March 7, 2006, 1:27 a.m. (Message 44519)
Dear All, While looking around on Internet for a quite different topic, I came across this charming excerpt that many of you may like. It was found on http://www.standingstones.com/scotdanc.html =================================== Dancing was disliked by the Church of Scotland. In 1649 the General Assembly passed an act prohibiting so-called 'promiscuous dancing' (i.e. in which men danced with women), and this act was reaffirmed in 1701. As a result there was almost no public dancing of any kind in Scotland in the seventeenth century; it had to be done surreptitiously, if at all. [Note 1 Of course this statement does not apply to the Highlands, which was still mainly Catholic at this period, and so not governed by the views of the Church of Scotland] Celtic ornament. Towards the end of the seventeenth century, however, dancing came out into the open again in Edinburgh as an upper-class recreation, stimulated by the visit of the Duke and Duchess of York in 1680. New dances came into vogue at this time: these were the Country- dance, an English type not hitherto known in Scotland, and the Minuet (pronounced 'minaway' in the French manner). The church objected, predictably; pulpit-thumping sermons equating dancing with sexual permissiveness were frequently to be heard in Edinburgh churches during the first ten years of the eighteenth century. But times had changed, and the ladies of Edinburgh defied the church and danced on: a popular dance tune at the time was called 'The de'il stick the minister'. In 1723 an Assembly, or aristocratic dancing-club, was opened in Edinburgh which was to continue until nearly the end of the century. The Edinburgh Assembly was in theory open to the general public, in practice confined to 'Persons of Quality, and others of Note'. But assemblies also opened in provincial Scottish towns, and dancing-masters set up teaching practices in areas remote from the capital. Topham remarked in 1775 how dancing-masters earned a good living by teaching large classes of pupils at small individual fees: it is probable that dancing lessons became cheaper as the eighteenth century progressed, so encouraging the spread of dancing downwards socially into the lower middle classes. Certainly there was a vast increase in the amount of dancing done in Scotland, until by the 1770s it had become a major national pastime. The Penny Wedding The Country-dances which had been imported from England soon became acclimatized. New dances of this type, designed to go with Scots folk-tunes, were invented, and experimented with at aristocratic country-house parties; indeed, it is likely that many of the great houses had their individual dancing traditions between 1730 and 1780. Instructions for forty-eight new, native country-dances are preserved in a manuscript written by David Young in Edinburgh in 1740, which is entitled 'A Collection of the newest Countrey Danced Perform'd in Scotland'. The Reel also flourished during this period; and a new type of slow reel, the Strathspey, originating presumably from the Spey valley in Inverness- shire, appeared in the Lowlands during the 1760s and caught on very quickly. From: David Johnson Music and Society in Lowland Scotland in the Eighteenth Century Oxford University Press, 1972 pp. 120-121 ==================================== Could some Lady from Edinburgh tell us if the popular dance tune mentioned is still in existence? Perhaps the Minister on the Loch would like to comment? (;-)) Greetings, Eric -- Eric T. Ferguson, van Reenenweg 3, 3702 SB ZEIST Netherlands tel: (+31)(0) 30-2673638 e-mail: x.xxxxxxxx@xxxxxxx.xx