Annotation:Bath (1) (The)
X:1 T:Bath [1], The M:C| L:1/8 K:GMix d2 | g3 d g3 d | gfef g2 B2 | c2 A2 d3 d | A4 A4 | G2 GG G2 G2 | GABc d3 B | cd e2 d3 c| B6 ||
BATH [1], THE. English, Country Dance ("Longways for as many as will"). G Mixolydian. Standard tuning (fiddle). One part. The melody first appears in print in John Playford's The English Dancing Master [1] (1651). It was printed in several of the subsequent editions of the long-running series, ending with a reprint of the 3rd edition, in 1665, after which it was dropped. There are two different melodies with this title in Playford, which refers to the dancing at the assemblies at the spa resort town of Bath, England, which seems to have been known as "The Bath" [1]. It has been famous since Roman times for its medicinal hot-springs. Samuel Pepys wrote in his diary entry for June 12th, 1668:
Having dined very well, 10S, we came before night to the Bath; where I presently stepped out with my landlord and saw the baths with people in them.
Alternatively, Keith Whitlock[2] posits that the tune was named for John Grenville, Earl of Bath (1628-1701), a Cornish Royalist who was wounded at the second battle of Newbury. He retired to Jersey after the Royalist defeat, but then assumed governorship of the Isles of Scilly at the request of King Charles II. He proved an able commander, and caused Parliament to fret at his stubborn defense. Whitlock mentions that days after Playford's English Dancing Master went on sale, Parliament instructed that Grenville's relations in Cornwall be imprisoned until Grenville set free some merchants[3]. It seems probably that Playford was thinly disguising his political sympathies with place names such as "Bath" and "Newcastle" that also referenced Royalist heroes.
- ↑ Anne G. Gilchrist, "Some Additional Notes on the Traditional History of Certain Ballad-Tunes in the Dancing Master", Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, vol. 3, No. 4, Dec., 1939, p. 277).
- ↑ Keith Whitlock, “John Playford’s English Dancing Master 1650/51 as Cultural Politics”, Folk Music Journal, vol. 7, No. 5, 1999, p. 570.
- ↑ ibid