Tunes from Dorset

Two tunes from Hardy manuscripts

Steve Harrison
instrumentalist and researcher

Tunes
folkleads.org.uk

Flight

Spirit of the Dance

Large music notation (pdf): Flight

Large music notation (pdf): Spirit of the Dance

Two jigs from the Hardy Manuscript, c1800

Both tunes are from the manuscript books originally owned by the Hardy family, that is the novelist Thomas (who played the fiddle), his father (also Thomas, another fiddler), and his grandfather (also Thomas, a cellist).

Father and grandfather both played in the church band at Puddletown in Dorset in the early 19th century, and both also played for local dances and festivities.

For an entertaining flavour of the times, read Hardy's early novel Under the Greenwood Tree.