Mr. Isaac's Maggot
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Transcription: by Darryl D. Bush
"Mr. Isaac's Maggot" is an English country dance tune in 3/2 time and C Major.<br> The parts are played AB or AABB (Barlow).<br> Issac (c. 1640-c. 1720) was a court dancing master whose hey-day was in the late 17th century,<br> a younger contemporary of John Playford. He has been credited with introducing English country<br> dancing to the court of Louis XIV in France and he taught Queen Anne as a young princess.<br> Around the year 1702 he became the unofficial royal dancing master. Along with another dancing<br> master named Beveridge, Isaac devised maggots, or distinctive longways country dances often set<br> to triple-time hornpipe tunes and dedicated to a personage. The Richmond, for example, was a ball<br> dance for the court intended to honor the Duke of Richmond, and was first published in 1706<br> (the music for which was a triple-time hornpipe).<br> A maggot was another name for a dram, a unit of liquid measure, and also meant a small thing of<br> little consequence or a plaything, from the Italian maggioletta. This anonymous melody dates<br> to 1695, when it first appeared in Playford's Dancing Master, 9th edition. The dance and tune<br> were retained in the long running series through the 18th and last volume, then published by<br> John Young, heir to the Playford publishing concern. It also was included by the Walsh's in their<br> Compleat Country Dancing Master, editions of 1718, 1735 and 1754.<br> The earliest references to him as a performer in London connect him with the Stuart Court, for in<br> April 1673 a dancer named Isaac was one of several dancers (along with Mr. Priest) who performed<br> as Venetians, a Spaniard, a Conjuror, Devils, and Shepherds, in a masquerade for King Charles II's<br> illegitimate son, the Duke of Monmouth. <br> It was printed in Barnes' English Country Dance Tunes (1986),<br> Sharp's Country Dance Tunes (1909) and<br> Barlow's The Complete Country Dance Tunes from Playford's Dancing Master (1985).<br> It was recorded by The King's Noyse on The King's Delight: 17c Ballads for Voice and Violin<br> Band (1992). <br>
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