Finger and Bingham, Airs anglois, part 3

Concluding the series of three posts, I look at the last of the 16 pieces by Godfrey Finger in George Bingham's collection 40 Airs Anglois. . . , published in Amsterdam, 1704-05: IMSLP link. The  notation is by Hans-Thomas Müller-Schmidt.

The chaconne was a considerably more flexible compositional type in the seventeenth century than we generally assume based on the tiny sampling of still well-known compositions, such as "Dido's Lament" and the chaconne that ends Bach's D minor violin Partita. Even given that, Finger's chaconne in G major is an oddly constructed piece that consists of eleven eight-bar segments with a PAC to the tonic in every one. The bass of the first segment is never repeated, either literally or in varied form. Instead, at the opposite extreme, the bass line changes for every segment. The first three segments have repeat signs, and the effect at the beginning—as shown below—is that of a small binary form, especially because of the unstable bass at the beginning of the "B-section," across which a rising line is easily traced.

Two other couplets are of interest. In the sixth, a strongly formed rising line from ^5 appears. In the ninth, a rising figure in bars 5-6 is undercut by a thoroughly-prepared descending line from ^3 (as B5).

Finger and Bingham, Airs anglois, part 2

Continuing the series of posts begun yesterday, I look at three more pieces by Godfrey Finger, from the collection 40 Airs Anglois. . .  by George Bingham (published in Amsterdam, 1704-05): IMSLP link. The  notation is by Hans-Thomas Müller-Schmidt, and I apologize for the artifacts I have introduced here and there.

The first section of an Allegro in F major is very close in its pitch design to the two Airs discussed yesterday, except that the priority obviously goes to the active lower voice, not the oft-repeated cover tone ^8 (as F5). As a result, it is quite easy to hear a simple rising line in the cadence.

If the Allegro resembles the two Airs from yesterday, Sybell is like Bingham's Jigg, the last example in the previous post. Here there is a nice balance between the initial A5 (the abstract ^2 of the Schenkerian interruption) and the rising line that moves from it to the main internal cadence.

Finally, one of several chaconnes and grounds offers a concise example of the effects of variation. One of the most straightforward, uncluttered octave lines I have ever seen sits above a Romanesca bass (not the descending tetrachord we usually, though not entirely correctly, associate with the chaconne). The first of seven couplets lifts the line up a third over the first five bars, then engages the C5 in bar 6, beat 3, and turns the line back up to close on F5. Note that an upper line is touched on -- neighbor Bb5 and A5 -- but would need an obviously lacking ^2 (as G5) to be anything more than a covering figure.

Finger and Bingham, Airs Anglois, part 1

George Bingham, 40 Airs Anglois dont les 16 prémiers sont de Mr. FINGER & les 24 suivantes de Mr. George Bingham, published in Amsterdam, 1704 or 1705, by the active and successful music publisher Estienne Roger, who also brought out several other collections by Bingham between 1702 and 1706. Not much is known about Bingham. He was a probably a violinist, was certainly a "musician in Ordinary in the Private Musick" at the Royal court from 1689 to 1696, at which time he was dismissed over a financial dispute with another musician. Since his collections from Roger are dedicated to his students ("Messieurs ses Disciples"), we may assume that Bingham was active at least till 1706, perhaps still in London or possibly elsewhere. Gottfried (or Godfrey) Finger was a Moravian musician who was a viol virtuoso, a contemporary of Bingham, and also worked in London at about the same time.

This Air by Godfrey Finger is a menuet in small binary form, with three theme-sized units of 8, 9, and 10 bars, respectively. Focus on ^5 in the A section (circled notes, bar 1) cedes to ^8 in bar 9, then to a ^5-^8 frame in bar 18. The upper note remains primary and a stepwise rising line from ^5 is secondary -- see the final six bars.  The notation, btw, is from a modern edition by Hans-Thomas Müller-Schmidt that is available on IMSLP: link.

This menuet, also by Finger, defines D5-F5 at the outset, a frame that changes to C5-F5 for the expanded second phrase (seven bars!), with similar motions to the Air in G Major to end, but some confusion in distinction between voices: the lower, rising line is more prominent here, the upper line about ^8 less so; indeed the lower line seems to meet and then "subsume" the upper in the final two bars. The result is more dramatic than I have shown it: a line from C5 going up as far as G5 before settling back to the tonic note F5.

This Jig is by Bingham. The figure is a familiar one: period with identical openings in antecedent and consequent (boxed notes) and, in the latter, an ascent from ^2 ( = V: ^5) to the cadence in the dominant key. For a traditional Schenkerian, this is a common figure elaborating an interruption. My only problem with that is the effect in the consequent is of a perfect balance (not a simple hierarchical relation) between the originating ^2 and the line that follows.