Annotation:Vauxhall Jubilee
X:1 T:Vauxhall Jubilee M:6/8 L:1/8 R:Country Dance B:Samuel, Ann & Peter Thompson -- Compleat Collection of 200 Favourite Country Dances, vol. 5 (London, 1788, p. 14) Z:AK/Fiddler's Companion K:D f2g aba|agf fed|gab afd|Bed cBA| f2g a>ba|agf fed|Bed cBc|d3 D3:| |:Ace Ace|Adf Adf|Beg fed|ced cBA| Ace Ace|Adf Adf|Beg fed|edc d2:|]
VAUXHALL JUBILEE. English, Country Dance Tune (6/8 time). D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The Vauxhall Jubilee was held in 1786, and while Vauxhill was more than a jubilee old (a jubilee, strictly speaking is a 50th anniversary, and the gardens, in their earliest iteration as Spring Gardens at Vauxhill opened soon after the Restoration in the 17th century. However, they were restored and improved by Jonathan Tyers who reopened them in 1732 to great acclaim, and who introduced concerts that were extremely popular. With the death of the Jonathan in 1765 the gardens fell to his sons to manage, and in 1785 one brother was bought out by another, also named Jonathan Tyer. This younger Jonathan again refurbished the gardens to further innovated to bring the venue to the height of its splendor. Pamela McGairl, in her article "The Vauxhall Jubilee, 1786" [The Musical Times, vol. 127, No. 1726 (Nov., 1986), pp. 611-615], describes the event:
Newspaper accounts agree on the magnificence of the gardens at the jubilee celebrations. They were decorated with an additional 15,000 blue and white lamps, new ornaments, decorations, and transparent paintings were added, and the exterior of the buildings (including the orchestra) was newly painted in light blue and white. The Rotunda, used for the concerts in wet weather, had been modernized and refurbished, and a temple and a suite of two temporary ballrooms had been newly erected. No programme survives, but it is clear from the newspaper accounts that the concert in the Orchestra in the grove was not the only source of music. The Orchestra in the Rotunda was occupied by catch singers, and in each ballroom was a band of country-dance players; two bands of horns and clarinets paraded the gardens. ... [p. 611].
"Vauxhall Jubilee" was entered in the mid-19th century music manuscript of William Winter, a shoemaker and violin player who lived in West Bagborough in Somerset, southwest England.