Annotation:Mignonette (1) (La)

Back to Mignonette (1) (La)

---

MIGNONETTE [1], LA. AKA - "Mignonette Francoise (La)." AKA and see "Royal Albert." French, English; Country Dance Tune (6/8 time). F Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABBCCDD. An imported French contradance melody, found in Alexander McGlashan's c. 1780 Collection of Scots Measures, Neil Stewart's Select Collection of Scots English Irish and Foreign Airs Jiggs & Marches (1788, as "La Mignonne"), and Thomas Wilson's A Companion to the Ball Room (1816, as "La Mignonnette (Old French)"). However, the first printing appears in Giovanni Andrea Gallini's New Collection of Forty-Four Cotillons (London, 1770). It was printed in Paris in M. Boûin's Contredanses; description des figures, plan des figures (1780) as "La Mignonnette. Contredanse Nouvelle Française."

In addition to the "Old French" version of "La Mignonette" in Wilson's Companion to the Ball Room (1816), another version pf the tune is included under the title "Sicilian Dance (1)." The 'Sicialian' tune was apparently a revival of the earlier tune (with new dance figures), with another tune attached. Wilson notes:

This popular and pretended new dance for 1816 called the Sicillian dance was La Mignonette Cottillion published about the year 1770 and only altered by putting two bars of "Kammells Rondo" at the conclusion of both strains, and to go still further the first strain is copied almost note for note from "The Happy Clown" published about 100 years ago.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: McGlashan (Collection of Scots Measures), c. 1780; p. 18.

Recorded sources:

---