Annotation:Sir Charles Sedley's Minuet

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X: 313 T: Sir Charles Sedley's Minuet B: C. & S. Thompson, "The Compleat Tutor for the Fife" c.1760 p.31 #3 S: http://imslp.org/wiki/The_Compleat_Tutor_for_the_Fife_(Anonymous) Z: 2014 John Chambers <jc:trillian.mit.edu> M: 3/4 L: 1/8 K: D % - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |:\ d2fdec | d2e2f2 | A2BcdB | A2G2F2 |\ D3FEG | F2DFEG | F2GFED | A6 :| |:\ AFDFA=c | {c}B2ABG2 | B^GEGBd | {d}c2BcA2 |\ ecAceg | fdecd2 | A>gf2Te2 | d6 :| % - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

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SIR CHARLES SEDLEY'S MINUET. Scottish, English; Minuet (3/4 time). D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The melody appears in the [James] 'Gillespie Manuscript of Perth, 1768, and also appears in a minuet collection by David Rutherford in the 1750’s (a copy of which is in the music collection at Thomas Jefferson’s home Monticello). It also appears in tutors published around 1770 by the Thompson family in London, and by Longman, Lukey & Co. in the same place and time. It was a popular piece and was entered into a number of musicians' copybooks on both sides the Atlantic in the latter 18th century. In America, the melody was entered into the music manuscript copybooks of John Hoff (1776-1818, Lancaster, Pa.), Elizabeth Van Rensselaer (1782, Boston), John Curtis (1800, Conn.), Captain George Bush, and Henry Livingston, Jr., among others. Livingston purchased the estate of Locust Grove, Poughkeepsie, New York, in 1771 at the age of 23. In 1775 he as a Major in the 3rd New York Regiment, which participated in Montgomery’s invasion of Canada in a failed attempt to wrest Montreal from British control. An important land-owner in the Hudson Valley, and a member of the powerful Livingston family, Henry was also a surveyor and real estate speculator, an illustrator and map-maker, and a Justice of the Peace for Dutchess County. He was also a poet and musician, and presumably a dancer, as he was elected a Manager for the New York Assembly’s dancing season of 1774-1775, along with his 3rd cousin, John Jay, later U.S. Chief Justice of Governor of New York.

There are a few 'Sir Charles Sedley's' to whom the title may refer. Just going on dates alone, it may refer to Sir Charles Sedley, 2nd Baronet (c. 1721-1778), a British politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1747 and 1778. There was also a famous Sir Charles Sedley, 5th Baronet (1639-1701), who was an English noble, dramatist and politician, principally remembered for his wit and profligacy.

"Sir Charles Sedley's Minuet" was one of the tunes selected by George Harman of High Wycomb, Buckinghamshire, an 18th century cooper by trade who also experimented with mechanical chimes. Around 1790 he built several ten- and twelve-bell mechanical chimes to play various secular and religious airs for churches.