A Trip To Paris: A Song History

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The earliest printing of "A Trip to Paris" identified in the sources consulted here is in the second edition of the third volume of The Dancing Master, issued in London by John Young around 1726, where it appeared with directions for a country dance.[1][2] The rival publisher John Walsh printed the same tune and figures in his New Country Dancing Master, third book, around 1728.[1][2] The Traditional Tune Archive gives it as a two-strain tune in A minor and 2/2 time.[1] The dance historian Susan de Guardiola argues that the widely repeated 1711 date is an error, traced to an older dating of Walsh's third book that Kate Van Winkle Keller has since revised to about 1728.[2] She adds that the first edition of Young's third volume has never been firmly dated, so an earlier printing could still turn up.[2]

Etching of the Seine in Paris with Notre-Dame in the distance and carts, horses and people on the riverbank

Jacques Rigaud, Autre Vue Particulière de Paris depuis Nôtre Dame, Jusques au Pont de la Tournelle, etching, 1729. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). A view of Paris from about the time the tune was printed; it has no connection to the dance.

The title was used for more than one piece.[2] Leaving reprints aside, De Guardiola counts seven different tunes called "A Trip to Paris" in nine eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century sources, the latest from 1815.[2] Eight of those sources give dance figures, and she finds six different sets among them, one of them a cotillon.[2] She also points out that the figures of the c. 1726 dance match those of "Orielton House," which appeared with a different tune in the second volume of The Dancing Master.[2]

The dance as it is done today uses the tune and figures of the Young and Walsh printings.[2] The tune was reprinted in twentieth-century collections, including Fleming-Williams and Shaw's English Dance Airs (1965), Raven's English Country Dance Tunes (1984) and Barnes's English Country Dance Tunes (1986).[1] It is sometimes put on the program at Jane Austen-themed balls, though De Guardiola points out that it is too early for Austen's own dancing years.[2] For example, the dance notes for the 2015 Jane Austen Society of North America ball in Louisville list it as a duple-minor dance, with recorded music by Bare Necessities.[3] The weekly English dance programs of CDS Boston Centre for 2010–11 list it once, citing The Playford Ball as the source.[4]

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Sources

  1. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Trip to Paris (1) (A)".
  2. Capering & Kickery (Susan de Guardiola): "Trips to Paris".
  3. Jane Austen Society of North America: "Dance notes for the 2015 JASNA AGM Grand Ball, Louisville, Kentucky".
  4. CDS Boston Centre: "CDS Boston Centre Dance Repertoire: English Dance Programs by week, 2010–2011".