Cushion Dance (Old) (4) (The)
CUSHION DANCE (OLD) [4], THE. AKA and see "John Sanderson." English, Jig (slow 3/4 and fast 6/4 parts). A Minor (Raven): G Dorian (Chappell). Standard tuning (fiddle). AABBCC. The air appears in Playford's Dancing Master 7th edition of 1686 as "Joan Sanderson, or The Cushion Dance", and was retained in all subsequent editions of the long-running series, through the last (18th), printed in London in 1728 by John Young. It also appears in all three editions of the Walsh's Compleat Country Dancing Master (1718, 1731, 1754). Chappell (1859, p. 288) gives a complete description of the dance. He notes that there were many allusions to it in Elizabethan literature, and the tune is called for in other songs and parodies.
Printed sources: Barlow (The Complete Country Dances from Playford's Dancing Master), 1985; No. 247 p. 64. Chappell (Popular Music of the Olden Times), vol. 1, 1859; p. 287. Raven (English Country Dance Tunes), 1984; p. 9. Wilson (Companion to the Ball Room), 1816; pp. 126-128.
Recorded source: Island Records AN-700, Kirkpatrick & Hutchings - "The Compleat Dancing Master" (1974).
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