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The Worlds of Gilbert and Sullivan

This boisterous dance called Dance of Peasants in the operetta's vocal score. The Peasants' Dance was obviously a riot from beginning to end! Its strong rhythms and engaging tunes lend themselves to all sorts of dance combinations. Imagine these people on the village green, relaxing from their work to the strains of an itinerant band, or their own Church band. 

In our MusicSmiles arrangement we have included a march section, a clog dance, and of course the usual ring dances (in a circle or round a maypole). The tune passes easily from instrument to instrument. See if you can spot the various combinations. The introduction hastens in the band and the leading dancers, and the Coda sees everyone reluctantly leaving the fun and games; back to their everyday lives: their work and leisure, loves and hates, passions and intrigues, joys and worries, animals birds and pets, births and deaths - just as we do today. 

Alfred Cellier set this dance in the bright key of D major. A medieval peasants' dance would probably have been in a modal setting; we have tried this tune in the corresponding 'Authentic' Dorian Mode 1 for fun, and it works very well! But that's a story for another time. Musicologists please discuss!

Peasants were, of course, the class from which most of us originate. They were often poor, sometimes starving, and certainly hard-working. They were victims of plagues and famines, and often brought near to defeat.

But some were sufficiently resourceful to become the tenant farmers, the yeomen farmers, and eventually the capitalist land-owners craftsmen and traders, we recognise in our own era. Others went to their local towns and cities and became 'urbanised'; or successfully emigrated to other lands such as America, Australia, Canada, South Africa, and elsewhere to find their destinies.

Which were your own ancestors? The musicians? The Dancers? Or just appreciators of the arts in front of their eyes and ears?

Hope you have a good dance around with Alfred, or just enjoy the fun he created in this lively music. Picture the scene . . .

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