Annotation:Dove's Figary

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DOVE'S FIGARY. AKA - "Chestnut." English, Country Dance Tune (2/2 time). A Minor (Playford): D Minor (Wright). Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The melody appears as "Chestnut" (with "Dove's Figary" as an alternate title) in John Playford's English Dancing Master (1651, p. 85) as a vehicle for a longways dance for six. It was also published in London by J. Johnson in Wright's Compleat Collection of Celebrated Country Dances, c. 1740-2. 'Figary' is a word derived from the word 'vagery', and means a frolic or whim; a synonym perhaps for the word 'maggot' as used to refer to dance tunes. 'Dove' may refer to the slippery Parliamentary politician John Dove [1] in the reign of Charles I and afterwards, sometimes (probably erroneously) known as a regicide as he sat as a commissioner in the trial of that monarch. Thus the title may have once been to a lost ballad. Relatively little is known of Dove, except that 'he met a peaceful end, after a stormy career'.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Barlow (Complete Collection of Playford's Country Dance Tunes), 1986; No. 14, p. 19. Raven (English Country Dance Tunes), 1984; p. 13 & p. 45 ("Chestnut"). Wright (Wright's Compleat Collection of Celebrated Country Dances), 1740; p. 93.

Recorded sources:

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