Grieg, Larvikspolka, EG 101 (1858)

Presumably a collected piece of social dance music. Larvik is a city in southern Norway. The design of this polka is the very common ABACA of social dance music, beginning with contredanses in the late 1700s and then spreading to almost all other types. The ABACA can be almost indistinguishable from a small ternary form (ABA) with trio (C) and truncated reprise (A), though the "trio" is only one strain, not the two we usually find in the familiar Classical instrumental repertoire of sonatas, etc. The equally common case used here has A as a single principal strain, B a first "trio" in the subdominant key, and C a second trio in the relative minor. (In the contredanse repertoire C is almost always in the parallel or relative minor, which fact might suggest that Larvikspolka is a traditional tune, not a newly composed one from the 1850s). The modern notation is by "Sigerland" and is available on IMSLP: link.

I hear a primitive rising line in A:

In the first iteration of A, however, an inner voice is pushed above (F4 to F5) and the unfolded B4-F5 closes into C5-E5--see below. We can then trace the voices in the two trios. The C5-E5 interval remains stable in the first trio B, except that E5 moves up to F5. In the second trio C, G4 becomes A4/A5 and C5 remains stable.

A synoptic view, then, is as follows:

Note: I have "collapsed" two aspects into one, as the line ^5-^7-^8 is easily understood based on the proto-background ^5-^8.

Three more from Ball's Musical Cabinet

Ball's Musical Cabinet was published in two volumes. The three pieces discussed yesterday are from volume 1. From volume 2, I have chosen three more: "The Carpet Weaver," "Peggy Ban," and "The Tank." The first two of these are well-known tunes, like those in yesterday's post. About "The Tank," I know nothing more.

"The Carpet Weaver" is unusual in its boundary play, a Schenkerian term for melodic figures above the basic line. Here we would assume through the first phrase that the focal pitch is F#5, but in the second phrase of both theme statements, F#5 disappears, and attention goes entirely to the lower register, the end result being a mirror, ^8 down to ^5 and then back up again.

On the other hand, in the second half F#5 gains considerably, but the usual B-section contrast (at "vow'd") and the melodramatic long note (at deny'd him") are still not enough to displace the octave (that is, D5) as the focal note.

"Peggy Ban" (better known as "Peggy Bawn"). The play of ^3, as F#5, above the focal note ^8 is very similar to "The Carpet Weaver."

I've isolated the interval frame (which I would take to be a proto-background) in this version:

"The Tank" is a curious piece -- no song, it is highly violinistic, which character it promptly announces with the octaves in bars 1-2. I put it down to an eighteenth-century contredanse, perhaps put in by the publisher because there was empty space on the page (I have seen more obvious insertions in other collections of the period). Note that every phrase is different. Thus, each strain is what Caplin calls an antecedent + continuation hybrid. I use the term "galant theme" because this particular hybrid is especially common in virtually all types of instrumental music from roughly 1750-1800. Periods are more likely in contredanses (a fact reflected in the themes of many finales in Classical period sonatas and symphonies), so in another sense, then, "The Tank" is unusual.

The second through fourth phrases are quite distinct from the first: all have interesting—but differing—plays on ^3 and ^5 (as F#5-A5).

An upper-voice wedge in a contredanse gigue (1781)

One of the clearest examples of a wedge figure in a three-voice texture can be seen below. The handwritten title is "Les Caprices de Galatée," which may or may not refer to a Parisian dance-pantomime of that title. This is the 17th page in volume 3 of the collection The celebrated Dances performed by Messrs. Vestris &c. at the King's Theatre in the Hay Market, 1781, composed by G. B. Noferi. Link. Giovanni Battista Noferi was an Italian violinist (he also played guitar) who apparently came to England early and stayed, working mostly in London. He died in 1782, the year after this collection was published. The Vestris were a large French family of professional dancers.

Very plainly a contredanse gigue, this piece is cast in the very common design of three strains (ABC) and five sections en rondeau (ABACA). All three strains are simple period themes. Indeed, the design is so familiar that amateur dancers would have no trouble dancing to it, either in the four-couple quadrille formation or as a long dance.

The principal strain has a stationary voice on E5, which the surrounding voices approach in a wedge, the "alto" voice reaching the tonic note, the upper voice making it part-way to G#5 (^3) but losing even that in the consequent. As readers of this blog will know, this strong implication of a pitch not actually sounded in the cadence is a common device, especially in violin music, and one can readily imagine it as an inducement to particular figures in ornamented repetitions (see below the score for one obvious such figure here).  For more on complex upper voices, see this essay of mine: link.

