Heartsease: A Song History

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"Heartsease" is an English country dance tune that John Playford printed, with directions for the dance, in the first edition of The English Dancing Master, and the Traditional Tune Archive traces it through later editions as far as the eighth, of 1690.[1] That first edition carries the date 1651 on its title page, but a Library of Congress catalogue record glosses that date as 1650, and Cecil Sharp also gave 1650 for the first edition.[2][3][4] William Chappell, in 1859, located the tune in a Cambridge manuscript of sixteenth-century lute music; because a song in the interlude Misogonus, which he dated to about 1560, was set to it, he judged the tune probably older than the reign of Elizabeth I.[5] The Traditional Tune Archive describes the tune's original song words as unknown.[1]

Jeweled flower study of a purple and yellow pansy standing in a small crystal vase

House of Fabergé, Flower Study of a Pansy, gold, jade, enamel and rock crystal, c. 1885–1915. Shown for the title; no source consulted here ties the tune's name to the flower.

In Act 4, Scene 5 of Romeo and Juliet, Peter begs the musicians to play "Heart's ease."[6] Chappell read this as an allusion to the tune, but the Traditional Tune Archive says it is not known whether Shakespeare meant the melody Playford printed, and it notes a different piece of the same name, an almain by Anthony Holborne composed in 1599.[5][1]

Cecil Sharp and George Butterworth included it, as a dance for four, among the forty-three dances from The English Dancing Master in Part IV of The Country Dance Book, which they published in 1916.[4][7] The Traditional Tune Archive's recordings list for the tune names two albums by the Broadside Band.[1] Heartsease is one of the 24 tunes in English Country Dance Tunes, Volume 1, the first of two books of dulcimer arrangements published by Mark Gilston.[8]

Our book that contains the song "Heartsease"

Sources

  1. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Heart's Ease (1)".
  2. Country Dance and Song Society: "The English Dancing Master: Bibliography".
  3. Library of Congress: "The dancing master; or, Directions for dancing country dances, with the tunes to each dance, for the treble-violin (1698)".
  4. Library of Dance: "Cecil J. Sharp and George Butterworth, The Country Dance Book, Part IV (1916)".
  5. Internet Archive: "William Chappell, Popular Music of the Olden Time, Vol. 1 (1859)".
  6. Folger Shakespeare Library: "Romeo and Juliet, Act 4, Scene 5".
  7. The Round (Cambridge University English Country Dance Club): "The Country Dance Book".
  8. Mark Gilston: "English Country Dance Tunes, Volume 1".
  9. Image: House of Fabergé, Flower Study of a Pansy, gold, jade, enamel and rock crystal, c. 1885–1915. The Cleveland Museum of Art.

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