The First Set

While just about every old-time dance musician in Australia could play for a Set of Quadrilles - the First Set, The Lancers or the many other sets - few ever wrote down the notes they played. Harry Schaefer notated several entire quadrille sets, including this set of tunes for the First Set of Quadrilles. For a couple of other First Set tune sets he has used common dance tunes such as Garry Owen, The Campbells Are Coming and other Scottish and Irish tunes well lknown in Australia, but this set of tunes have no names. They sound Scottish more than anything else, and perhaps they are from a published set of tunes written for the dance. Harry also notated several other quadrille sets for dances such as the Young Norval Quadrille, The Kenilworth Lancers, The Bonne Bouche Lancers, The Topsy Quadrille, The Blue Bell Lancers, The Brook Field Lancers, the Lancefield Quadrille and the Ollivette Quadrille. For some of these, at least, there seems to be little information available on the dances themselves. As time permits we will add more of these tunes to these pages.

The First Set of Quadrilles

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

Figure 4

Figure 5

Figure 6

back to the Australian Dance Music page
back to McDonald Strings index page