Annotation:Sweet Richard
X: 1 T: Sweet Richard T: Longways for as many as will. %R: reel, march B: Daniel Wright "Wright's Compleat Collection of Celebrated Country Dances" 1740 p.19 S: http://library.efdss.org/cgi-bin/dancebooks.cgi Z: 2014 John Chambers <jc:trillian.mit.edu> M: C| L: 1/8 F:http://www.john-chambers.us/~jc/music/book/DanielWright/CCCCD.abc K: G % - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [|\ D2G2 G2AG | F2 A4 BA |G2AB cBAG | B2 d4 c2 | B3c d2e2 | d2c2 B4 |cBAG FGAF | G4 G,4 |]| g2g2 g2ag | f3e defg |a2g2 f2e2 | f2 d4 cB | c2 e4 dc | B2 d4 cB |cdBc ABGA | F2 d4 c2 | B3c d2e2 | d2c2 B4 |cBAG FGAF | G4 G,4 |] % - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - %%begintext align %% The 1st Cu. lead thro' the 2d Cu. & sett in the 2d Cu. %% Place, cast up & cast off .| 2d Cu. do the same :| The %% 1st Man change Place with 2d Wo. & stand still, & %% their Partners change. The two Men cast round %% the two Wo. into their Places & turn, the Wo. %% lead between the two Men & turn at the same time .| %% The 1st Cu. lead thro' the 3d Cu. & thro' the 2d Cu. %% Right & left quite round with the 2d Cu. and turn %%endtext % - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - %%sep 2 4 300
SWEET RICHARD. AKA - "Per Alaw neu Sweet Richard." AKA and see "Wood Waltham Green." English; Air, March, Country Dance Tune. G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The early versions of the tune appear in John Walsh's Third Book of the Compleat Country Dancing-Master (1735, p. 112) in Wright's Compleat Collection, published in London by Johnson c. 1742. Dancing Master Thomas Wilson (Companion to the Ball Room, 1816) gives its provenance as Welsh, and Glasgow editor James Aird (Selections of Scotch, English, Irish and Foreign Airs, vol. 3, 1788) also says “Sweet Richard” is Welsh. London publisher John Johnson included "Sweet Richard" in his Collection of Welsh, English, and Scotch Airs with new variations, also four near Lessons for the Harp or Harpsichord. Composed by John Parry, to which are added twelve airs for the Guittar (c. 1760-1765). Tradition has it that the air was named for King Richard II (son of Edward, the Black Prince) and composed by his squire, Owen Glendower[1]
The air was a favorite of Welsh harpers. West Yorkshire traveler Anne Lister visited north Wales and stopped at the Uxbridge Arms, and inn in Caernarfon in 1822, and recorded in her diary her encounter with Welsh harper Richard Roberts (1796-1855):
...the waiter … mentioned Mr Roberts, the harper, who won the silver medal at the Eisteddfod in 1821 at Wrexham – we asked what we should give him – the waiter said people seldom gave him less than 1/2 crown [2s 6d = 30pence], & if he made a charge, he would charge 1/2 crown an hour for he was not a common harper but a sort of teacher & master bard among them. He came at 9 & played 1560 [sic] hours in our room, for which we gave him 3/. He seemed satisfied – played us several Welsh airs, Handel’s 2d concerto &c. & is certainly a fine performer with great execution & taste – He had no unnecessary quavering with his hands but held them steadily parallel with the strings – he played us what he played first at Wrexham “Sweet Richard” with good & very difficult variations – from us he went to the party in the next room that we still had the benefit of him.
Roberts won the medal, in the shape of a small silver harp, at the Eisteddfod in 1820. "Sweet Richard" was closely associated with him and was published in London in 1821 in the volume Sweet Richard: performed at the Congress of Welsh Bards at Wrexham by Richard Roberts of Carnarvon, who gained the Silver Harp, with variations by John Parry (London: J. Power, 1821).
A variant of this tune appears in 24 Country Dances for the Year 1771 (Thompson, London), and a third version of the melody was copied in 1782 by Aaron Thompson, Fife Major in the New Jersey line and a native of Connecticut. “Sweet Richard” also appears in the music manuscript copybook of Captain George Bush, of the Continental Army. Kate Van Winkler Keller (“Fiddle, Dance and Sing with George Bush”) notes the similarity between Bush and Thompson’s music and dance figures, and believes it is possible the both collected dances that may have been performed in the winter encampments at Morristown, New Jersey (1778-1780). The version published in England by Thompson was reprinted in America in Select Collection (Ostego, New York) in 1808, and was entered into the 1781 music copybook of Fife Major Nathaniel Brown (“of the Fourth Connt. Regt,” stationed at Verplank’s Point on the Hudson in Westchester County, and in Durham, Conn.). A slightly altered version of the Thompson tune also appears in the music manuscript collection of Northumbrian musician William Vickers, begun in 1770. The same "Sweet Richard" title, attached to yet a fourth tune, appears in Preston's 24 Country Dances for the Year 1797 (London).
"Sweet Richard" was one of several Welsh folk songs for which Beethoven was commissioned to arrange.
- ↑ Louis Charles Elison, Modern Music and Musicians: Encyclopedia v. 1, 1912, p. 445.