Menuet series 2-11 (Graupner)

Christoph Graupner, like J. S. Bach and Telemann, was a professional musician in north Germany—he spent most of his career in Darmstadt, whose Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek holds a manuscript collection of 20 dances (IMSLP link).

No. 7: A "textbook" period to begin. Note that the upper staff is written with the French violin clef.

No. 10: A fairly simple "galant theme" though the repetition of the bass figure through the first four bars undercuts contrast in bars 3-4.

No. 11: The opposite case: the bass changes direction after the scalar descent in bars 1-2, but the melody in bar 3 repeats the rhythm of bar 1. This first strain is on the fence, so to speak, between galant theme and sentence.

Menuet series 2-10 (Georg Muffat)

The goal in this section of the menuet series is to make comparisons between J. S. Bach and his German contemporaries (in the earlier series it was French predecessors and contemporaries). To begin, here is a table with data:

The numbers for Bach are the 28 named menuets, that number identified by Jenne and Little (link to earlier post). For the others also, I used only movements named menuet in solo and chamber music. Sources will be identified in posts on the individual composers.

One obvious point to be made is the large number of periods in Georg Muffat's music (he was an older contemporary, born in 1653), but the significant drop relative to antecedent + continuation and sentence themes in Bach's close contemporaries (Gottlieb Muffat, Graupner, and Telemann).

As with all the work in this series of posts, the "data" were gathered opportunistically and I do not pretend that they are complete, especially as I firmly restricted myself to named menuets. Many other pieces, especially rondeau themes, are obviously also menuets. And of course my restriction meant that the entire eighteenth-century song repertoire was excluded.

I found four collections by Georg Muffat on IMSLP (link): orchestral—Armonico tributo, published in Salzburg in 1682; Florilegium Primum, published in Augsburg in 1695; Florilegium Secundum, published in Passau in 1698—and six keyboard partitas in an undated manuscript, for which I am using modern notation by John Phelan.

From these last, as clean an 8-bar period as one could want. Note that the antecedent is set with the familiar chaconne bass figure, but that rhythm and direction clearly separate the contrasting idea from the basic idea. (Partita no. 5, menuet II)

Here is another example. This is from the first suite in the Armonico tributo, first violin part only. Note the "Allegro è forte." Throughout its history, the menuet took on both ceremonial-processional and pastoral characters with equal ease.

From Partita No. 2, the second menuet. The addition of ornamentation in the consequent does not in any way disturb the senses of symmetry and return. It is highly likely that this little piece reflects common performance practice, especially by keyboard players but almost certainly by others, as well.

From Florilegium Primum, suite no. 6. Ornamentation can also cause problems for analysis, as here. I first identified this as a sentence, assuming that the noodling in bars 5-6 were the functional equivalent of fragmentation. The lower parts, however, clearly mark bars 5-6 as a repetition of bars 1-2, and thus I conclude that the design is presentation + consequent—reluctantly, to be sure, because, as Caplin notes, this is a rare form (so much so that he doesn't even include it in his list of hybrid themes). The presentation + consequent theme is indeed rare throughout the entire history of the menuet. (The modern notation, btw, was made originally for the Werner Icking Music Collection by an editor identified only as "kompy.")

The final example from Muffat is from Florilegium Secundum, suite no. 4. I will continue to emphasize the importance of the antecedent + continuation theme throughout this series. Indeed, in my view, to call it a hybrid fails to historicize the several 8-bar theme types completely—and not only for the menuet (though it has special importance there). As we will see later on, antecedent + continuation becomes so prevalent in J. C. Bach and Mozart that I will refer to it as the "galant theme." (Note also how often Telemann used it -- see again the table at the top of this post.)

This example is what I would call a "classic" (not "classical") antecedent + continuation theme: a clearly defined basic idea followed by a strongly contrasting idea (in both shape and rhythm), and a continuation featuring fragmentation.

Menuet series 2-9 (Werner)

This is an entertaining oddity -- though such fanciful collections are by no means uncommon in the 17th and 18th centuries: Gregor Joseph Werner's Neuer und sehr curios- Musicalischer Instrumental-Calender from 1748 (IMSLP link). The suites are organized by month and in each of them the menuet clocks the hours of the day. The months of January and July are represented here, the former with nine hours of daylight and fifteen hours of night, the latter month with the opposite. Needless to say, Werner's dozen menuets offer little for analysis of typical menuet characters--but they do speak to the remarkable flexibility of the genre. One cannot imagine a gavotte (or even a rigaudon or bourée) being treated this way at any point in the century.

