Annotation:Porter's Lamentation

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PORTER’S LAMENTATION. English, Country Dance Tune (6/4 time). F Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. “Porter’s Lamentation” appears in the supplement to the 3rd edition of John Playford’s Dancing Master [1] (London, 1657). It appeared again in the supplement to the Dancing Master reprinted in 1665, but then was dropped from the long-running series of editions. A 'porter' was a carmen who bore the moneyed classes about Restoration London in human-powered chairs-with-rails, or the men who conveyed goods and packages on their backs. In either case their lamentation probably is an excessively heavy burden!

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Barlow (Complete Country Dance Tunes from Playford’s Dancing Master), 1985; No. 159, p. 46. Barnes (English Country Dance Tunes, vol. 2), 2005; p. 103.

Recorded sources:

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