Annotation:Lady Bartlett's Whim
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LADY BARTLETT'S WHIM. American (?), Reel. G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). ABCD. Dance instructions for "Lady Bartlet(t)'s Whim" appear in several New England copybooks and publications from the late 1790's and the early decades of the 19th century. Some of them are Saltator's (a pseudonmym) A Treatise on Dancing (Boston, 1802), Samuel Preston's An Elegant Collection of New Figures (Amherst, Mass., 1798), and a volume entitled A New Collection of Country Dances, for the Use of Dancing Assemblies published in Leominster, Mass., in 1799.
Source for notated version: Joseph Taggard Collection (Concord, N.H.) [Miller]. Source Taggart noted: "The favourite dance of Betsy Spofford and Joseph Barnes." Also in the possession of the New Hampshire Historical Society is a volume published by Samuel Preston in 1798 in Amherst, New Hampshire, called "An Elegant Collection of New Figures...For the Use of Dancing Schools." The work contains dance figures only, one of which is Lady Bartlett's Whim. Source for notated version: the 1938 typewritten manuscript of New Hampshire fiddler John Taggart (New Hampshire Historical Society, Concord, N.H.). Taggart (1854-1943), born and raised in Sharon, New Hampshire, and was a onetime orchestra leader and composer. Taggart wrote in his ms. that the tunes "were all taught me during my boyhood days in Sharon (N.H.), by the various fiddlers in that vicinity." Miller points out that Sharon is in "the heart of the Monadnock Region of southwestern New Hampshire, where fiddlers and contra dances abound to this day" (pref. iv) [Miller].
Printed sources:Elias Howe (Third Part of the Musician's Companion), 1844; p. 68. Boston, 1880-1882, p. 643Elias Howe (Musician’s Omnibus Nos. 6 & 7), Boston, 1880-1882; p. 643. Miller (Fiddler's Throne), 2004; No. 188, p. 119.
Recorded sources: New Hampshire Fiddler's Union, Miller & Peery - "The Music of John Taggart" (1989). Rounder 7018, Frank Ferrel - "Boston Fiddle: The Dudley Street Tradition" (1996).
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