(January)

(July)

Bach menuet themes 4, compound themes

16-bar period
   French Suite No. 1 in D minor, II
   French Suite No. 3 in B minor, I
   Partita No. 1 in Bb major, I
   Suite in E major for Lute, BWV 1006a, II
16-bar sentence
   English Suite No. 4 in F major, I
14-bar antecedent + continuation (but A = 36 bars!)
   Suite in A major for Violin, BWV 1025

Of the five 16-bar themes, three have sentences in their first 8-bar units, two have periods.

16-bar period
   French Suite No. 1 in D minor, II. The 8-bar consequent is close to the antecedent in its basic progression and figures, but Bach does work in a number of embellishing variants (and a bit of invertible counterpoint: compare bars 5 and 12).

   French Suite No. 3 in B minor, I. Here the 8-bar consequent is a literal repetition of the antecedent except in the cadence.

   Partita No. 1 in Bb major, I. This sort of dense motivic play within the sentence design undoubtedly fascinated the early Romantics.

   Suite in E major for Lute, BWV 1006a, II. Alterations in the 8-bar consequent begin immediately after the repetition of the basic idea (earlier than in the preceding Partita menuet) in service of the modulation.

16-bar sentence
   English Suite No. 4 in F major, I. Compound sentences are not common in any era, compared to the 16-bar and even 32-bar period. This example is even more remarkable in that the 8-bar presentation is a period. (Yes, I have on several occasions objected to Caplin's confusing repurposing of the terms for 8-bar themes to map onto 16-bar themes. I have yet to come up with anything better, however.)

14-bar antecedent + continuation (but A = 36 bars!)
   Suite in A major for Violin, BWV 1025. This is of an entirely different order from the other 27 pieces Bach named "menuet." Obviously an expanded instrumental concert piece in the Italian manner, it offers us only one point for comparison -- its opening, which I have read as a 14-bar antecedent + continuation theme. The intertwining of the treble parts makes the articulations hard to find, and I have relied substantially on the bass, whose figures--boxed--are quite clear as 8 + 6 bars. In the first half of the antecedent (bars 1-4) the two treble voices are almost in unison, as one might expect in the tutti sections of an Italian concerto. At bar 5 they break apart in the manner of the concertino, with the principal melody in the keyboard (see the arrow). The cadence articulation is largely concealed by the overlapping figures: the violin's long note in bar 7 suggests an ending there, but it is contradicted by the seventh (D5) in the other treble part; in bar 8, the keyboard line finishes (D5 resolving to C#5, B5 to A5), while the violin simultaneously leads into the next bar as a pickup.

Bach menuet themes 3, sentences

Sentence
   French Suite No. 6 in E major
   Suite in Eb major for keyboard, BWV 819, II
Presentation + consequent
   Cello Suite No. 1 in G major, II
12-bar sentence
   Partita No. 5 in G major
   Brandenburg Concerto No. 1, I


Sentence
   French Suite No. 6 in E major. For such a benign little piece, this menuet is remarkably frustrating. Surely ideas (a), (b), and (c) are quite different from one another, and yet the common rhythm and the strictly repeated second-bar neighbor figure (with the bass) as surely draw a close connection between them. I have opted for sentence because the strain "feels" closer to that type—with its emphasis on connection and development—than to the antecedent+continuation, which tends to emphasize difference.

   Suite in Eb major for keyboard, BWV 819, II. A "textbook" sentence.

Presentation + consequent
   Cello Suite No. 1 in G major, II. The rare presentation + consequent theme is certainly closer to the sentence than the period, in the main because the effect of contrast or symmetrical return that we expect of the period is largely lost. Only the strength of the cadence in bar 4--as here--creates the necessary articulation.

12-bar sentence. A very motivically driven strain; the two-bar ideas are almost entirely suppressed. For Bach, a very odd piece in its overt galant cadence figures.

   Partita No. 5 in G major

   Brandenburg Concerto No. 1, I. Unlike the preceding, this one sharply and methodically maintains the traditional two-bar units of the menuet.

