Tuesday, January 10, 2017

Button and Whitaker's Selection of Dances (1808)

Button and Whitaker's Selection of Dances, Reels and Waltzes, for the Piano Forte, Harp, Violin & German Flute. With Figures. At least 18 volumes of these were published, four of which (ns, 8, 9,11, 18) are available through IMSLP: page. These were first uploaded to the Internet Archive, incidentally, where no library or archive source is given. There, volumes 8 & 9 are marked as being published in 1808 (there is no year given in the score itself), volume 11 in 1809, and volume 18 in 1811. All these are approximate dates.

In volume 9, "Time's a Tell Tale" begins with a solid ^1-^5 interval frame, where ^1 has priority (circled in the first strain). The frame is reversed in the second strain (see "--> ^5-^8" at the beginning) and a simple ascending line moves up within it in the last phrase (boxed).


"Sir Gilbert Go Softly" refers to a comic ballad, but whether this Hornpipe tune is the one commonly associated with it, I don't know. In any case, what could be a triadic frame—boxed in bar 1—gives over to the upper fourth in bars 3-4 and dominates in the second strain. In the graph below the score I have pulled out the voice-leading that works in both cadences.