Tune Req: English Sicilian Circle tune name

Subject: Tune Req: English Sicilian Circle tune name
From: GUEST,Murray on Salt Spring
Date: 19 May 05 - 08:14 PM

I'm trying to identify a tune recorded by Nan Fleming-Williams' Country Dance Band way back when (on HMV series "English Folk Dances for Young People", EMI 7EG 8533). The second side has two dances, "Ribbon Dance" (whose tune I know), and "Sicilian Circle", to two reel/hornpipe tunes, the 2nd of which is dear old "Morpeth Rant". But what's the first?

Subject: RE: Tune Req: English Sicilian Circle tune name
From: Banjo-Flower
Date: 19 May 05 - 08:31 PM

Wild Guess as I have n't heard the record could it be "Roxborough Castle" which is often paired with Morpeth Rant here in the UK

Gerry

Subject: RE: Tune Req: English Sicilian Circle tune name
From: GUEST,Murray on Salt Spring
Date: 24 May 05 - 01:36 AM

Thanks, B-F, but no, "Roxburgh Castle" I know and it isn't that. If it's any help, part B of the tune has a faint resemblance to Niel Gow's "Farewell to Whisky".

Subject: RE: Tune Req: English Sicilian Circle tune name
From: Compton
Date: 24 May 05 - 02:58 PM

Murray on Salt Spring...I looked out my vinyl LP (CLP3754) which has Sicillian Circle and much more....It seems like there are THREE tunes on that track, The first one I can't at the moment identify...but the middle one (before Morpeth Rant) is Rakes of Mallow!

Subject: RE: Tune Req: English Sicilian Circle tune name
From: Compton
Date: 24 May 05 - 03:00 PM

Just this minute checked the Booklet by Douglas Kennedy and with "Rakes of Mallow", it gives "Ballentine's Reel"
Hope this helps

Subject: RE: Tune Req: English Sicilian Circle tune name
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Jun 05 - 11:30 PM

Thanks, Compton, but I'm more confused. "Ballantine's Reel" [if that's the right spelling] I can't find, but "Billy Ballantine's Reel" does exist. The trouble is it seems to be a polka sort of thing, while the tune I'm looking for is a real reel. Bill Ballantine was a well-known musician in the first half of the 20th century, recorded many times by Kennedy et al., from the North, etc., seems quite a good fit, you might say, but I'm positive the mystery tune is something else. This booklet you mention - it came with the record? If so, it must be correct, I suppose. Can anyone else corroborate any of this?

Subject: RE: Tune Req: English Sicilian Circle tune name
From: Mitch the Bass
Date: 02 Jun 05 - 04:43 AM

Try http://www.hgmitchell.plus.com/ballantynes reel.pdf or http://www.hgmitchell.plus.com/ballantynes.pdf

The latter appears in the Country Dance Manuals as Ballantyne's Rant.

Howard Mitchell
http://www.stradivarious.co.uk

Subject: RE: Tune Req: English Sicilian Circle tune name
From: Compton
Date: 02 Jun 05 - 07:44 PM

Mitch the Bass..you are, as ever perfectly correct with "Ballentines RANT"... I think it was VERY late in the evening (Early in the Morning)when I picked out the book...and the eyesight isn't what it was!!

Subject: RE: Tune Req: English Sicilian Circle tune name
From: GUEST,england ha,ha,ha,
Date: 03 Jun 05 - 07:41 PM

Theres no music in basterd england. only people hoping for another robbie williams, bye the way, you as a race of people are no loss, im swedish, and all i can say is , sug mig kuk.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: English Sicilian Circle tune name
From: Compton
Date: 03 Jun 05 - 08:33 PM

What an extraordinary outburst!! I can only pur it down to drink or the fact that Guest, england ha,ha,ha is not British and consequently lost in the lottery of life.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: English Sicilian Circle tune name
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 03 Jun 05 - 09:23 PM

Another sad late-night drunk, I fear. Perhaps he or she (if really Swedish and not just a Masquerade) has not forgiven the Wicked English for believing that a swede is a vegetable; and (which I suppose is even harder to bear) merely a bloated form of the innocent turnip, rather fibrous and digestible only when boiled and mashed.

The mention of Robbie Williams further suggests a quite unhealthy interest in vegetables. I wouldn't begin to guess what it might have to do with the Sicilian Dance, though.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: English Sicilian Circle tune name
From: Compton
Date: 04 Jun 05 - 08:56 AM

Malcolm...the man (?) is obviously a montebank!!
As for Robbie Williams, he is for all his sins, a Man of Staffordshire, Of Gods Country and as a fellow Staffordshire Man, must uphold his good name!!

Subject: RE: Tune Req: English Sicilian Circle tune name
From: GUEST,Allen
Date: 04 Jun 05 - 03:56 PM

And if you don't have the good fortune to be English true-born, or a man, or a woman, I hope you'll join in as an ordinary mark of simple decent respect. This song starts with, I think, a very typical English understatement:


The English, the English, the English are best
I wouldn't give tuppence for all of the rest.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: English Sicilian Circle tune name
From: GUEST,manitas
Date: 05 Jun 05 - 08:12 AM

Of course the English are a bastard race. It's far better to have regular injections of fresh blood than to becone inbred. You can see what happens to a nation when all it's brightest people go and settle in other countries and the ones left behind have no strangers to marry (just cousins) by reading england ha,ha,ha's post above.

Have we discussed Abba recently?

Subject: RE: Tune Req: English Sicilian Circle tune name
From: Compton
Date: 05 Jun 05 - 04:42 PM

Were'nt they some johnny foreigner's who sang in ENGLISH??