A likely (actually, almost inevitable) cadence figure improvised in performance:

Mozart, Divertimento, K186

The divertimento for ten wind instruments, K 186/159b, was composed in Milan in 1773. It is unusual for its two clarinets (Mozart had previously employed them in K113 and also includes them in the companion to K186, K166) and for its English horns. Below are incipits for each of the five movements. The first is a small-scale binary form -- the Italianate sonata-overture in miniature. The menuet and central andante aria are typical of serenades and divertimenti, but the fourth movement is a slow pastorale, not a second menuet. The finale is again typical: a 2/4 contredanse that shows its kinship with the gavotte in its square phrasing that always starts midway through the bar. The movements of interest for their ascending cadence gestures are the first and the last.

In the opening 12-bar theme -- a sentence nominally but hardly conforming to anything like the stereotype -- the emphasis on the upper register is strong throughout: see circled notes. At the end, the clarinets and oboes separate, the clarinets again holding to the upper register, but all confirm the cadence with a resounding ^7-^6-^7-^8 -- see circled notes in the fourth system.

The contredanse finale is so strict in its design that it could easily be danceable (indeed, its 124 bars, or 140 with repeats in the first presentation of the theme, are about the right minimal length for a dance). In the small-binary form theme (8 + 8), the oboes bring the melody down in both strains, but -- as they did in the first movement -- the clarinets insist on the upper register. They do so in the most direct possible way in the first strain.

The design of the whole is ABACA-coda1-A-coda2. In every case, the theme (A) is repeated without change. Section B is 20 bars (taking into account the half bar), C is 16, the codas are 8 bars each.

Elegant Dances for the Year 1810

Title: Button and Whitaker's Elegant New Dances for 1810, arranged for the Harp or Piano Forte, with correct Figures as Danced at Court, Bath, Brighton & all Polite Assemblies. IMSLP page for this score: link.

The publication of music for dancing stretches back at least to Michael Praetorius's large collection Terpsichore (1612), but it was the popularity of the country dance (later as the French contredanse) that spurred the efforts of compilers, composers, and publishers. By far the most famous series is John Playford's The [English] Dancing Master, first published in 1651, with new editions and supplements through 1728. Its combination on one page of music and instructions for the dance was especially influential on all subsequent collections. By the mid-18th century it was common (especially in France) to issue dances in folios, one or a few at a time, to be bound in volumes at the end of the year, if one chose. Button and Whitaker assume the same for their Twelve New Dances: the title page has a note at the bottom reading "This elegant Selection is Printed Quarterly, on Sheets, & paged onward for the convenience of Binding. Nos. 1 to 14 are already Published."

Presuming the present item to be volume 15, we have just one piece that is of interest for ascending cadence gestures. "Kitty Kickaway," like all the dances in the volume, is a British-style fiddle tune, in this case a jig. Strong focus on ^5 in the first strain ends with a quick run down to ^1 in the final bar. In the second strain, bars 1-4 move back up to ^5 and a PAC on the dominant, but then attention shifts suddenly to the upper note of the frame ^8 (G5) and an upper-register close (circled). D5 is a persistent inner voice now (see the ***). Note that, because of the context, the same music in bars 6 and 14 (boxed) has a different balance between upper (G5) and lower (E5) voices.

Between Haydn and Schubert, part 1

Franz Xaver Süssmayr, not long after finishing Mozart's Requiem, wrote a set of 12 menuets for a ball in the Redoutensaal, the same Imperial hall for which Mozart himself wrote dances and for which Beethoven wrote the Menuets, WoO7 and Deutsche Tänze, WoO8. Both of Beethoven's sets were played in the same 1795 season as Süssmayr's.

The opening of the first menuet has the processional/refrain quality that I alluded to in connection with WoO8n1 (link), and at first it seems equally unpromising with respect to rising cadence gestures.

But instead of no promise, a surprise. Not only do the 1st violins rise steadily through the scale in the second strain, but their progress is rendered unmistakable by accompaniment of the piccolo. Note that the first Horn, with the 1st violins, accomplishes the cadenza perfetta.

One other menuet marks a similar figure. Here again the principal melody does not offer any hint of a cadence figure in the first strain, but the first oboe and first Horn do at least produce a ^5-^7-^8 figure in the dominant.

As in no. 1, however, the menuet ends with a quite determined move upward. Note that Süssmayr avoids parallels in the penultimate bar with some violinistic double-stops.

