Mr. Beveridge's maggot - Emma (1996) vs Pride & Prejudice (1995)

00:00 Emma (1996)
02:01 Pride & Prejudice (1995)

Beverdige was a court dancing master whose hey-day was in the 1680's in England and who, along with Issacs, began devising maggots--distinctive longways country dances set to triple-time hornpipes. A maggot was another name for a dram, a diminutive unit of liquid measure, but also meant a trife, whim, a plaything, or a small thing of little consequence, from the Italian maggioletta. The Maggots began appearing in Henry Playford's Dancing Master ninth edition (1695), and the appendix to that edition, entitled The Second Part of the Dancing Master, contains most of the 24 dances attributed to Beveridge. This melody dates to that time when it was printed by Playford along with directions for a country dance. The tune and dance were retained in the long-running series of Dancing Master editions through the 18th and final edition a 1728, published at the latter time by John Young, Playford's successor. The tune, as "Beveridge's Maggot," was also published by rival London music publisher John Walsh in his Compleat Country Dancing Master (1718, p. 193).

Many English Country Dances, like American contra dances, are danced to a pair of phrases of music played AABB -- i.e. the first phrase is played twice, and then the second twice. In contrast, the generally accepted version of Mr. Beveridge's Maggot--a version usually attributed to Pat Shaw--has the structure AAB. This is the version given here. When Cecil Sharp interpreted this dance for modern consumption, he decided he could not get all the instructions to fit into so little music, so he published a dance to fit AABB. Cecil Sharp's version is also widely known, and is given in Palmer's Pocket Playford.* This dance was originally printed in Playford's Dancing Master in 1695. Although neither this particular dance nor the duple minor formation it is in were being used in Jane Austen's day, the dance is a very 'cinegenic' dance. I'm not here giving the Cecil Sharp version which has a longer B part dance sequence to fill out a repeated B part (even though the original clearly says play the second strain but once). I'm here giving a closer-to-original Dancing Master (1695-1728) version. This is the sequence they dance in the movie Emma, but in that movie they dance the sequence just once then go into a snowballing cast off. P&P2 has the same non-Sharp B part as given below and used in Emma (with the dramtaic up and back) but for the A part has everyone r.h. turn, l.h. back, then 1s cross, cast, cross back up. I suspect this change from the original was probably inspired by the need for a more dramatic face-to-face beginning to a dance that was to be the vehicle for a 'battle' between the two protaganists, without giving away altogether a dance which offers the lovely, camera-confronting, film-effective, 4-in-line (with Darcy and Elizabeth 'trapped' side-by-side in the middle) up and back figure.

Source:
https://tunearch.org/wiki/Annotation:...
https://janeausten.co.uk/blogs/home-a...