Bach menuet themes 2, periods

Reproduced from an earlier post, the periods among first strains of J. S. Bach's 28 named menuets:

   English Suite No. 4 in F major, II
   Partita No. 1 in Bb major, II
   Partita No. 4 in D major
   Brandenburg Concerto No. 1, II
   Suite in Eb major for keyboard, BWV 819, I
   Orchestral Suite No. 1 in C major, I
   Orchestral Suite No. 1 in C major, II
   Orchestral Suite No. 4 in D major, I
   Cello Suite No. 1 in G major, I
   Cello Suite No. 2 in D minor, I

   English Suite No. 4 in F major, II. This doesn't make for a "textbook" period (for that, see the two examples from the keyboard Partitas below), in that the melodic shape of bar 2 is altered in bar 6, but the rhythms are the same (if one ignores the ornaments. . .) and the underlying bass is largely the same, as D3-E3-F3 | G3-F3 in both cases.

   Partita No. 1 in Bb major, II. Strikingly similar to those French menuets that are identical in bars 4 and 8, but that a small flourish is added in bar 4, whereas the music stops dead in bar 8.

   Partita No. 4 in D major. The PAC in bar 4 is not unknown in earlier French menuets, but it is by no means common. Where it does appear, the strategy often is as in this instance: to make a pleasing contrast with a simple I-V HC in bars 7-8.

   Brandenburg Concerto No. 1, II. A transposed consequent. Note that bar 6 would be equivalent to bar 2 if the eighth notes were removed -- then C#5 as a half note goes to the quarter note D5.

   Suite in Eb major for keyboard, BWV 819, I. A less "obvious" period than most of the preceding. The consequent is again transposed, but not exactly; still, we can easily hear the shape of bars 5-6 as that of bars 1-2. What complicates the consequent is its invention-like motivic play: in bars 5-6 we hear the basic idea against the contrasting idea simultaneously, then in bar 7 the contrasting idea's motive is used in the right hand to approach the cadence.

   Orchestral Suite No. 1 in C major, I. From a somewhat overdone piano arrangement of the suite. I hear bar 5 as referencing bar 1 through the melody, but the bass is different, so that a reading of this theme as antecedent + continuation would perhaps be equally plausible.

   Orchestral Suite No. 1 in C major, II.  (Once again I apologize for the heterogeneous sources for the various Bach examples.) This trio is another instance of the PAC to end the antecedent, and this time I note that a PAC in bar 4 of an 8-bar theme remains highly unusual in music for social dance and more stylized music for concert alike throughout the remainder of the eighteenth century. I observe, btw, that the obvious galant solution for bar 4—a 6/4 5/3 over V—is even less likely than the PAC: in the 56 cadences (or phrase endings) of the 28 Bach menuets, first strain, only once does the HC embellished by 6/4 appear (that's in the keyboard Partita in G major).

The fragmentation in bars 5-7 beat 1 might lead to a different reading except that it is already present in the basic idea.

   Orchestral Suite No. 4 in D major, I. A simpler example than many of the recent ones above.

   Cello Suite No. 1 in G major, I. Similar to the preceding in the limited transposition to begin the consequent.

   Cello Suite No. 2 in D minor, I. Another unproblematic period form. Bach does manage to reverse the bass line while maintaining the basic idea: in the antecedent D3-C3-Bb2-A2, in the consequent D3-E3-F3 (Bb) G- A.

Bach menuet themes 1, antecedent + continuation

Antecedent + continuation
   French Suite No. 1 in D minor, I
   French Suite No. 2 in C minor
   French Suite No. 3 in B minor, II
   Suite in E major for Lute, BWV 1006a, I
   Orchestral Suite No. 4 in D major, II
   Orchestral Suite No. 2 in B minor
   Cello Suite No. 2 in D minor, II

   French Suite No. 1 in D minor, I. This example is striking in that both soprano and alto lines independently present complete antecedent + continuation forms. The alto, in fact, is a typical, simple menuet melody from beginning to end; it might easily have appeared in the collections of Pointel or Chédeville. Its continuation phrase is contrasting. The soprano sounds like an elaborating descant voice; its continuation phrase is developmental (note the fragmentation in bars 5-6).

   French Suite No. 2 in C minor.  An antecedent phrase whose four bars are packed full of motivic play is followed, ironically, by a continuation that contrasts rather than being noticeably developmental in the usual sense.

