Annotation:Nobe's Maggot

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NOBE'S MAGGOT. English, Country Dance Tune or Slip Jig (9/4 or 9/8 time). C Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. "'Maggot', a dram" (Joyce). The melody and dance directions were first printed by Henry Playford in his Dancing Master, 12th edition [1] (1703). It was retained in subsequent editions of the long-running series through the 18th and last edition of 1728 (then published by John Young, heir to the Playford publishing concerns. The tune was also printed by the Walshes in The Compleat Country Dancing-Master (editions of 1731 and 1754).

An Irish provenance was suspected at one time. P.W. Joyce obtained the melody from the manuscript collection of Irish collector and lawyer John Edward Pigot (1822–1871), who collected among the Irish in London as well as in Ireland.Collector William Chappell (Collection of National English Airs, 1840) states: "This tune having been supposed Irish by Malchair, was inserted with the Irish Music, in vol. 1 of Crotch's Specimens; but since the publication of that work, Dr. Crotch has formed a different opinion as to this, and several other airs in the same collection." [Ed. Crotch was a music lecturer, who illustrated his lectures with pices of music, known as his 'Specimens']. The tune formed the theme of "A new Rondo, on a favourite Irish Air, with an Introduction and Slow Movement, composed expressly for the Pianoforte as improved by Clmenti and Co. up to F; also arranged for instruments up to C.; by J.B. Cramer," published by the London music publishing firm of Clementi & Co. The piece was reviewed in The Gentleman's Magazine and Historical Chronicle (Vol. LXXXV, 1815) by Slyvanus Urban:

The introduction, in C major key, is tasteful, and extremely short, occupying but one third of the page: in character it has not the least affinity with what follows. The Irish dance, or theme of the rondo, is given on page 30, vol. 1, of Dr. W. Crotch's Specimens, where it is called "Nobe's Maggot." It would be exceedingly difficult to select a better specimen of the vulgar or truly rustic in melody than this air. Mr. Cramer, with his usual skill, has rendered it a pleasing lesson; but his own elegant ideas do but ill accord with the character of his theme.

A version of the tune was used in the stage production The Devil to Pay (1731) for the song "There was a maid in the West."

Additional notes

Source for notated version: - Frank Kidson says P.W. Joyce copied the tune from Dr. Crotch's Specimens, where it appears on the same page as another tune in Joyce's collection, "Sheep-Shearers (The)."

Printed sources : - Joyce (Old Irish Folk Music and Songs), 1909; No. 724, pp. 360-261. John Walsh (Complete Country Dancing-Master, Volume the Fourth), London, 1740; No. 101.

Recorded sources: -

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