Butterfly Waltz

Find traditional instrumental music


Butterfly Waltz  Click on the tune title to see or modify Butterfly Waltz's annotations. If the link is red you can create them using the form provided.Browse Properties <br/>Special:Browse/:Butterfly Waltz
Query the Archive
Query the Archive
 Theme code Index    335 1H1H2H
 Also known as    
 Composer/Core Source    
 Region    United States
 Genre/Style    Old-Time
 Meter/Rhythm    Waltz/Valse/Vals
 Key/Tonic of    C
 Accidental    NONE
 Mode    Ionian (Major)
 Time signature    3/4
 History    USA(Central), USA(Southwest)
 Structure    AB
 Editor/Compiler    Biography:R.P. Christeson
 Book/Manuscript title    Book:Old Time Fiddlers Repertory vol. 1
 Tune and/or Page number    No. 236, p. 191
 Year of publication/Date of MS    1973
 Artist    
 Title of recording    
 Record label/Catalogue nr.    
 Year recorded    
 Media    
 Score   ()   


BUTTERFLY WALTZ. AKA and see "Kitchen Waltz (The)," "Life Let Us Cherish." Old-Time, Waltz. USA; Texas, Missouri. C Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. R.P. Christeson noted the tune from fiddlers at the Texas Fiddlers' Association in 1950, who played it under this title. The Butterfly Waltz is the name of a dance performed to the tune in which a man dances with one woman on each side (hence the name "Butterfly"), first in a stately march up and down the hall, then a turn in place and a right-and-left figure. As happens with a popular named dance, the name of the dance became attached to different melodies, so that there are other "Butterfly Waltzes" extent. However, Christeson's melody was originally a song air called “Freut Euch des Lebens” (Come Let Us be Joyful), composed in Switzerland in 1795 by Hans Georg Nageli with words by poet Johann Martin Usteri (1763-1827). It was adapted in English as “Life Let Us Cherish” and became an enormously popular air in Britain and America, where it served as a waltz as well as an air.

Printed source: R.P. Christeson (Old Time Fiddlers Repertory, vol. 1), 1973; No. 236, p. 191.


X:1
T:Butterfly Waltz
M:3/4
L:1/8
R:Waltz
S:Christeson - Old Time Fiddler's Repertory, vol. 1, No. 236  (1973)
K:C
E2|E4G2|c4 de|g4 a2|g6|ga ge cA|GA GE CA,|B,6|G,6|
F4G2|B3c ^cd|g4a2|g6|gag a ga|gag a g^f|a4g2|e6|
E4G2|c4 de|g4a2|g6|ga ge cA|GA GF Ec|d4 c2|A4c'2|
c'6|b4a2|(g6|g2)G2f2|e4G2|e4d2|[(E6c5][E4)c4]||
gf|e2 ed (c2|c2)g2f2|e2 ed (c2|c2)g2f2|e3d e2|
a4e2|g4^f2|=f2a2g2|f2 fe (d2|d2)a2g2|
f2 fe(d2|d2)a2g2|f3 g ag|b3 f ab|a4^g2|g4 gf||


© 1996-2010 Andrew Kuntz. All Rights Reserved.
Engraver Valerio M. Pelliccioni