   French Suite No. 3 in B minor, II. An excellent example of the most radical of the antecedent + continuation varieties: here every two bar idea is different, not only in melodic shape but in rhythms.

   Suite in E major for Lute, BWV 1006a, I.  Similar to, but not quite so extreme, as the preceding,

   Orchestral Suite No. 4 in D major, II. This is a good moment to apologize for the heterogeneous sources for the various Bach examples. I used whatever I could find quickly, favoring the old Bach Gesellschaft edition but taking whatever came to hand as necessary. In the case of this orchestral suite, there was no piano solo reduction but I was able to collate the parts of a 4-hands version. In the first phrase, the contrasting idea is very clear even though the bass tries to contradict by repeating its bar 1 scale figure.

   Orchestral Suite No. 2 in B minor. This has a "classic" developmental continuation phrase.

   Cello Suite No. 2 in D minor, II.  Similar to the preceding in the strong rhythmic contrast between the ideas in the antecedent phrase and the fragmentation in the continuation.

Caveats to the preceding

I ended yesterday's post with this table (data on music discussed in this series so far):

After pointing out that this is not a comprehensive picture of menuet history from 1660 to 1730, I mentioned four points of interest. Here are caveats (additional comment) to each:

 (1) The antecedent + continuation theme is the only type other than the period to be found in every sample set, from Lully to Bach. 

The antecedent + continuation theme is not a monolithic type, as I noted in discussion of Fux's menuets. The "classical" version that emphasizes development in the continuation phrase is no more common in the historical era under examination here than is the type that privileges contrast. In their aural and expressive effects, these two types are nearly as distinct as the period and the sentence.

(2) Conversely, the sentence is entirely missing from the early sample sets and is weakly represented still in the later ones (with the exception of Fux). 

Although this generalization works for the repertoire here, it is not a good account of all the social dance and song musics before and including Bach. Sentences are common in music before 1660 (the usual boundary mark for Lully's introduction of the menuet into opera and ballet), as they are also in the collections of Praetorius (1612) and Playford (1651). I think it is fair to say that the sentence is rare in early menuets, and that its introduction into this genre is mostly a later 18th century phenomenon.

(3) Similarly, what Caplin calls "compound themes" are missing in the earlier sample sets but show up clearly in later ones (note 16-bar periods in Rameau, Chedéville, and Bach).

Although expanding themes to greater length is undoubtedly an important rationale for the compound themes, it might also be in part a notational device. Remember that the four-bar theme sounds identical to a period if you include its repeat -- and that four-bar themes were very common in the earlier 17th century. That is to say, a piece with a four-bar theme wasn't necessarily regarded by musicians as just a shorter piece than one with an eight-bar theme. Something similar may well have been true in the early 18th century, when the 16-bar themes begin to appear in some numbers: despite the repeat signs, musicians may also have thought of them as if they were written out variants of an 8-bar theme. (One of the mysteries of early notation in relation to practice is the central repeat sign: did it mark requirement or opportunity? By J. C. Bach's generation, at least, the modern habits seem to have been in place—see the graphic below—but if they were in fact secure in practice, why did Bach go to the trouble of writing out this instruction?) By the end of the 18th century, however, the 16-bar theme was often conceived of in terms of length, as more appropriate to a large instrumental work--the main theme of a concerto movement, for example--than to a small-scale dance. And in those circumstances, of course, there were typically no repeat signs (especially in overture-like symphony or concerto first movements).

Menuet series 2-8: Johann Sebastian Bach

"J.S. Bach’s 28 titled minuets occur in his keyboard partitas and suites, in chamber music for solo and accompanied violin, cello or flute, in three of the four orchestral suites, and in the Brandenburg Concerto no.1" (Little and Jenne, 1991; cited in Meredith Ellis Little, "Minuet," Oxford Music Online).

