary title. The melody also appears in Fallibroome #5.
Dance fan, c. 1822.Researcher Paul Cooper[1] has found the directions for the country dance Sprigs of Laurel on two dance fans, one dating from November, 1793, and the other c. 1799. These dance fans were "cheat sheets" of a sort, consisting of instructions for the figures of current country dances printed in tiny print upon the paper of the fans themselves, for quick reference by the lead dancers who would be calling the figures for the set. Cooper explains, "A convention had arisen in the 18th century ballroom by which the leading couple in a country dance would be invited to call the dance; the leading couple, typically the leading lady, would get to name a tune and the figures to be danced to that tune, then lead off the dance." As can be imagined, the social pressure to call for the right fashionable dance at the right time, and to detail the figures coherently and viably, was enormous; the fans provided an aide to memory, or, at the least, helped to allay anxiety. The fashion for dance fans lasted for a couple of decades, writes Cooper, and relatively few survive of what must have been for a time a common but perishable accessory.
Additional notes
Printed sources : - Barnes (English Country Dance Tunes, vol. 2), 2005; p. 122. Thomas Preston (Preston's 24 Country Dances for the Year 1799), p. 168. Geoff Woolfe (William Winter’s Quantocks Tune Book), 2007; No. 320, p. 113 (as "Sprigs of Lourel", ms. originally dated 1850).
See also listing at : See Paul Cooper's article "British Dance Fans 1789-1822" at RegencyDances.org [1]
