8.0 (very popular)
Tune of the Day: The Italian Monfrina
This tune can be tracked all the way back to 1808, when it was published in Boston by musician and publisher Gottlieb Graupner in his A Collection of Country Dances and Cotillions. Graupner's collection makes the express claim that its tunes were “never before published”.
The word monfrina is a corruption of monferrina, a kind of country dance originating in the Piedmont region of northwestern Italy. This type of tune became fashionable in England in the early years of the 19th century, and was employed for country dances. In this country the name stood as monfrina, monfreda or manfredina.
Based on their strong similarities, the monfrina might have inspired some later Irish tunes, such as “Father Fielding's Favorite” and “John Byrne's”, through a melody titled “Ella Rosenburg” which appeared in Thomas Mooney's A History of Ireland (1845).