This tune is the Rondeau from the incidental music written in 1695 by Henry Purcell for a revival of Abdelazer, or The Moor's Revenge, a tragedy by Aphra Behn. It was famously used by Benjamin Britten as the basis for his 'Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra - Variations and Fugue on a theme by Purcell'. Recently set to a modern English country dance by a Belgian dance composer, it is here performed for the dance by Aidan Broadbridge (violin) and Brian Prentice (piano), who make up two thirds of The Assembly Players. The tune was played by Aidan for the famous "love dance" in the recent film of Pride & Prejudice, when Lizzie (Kiera Knightley) dances with Mr Darcy (Matthew MacFadyen) for the first time: it may also be heard on the CD of the film's music, where it is entitled "A Postcard to Henry Purcell".

The tune lasts 2.5 minutes. It is stored in mp3 format which will download and play on most computers. The download time may be long (several minutes) over a slow connection and most computers won't begin to play the tune until it has downloaded completely. But it is worth waiting for. Click here to begin the download. You can also listen to a short extract of around 1 minute.