Celtic series, part 4

This is the final entry in the Celtic series, which offers a preview of a documentation essay I am preparing now and hope to publish by the end of April.    [17 May 2017: see this entry--link--for an abstract and a link to the published essay.]

Of the four categories, the third is represented here with one more tune: "long" cadences where the lower and upper registers are connected by a stepwise sequence. The others are in category 4: modal tunes, or tunes showing a modal heritage.

"The Ruins of Killmallock" differs from the tunes discussed yesterday in that its B-section is concerned throughout with scaling the octave, down and up, rather than keeping the upper and lower registers separate until the run to the cadence. The result is a clear unfolding of the 6-8 clausula vera figure (see the final two bars).

Modal tunes are difficult to assess on a number of counts, not least being reliability of the transcriptions. If the tunes are as old as their modal turns suggest, then there is also the likelihood of multiple regional or individual variants, only one of which would have been captured in the particular published version. In the two dozen sources I am using for the documentary essay, only a small number of modal tunes appear, almost all of them in two volumes of Irish melodies.

The "Kerry Jig"--in two versions from different sources--is the easiest to read. Beginning in A minor, it closes in C major with a simple rising line, C: ^5-^6-^7-^8.

"The Oyster Wives Rant" is a reel, a Dorian melody (on A) assuming the i-VII-i harmony one associates with Celtic music nowadays. The boxes block out the fifths frame: A4-E5, G4-D5, E5-A4. I haven't marked the possible lines involved, but A4-G4-(A4)-B4-A4 is possible in the lower voices, and a modal primitive line E5-(D5)-E5-G5-(A5) in the upper.

"Thou fair pulse of my heart" is a slow ballad, not a dance tune. Although it is a song, it makes interesting use of lower and upper registers in a manner similar to the fiddle tunes. At the beginning G4-D5 is unfolded, then D5 is extended with a neighbor note Eb5. In the continuation phrase a scale (boxed) moves directly up to F4 and the close is on ^8. In section B, the registral order is reversed—as we've seen several times already in the fiddle tunes—with the upper one first (see directional arrows beginning in bar 9). The slow-moving cadence in the lowest register (boxed at the end) is a surprise.

Music for dancing, 1650-1700, part 2

Madge on a Tree appeared in the first edition of The English Dancing Master (but this facsimile is from the fourth edition [1670]). The tune was called Mage on a Cree and Margery Cree in some other editions. (Many songs and dance tunes went by various names in that era.)

Clearly a modal tune, Madge on a Tree is in once-transposed Dorian (one flat in the signature with G as the final or tonic note). The climb to the final cadence is as clear as it could be, occupying the entire fourth phrase.

As a postscript to an earlier series on the clausula vera or cadenza perfetta in the sixteenth century, I have created a second part (at *) to show how naturally the 6-8 figure appears in a cadence with an ascending upper voice.

In this series of posts, basic information about the individual tunes is taken from Jeremy Barlow, ed., The Complete Country Dance Tunes from Playford's Dancing Master, 1651-ca.1728.

Praetorius, Terpsichore, part 5: ns 92-96

Here are five courantes. They are consecutive in Terpsichore and are also closely related to each other by certain features (Praetorius tries to group similar dances when he can). Like the majority of the many courantes, these are in two sections (others are in three sections, like the galliards we've examined in previous posts).

In this group the focus on the fifth range C5-G5 in the first strain is of interest, with a rise toward a cadence on G5 (a pattern we've also seen in some galliards recently).  Note also that these courantes show the typical treatment of the 6-8 cadenza perfetta between the upper and middle voice ("tenor") in five-part writing.

n92:

n93:

n94:

n95:

n96:

16th century cadences, part 2: Lassus, bicinia with text n6

This and several subsequent posts provide examples of cadences in 16th century bicinia, or pieces in two voices. The object is to discuss features and treatments of the two versions of the clausula vera (also known as the cadenza perfetta), intervals 3-1 and 6-8. An introductory post is here: link.

Lassus published two sets of bicinia in 1577. The first set of fifteen of these are texted, another with twelve are not. Among the texted duets, numbers 6 and 15 use the same text, "Esurientes implevit. . ." [KJV: "He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away," Luke 1:53; from the Magnificat]. I am not an expert in 16th century text painting and will not comment on that element. Which is another way of saying that I don't see anything obvious in the particular choices of figures or cadence types.

The opening and closing measures are in the example below. The points of interest here are that Lassus is not afraid to use the 6-8 cadence to close (that is, he shows no prejudice in favor of 3-1), and the overall gesture in the upper voice is rising.

On the clausula vera (3-1 or 6-8)

The articulation of cadences in sixteenth-century European music relied on the formula of third to unison intervals (if the parts are flipped, then it's sixth to octave). In each example just the beginning of a phrase in two voices is shown, followed by the cadence.

Here is an example from literally thousands of pieces showing the treatment of these figures. This is the fifth of Thomas Morley's Duets for Two Viols. In the opening phrase (mm. 1-5), a sixth (marked in m. 4) "prepares" a suspension dissonance that resolves into the 6 of the cadence: asterisks mark the 6-8. In the second phrase, similarly, a third D-F "prepares" a 2-3 bass suspension and the cadential 3-1 follows (note that the lower notated voice is actually higher in pitch at this point).

And here are the final two phrases, in which the cadence types are reversed: 3-1 first, then 6-8. Again note that the second cadence has the lower notated voice higher in pitch. Indeed, it is one of the uncommon instances of a rising cadential figure in notated ("art") music in the centuries before 1800.

Far more common in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries is to bring a string of parallel sixths down, often with suspensions, toward the 6-8. The example below is from the fifth of the texted bicinia (sometimes called "duets") of Lassus. Four sixth intervals in a row, three with suspensions, make for an inexorable drop to the cadence, and it is only the sudden turn to the final octave that stops the progression (and is a big part of the expressive and formal point).