All In A Garden Green: A Song History
William Chappell, the Victorian historian of English popular music, found that the Stationers' Company licensed a ballad called "All in a Garden Green," concerning two lovers, in 1565 and again in 1568-9, whereas the Traditional Tune Archive gives 1566 for the registration.[1][2] In 1584 A Handefull of Pleasant Delites printed a song directing that it be sung to "All in a garden grene."[1][2] The Tune Archive points out that it is not known whether these early references meant the melody later printed by Playford.[2] Chappell also found the title in a 1603 tract that calls it an old fiddler's song, and the version he printed came from William Ballet's lute book.[1]
Wenceslaus Hollar, Ver - Spring, etching, 1641. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). An English print from the decade before Playford's English Dancing Master, shown for its period dress and flowers; it has no connection to the tune.
William Byrd wrote keyboard variations called "All in a Garden Grine," preserved in My Ladye Nevells Booke of about 1591.[3] According to the Traditional Tune Archive, however, Byrd's piece uses a different melody from the dance tune.[2] The dance tune itself appeared in the first edition of John Playford's The English Dancing Master in 1651 and was reprinted in later editions of The Dancing Master.[1][2][4] Playford set it as a longways dance for three couples.[4] Chappell noted that it begins like another Playford tune, "Gathering Peascods," though in a later entry he limited the likeness to the first two bars.[1]
The tune has stayed in the English country dance repertoire: the Traditional Tune Archive lists it in dance-tune collections from 1951 onward and in recordings, including one by the Baltimore Consort.[2] A catalogue of the Playford dances notes that more modern settings change the figure so that it passes to all six dancers in turn.[4]
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