In the trio, on the other hand, the antecedent already uses a rising motive, which is dutifully filled out in the consequent (which is shown here):

As a postscript, Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf's Brief Ballet in Form of a Contredanse is an Anglaise (a schottisch or ecossaise) with five trios and a vigorous coda. The fourth trio (or "Alternativo") consists of four phrases, three of which trace the same ascent from ^5 to ^8. All 16 measures, but only the relevant orchestral parts, are shown here.

Haydn, part 2

As the four-movement symphony model crystallized in the 1770s, the individual movements took on the familiar characteristics we associate with the late 18th century: the first movement an overture, the second an aria, the third a menuet, and the fourth a contredanse (after Leonard Ratner). Of these, the last was the least stable: only in the early to mid-1770s were the contredanses really danceable or recognizable to an audience as programmatic "portrayals" of the dance (I have written about this here: link; others who have written significantly about the two dance movements include Tilden Russell, Sarah Reichart, Wye Allanbrook, and Melanie Lowe). Apart from anomalies (such as fugal movements), by the 1780s finales as dance-finales are perhaps best characterized as overtures utilizing dance topics.

The menuet remained much closer to its dance model. Cast in virtually all instances as a dance with one trio, it was a miniature representation of the actual dance. As many writers have noted, however, the dance itself changed and the music changed with it. In the early part of the century, the menuet of the French court was a couple dance that was meant as a public display of skill and grace. After the death of Louis XIV, it gradually devolved into a perfunctory opening formality for the ball, where it was followed as soon as possible by the lively, very social intercourse of the contredanse, whose musics were almost always gavottes (duple) or jigs (triple).

In Germanophone areas, the formal menuet persisted, but it was joined by a hybrid type that was modeled on the region's "turning" dances (walzen = turning). Haydn was one of the first to exploit this opportunity, and it is no surprise, then, that the violinistic figures of the ländler should find their way into the symphony's third movement, including rising melodic gestures and cadences.

Yesterday we saw one instance of this in the menuet of Symphony no. 83 (1785). Today and in the following several days, we will explore the menuets of later symphonies. In Symphony no. 86 (composed in 1786), Haydn makes the rising gesture the main event, as the line connecting all three of the first strain's four-measure phrases shows (see below). Note that the steady progress from ^1 to ^5 (D5 to A5) is pushed "one step too far" to B5 before settling on A5 in the cadence. That bit of excessive energy has consequences in the reprise.

 As in the opening, the first two phrases of the reprise march upward from D5 to A5, then go through A#5 to B5 in the third phrase. This time, however, B5 drops to C#5-D5 for the cadence. The end result is a "circle" of sorts, from D5 back to itself, but by means of an octave's worth of a scale. This device of undercutting the rise from ^6 to ^7 is discussed in my JMT article and seems to be particularly characteristic of the later 18th century. To speculate: the conventions associated with the dominant Italian style (which we know better nowadays through research on the partimenti, evidence of methods of instruction) were so strong that Haydn felt an obligation to observe them in some situations, rather than take full advantage of the rising cadence gesture. In any case, the leap downward from a subdominant to the leading tone is very expressive in and of itself.

The coda that follows involves some play on the figures we have just heard. The humorous subversion of D5 through C5 (at the fermata) leads the line (fortissimo!) back down to ^5, but then the original cadence is repeated to end, now with a final flourish that gives us ^7 and ^8 in their "correct" register, as C#6 and D6.

Information on French dance practices after the death of Louis XIV came from Richard Semmens, The Bals Publics at The Paris Opera (1716-1763) (Pendragon Press, 2004).

Rising lines in an 18th century contredanse collection

As a follow-up to the recent post on a menuet from the Bacquoy-Guedon treatise (early 1780s), here is a [link to a PDF file] that lists and provides scores for multiple examples of rising lines in contredanses from collections preserved in the Royal Danish library. It is assumed that the dances come from published sources and were gathered into these volumes for court use. The collections are associated with Johan Bülow, court musician in Copenhagen in the late 18th century.

Here is one of the dances. Note that four figures are specified, which means the music will minimally be played twice in alternativo fashion, or ABAB. It's also quite possible that the first strain would be repeated at the end, in coda fashion. Since three couples (not four) are specified, it is possible that the instructions are meant for a long dance rather than a quadrille, meaning that the strains would be repeated multiple times (as often as necessary for all the dancers to complete the figures).