Description

Album 1 – Les Oubliées

The player above allows you to hear every song on the album – click on “play” (4), “forward” (:) or “backward”(9). To buy a track or the full album for download on Bandcamp: click on “buy”.

18 tracks :

• Chestnut
• Blackjack
• Les Oubliées (music only)
• Hit and Miss
• Meillionen
• Coleraine – Condon’s Frolic – Gay Gordon
• Waterfall waltz
• Wright’s Humour
• Hole in the Wall
• Polcastagnette (music only) 
• The Princess
• Indian Queen
• Mage on a cree
• Draper’s Gardens
• The Wedding
• Millisson’s Jig
• Althea
• Ou peut-être (music only)

The musics of this first Chestnut album correspond to the dances described in the brochure 1 – Les Oubliées (FR).

For this CD, the first published by Chestnut, as for our later ones, my research was based on the original texts in the various editions of Playford’s Dancing Master, comparing them with newer interpretations, CECIL SHARP’s in particular. In the leaflet I clearly indicated my sources, borrowings, choices, and personal interpretation – for reconstructing a dance sometimes calls for one’s imagination.
I knew what I proposed would give rise to counter-proposals ; the game of proposals and counter-proposals brings unclear details to the light and eventually helps research. In any case, all my reconstructions had been put into practice and before publishing the CD I had checked it was possible to dance them !
Dances were chosen based on
– their musical and choreographical interest
– belonging to the « hits » in their category, or being part of what looked like the basic repertoire for an English Country Dance ball in France over twenty years ago
– or, for less obvious choices, being favoured by regular attendants in our workshops.

Cécile Laye, May 2020