Here is my version of the list of 28:

1.-2. English Suite No. 4 in F major
3.-4. French Suite No. 1 in D minor
5. French Suite No. 2 in C minor
6.-7. French Suite No. 3 in B minor
8. French Suite No. 6 in E major
9.-10. Partita No. 1 in Bb major
11. Partita No. 4 in D major
12. Partita No. 5 in G major
13.-14. Brandenburg Concerto No. 1
15. Suite in A major for Violin, BWV 1025
16.-17. Suite in Eb major for keyboard, BWV 819
18.-19. Suite in E major for Lute, BWV 1006a
20.-21. Orchestral Suite No. 1 in C major
22.-23. Orchestral Suite No. 4 in D major
24. Orchestral Suite No. 2 in B minor
25.-26. Cello Suite No. 1 in G major
27.-28. Cello Suite No. 2 in D minor

Here are the formal functions in the first strains:

Antecedent + continuation: 7 + 1*
Period: 10
Sentence: 2
Presentation + consequent: 1
12-bar sentence: 2
16-bar period: 4
16-bar sentence: 1

And here is the list again by form function category:

Antecedent + continuation; n = 7
   French Suite No. 1 in D minor, I
   French Suite No. 2 in C minor
   French Suite No. 3 in B minor, II
   Suite in E major for Lute, BWV 1006a, I
   Orchestral Suite No. 4 in D major, II
   Orchestral Suite No. 2 in B minor
   Cello Suite No. 2 in D minor, II
Antecedent + continuation (but A = 36 bars!); n = 1
   Suite in A major for Violin, BWV 1025
Period; n = 10
   English Suite No. 4 in F major, II
   Partita No. 1 in Bb major, II
   Partita No. 4 in D major
   Brandenburg Concerto No. 1, II
   Suite in Eb major for keyboard, BWV 819, I
   Orchestral Suite No. 1 in C major, I
   Orchestral Suite No. 1 in C major, II
   Orchestral Suite No. 4 in D major, I
   Cello Suite No. 1 in G major, I
   Cello Suite No. 2 in D minor, I
Sentence; n = 2
   French Suite No. 6 in E major  
   Suite in Eb major for keyboard, BWV 819, II
Presentation + consequent; n = 1
   Cello Suite No. 1 in G major, II
12-bar sentence; n = 2
   Partita No. 5 in G major  
   Brandenburg Concerto No. 1, I
16-bar period; n = 4
   French Suite No. 1 in D minor, II
   French Suite No. 3 in B minor, I
   Partita No. 1 in Bb major, I
   Suite in E major for Lute, BWV 1006a, II
16-bar sentence; n = 1
   English Suite No. 4 in F major, I

 To establish some context for Bach's menuets, here is a table with data on music discussed in this series so far:

I cannot emphasize too strongly that this is not a comprehensive picture of menuet history from 1660 to 1730. It is more of a snapshot, but in it we can nevertheless see some things of interest. (1) The antecedent + continuation theme is the only type other than the period to be found in every sample set, from Lully to Bach. (2) Conversely, the sentence is entirely missing from the early sample sets and is weakly represented still in the later ones (with the exception of Fux). (3) Similarly, what Caplin calls "compound themes" are missing in the earlier sample sets but show up clearly in later ones (note 16-bar periods in Rameau, Chédeville, and Bach).

In subsequent posts, I will discuss individual menuets by Bach, organizing the posts in terms of formal functions, as above, rather than by source.

Menuet series 2-7: Fux

Johann Joseph Fux. I looked only to the keyboard works, on the assumption that operas and chamber music such as trio sonatas were unlikely to have examples. I found an independent set of 12 menuets as well as five menuets in the four keyboard suites, one of the latter also being in the set of 12. Thus, N = 16.

The results are definitely an outlier in this study of menuets from 1660 through the 18th century, in the very small number of periods relative to other forms, and in the relatively large number of sentences for menuets in any period, but certainly before 1760. But see my comments on individual pieces below.

period N = 1
antecedent + continuation N = 7
sentence N = 7
16-bar period N = 1

The only period, the rondeau theme in Suite IV, is close to many examples in my recent posts on Chédeville's Recueils and other, earlier menuets. Fux, however, does begin the change in melody in bar 7, not leaving the difference only to the final note.

The statistics given above, however, are clouded a bit by a particular feature that I have seen only occasionally in earlier pieces. Here are examples from the other menuets in the keyboard suites.

