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Tune Req: English Sicilian Circle tune name

19 May 05 - 08:14 PM (#1488648)
Subject: Tune Req: English Sicilian Circle tune name
From: GUEST,Murray on Salt Spring

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?


19 May 05 - 08:31 PM (#1488667)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: English Sicilian Circle tune name
From: Banjo-Flower

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


24 May 05 - 01:36 AM (#1491708)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: English Sicilian Circle tune name
From: GUEST,Murray on Salt Spring

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".


24 May 05 - 02:58 PM (#1492176)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: English Sicilian Circle tune name
From: Compton

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!


24 May 05 - 03:00 PM (#1492179)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: English Sicilian Circle tune name
From: Compton

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


01 Jun 05 - 11:30 PM (#1497855)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: English Sicilian Circle tune name
From: GUEST

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?


02 Jun 05 - 04:43 AM (#1497986)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: English Sicilian Circle tune name
From: Mitch the Bass

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


02 Jun 05 - 07:44 PM (#1498676)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: English Sicilian Circle tune name
From: Compton

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!!


03 Jun 05 - 07:41 PM (#1499750)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: English Sicilian Circle tune name
From: GUEST,england ha,ha,ha,

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.


03 Jun 05 - 08:33 PM (#1499784)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: English Sicilian Circle tune name
From: Compton

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.


03 Jun 05 - 09:23 PM (#1499821)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: English Sicilian Circle tune name
From: Malcolm Douglas

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.


04 Jun 05 - 08:56 AM (#1500040)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: English Sicilian Circle tune name
From: Compton

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!!


04 Jun 05 - 03:56 PM (#1500241)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: English Sicilian Circle tune name
From: GUEST,Allen

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.


05 Jun 05 - 08:12 AM (#1500452)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: English Sicilian Circle tune name
From: GUEST,manitas

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?


05 Jun 05 - 04:42 PM (#1500702)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: English Sicilian Circle tune name
From: Compton

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