The antecedent+continuation theme, in principle, should have the greatest variety of ideas among all the possible eight-bar theme types: in its extreme form, a basic idea is followed by a contrasting idea and then by continuation consisting of a contrasting phrase (a new idea followed by still another shape in the cadence). In the second menuet from the first suite, however, Fux veers to the opposite extreme, where only the narrow confines of 8-10 seconds of music permit us to value contrast over relation in bars 3-4 (the obvious change of harmony helps). I am less comfortable with bars 5-6, which form a complete idea (not fragmentation) that could be heard as a variant of bars 1-2. 

I do believe that antecedent + continuation is the best reading, based on the historical context of the menuet repertoires from Lully onward till the menuet is caught, after the 1730s, in the contredanse's form-leveling influence, which favors the period for all dances. (The height of that influence on the menuet, specifically, was in the 1760s.) Nevertheless, in this menuet from Fux's first keyboard suite, we are, so to speak, at a formal-function crossroads. If I chose to hear bars 5-6 as a variant of the beginning, then the design would be a period. If I chose to hear bars 3-4 as a variant, then the design would be a sentence (if bars 5-6 initiate continuation) or the presentation-consequent hybrid (if bars 5-6 are also a variant of bars 1-2). Any one of the four (underlined) readings is possible. I favor antecedent + continuation, as I said, because of the historical context--but also because of my assertion that small changes count for more in such a small space as the usual first strain in music for social dance. 

I do find the simplicity of Fux's menuets in the keyboard suites a little surprising, more like menuets in the 1680s-1690s than the often highly stylized pieces written by others, such as J. S. Bach, in the 1710s and 1720s. Also, and unexpectedly perhaps, given the mythology that has arisen around Fux because of interpretations of the Gradus exercises, this menuet reminds us yet again of the fragility of our analyses when dance practices are taken into consideration. All it would take is an imaginative (or slightly bored) violinist, playing this strain for the third or fourth time, to turn bars 3-4 into a clearly contrasting idea by changing the rhythms so as not to repeat those of bars 1-2. Similarly for bars 5-6 or for bars 3-4 + 5-6. 

The first menuet is a case in point. I can hear bars 3-4 easily enough as a slightly elaborated transposed repetition of the basic idea, but--again on the small scale of the dance strain--I think contrast wins out. In this case there is no doubt about the continuation phrase, which is sharply different--but that raises the question of whether there should be a distinct theme type, antecedent+contrast. This point was made in several previous posts in this series.

The menuet from suite 3 dramatizes the relation of bars 3-4 to 5-6. There is no question about the status of the first phrase as a presentation, but the sequence spills over into the second phrase, the overall effect being 6 + 2, or sequence + cadence. In fact, although I have called it a sentence, I think that 6 + 2, or (basic idea--variant--variant)--cadence probably would be a better way to describe it.

As I said at the beginning, Fux's menuets are outliers in the general trend of the repertoire during his lifetime. What he does do is hew more closely than some to clarity of definition for the two-bar unit and therefore, paradoxically, he makes his menuets easily danceable. Yet another curiosity.

Menuet series 2-6b: Chédeville l'aîné

Here are a few examples to augment the information from yesterday's post. These four pieces are from the second suite (out of six) in the second volume (out of eight) in Chédeville's Receuils series from the early 1730s. This suite has the following numbers. Dance labels in brackets are my guesses -- they are not part of Chédeville's title.

1. Vaudeville   [gavotte]
2. Menuet
3. Depuis long tems  [rigaudon?]
4. Les Dieux vous ont donné   [menuet?]
5. Parcourez et la terre et londe   [gavotte]
6. Suivons l'Amour dans le bel age   [menuet?]
7. Je suis un bon Soldat  [bourée]
8. Vaudeville  [menuet?]
9. Vaudeville
10. Vous scavéz Climene  [menuet?]
11. La galopade    [gavotte]
12. Menuet

One of the most common of the simple period types, this varies little in the two phrases--eighth notes in bar 4 become a single held note in bar 8 (see circled notes). This is the first menuet in suite 2.

Again a common form: a strongly contrasting second phrase rather than "developmental" continuation. This is from suite 6 in book 2.

A classic sentence. This is the second menuet in suite 2.

A four-bar theme labeled with my term: a presentation phrase that acts formally as a theme. This is from suite 3 in book 2.

Finally, note the variety in the formal functions for the second strains, but all in clearly defined, "tight" designs.

Example 1 above: period
Example 2: 16-bar sentence
Example 3: 16-bar period?
Example 4: period