Menuet series 3-1 (Sacchini)

Antonio Sacchini was a student of Francesco Durante and thus thoroughly trained in the Neapolitan manner we associate now with partimento improvisation, accompaniment, and composition. Sacchini became one of the foremost exponents of the prevailing Italian style across Europe, beginning in Rome, Florence, and Venice (from which he also traveled to Germany), but moving on to London, where he stayed for a decade, and finally to Paris, where Marie Antoinette was his patron. He died in 1786.

 A set of six menuets for string trio and two horns was published in London, presumably during his residence there (between 1772 and 1781).

No. 5. The simplest of periods, where the only change is in the phrase-ending bars (boxed).

No. 4. A classic sentence with an answering transposition in bars 3-4 and fragmentation to start the continuation phrase.

No. 3. Here Sacchini maintains the basic sentence structure but emphasizes contrast rather than developmental continuity. Note the change of dynamic in bar 3 and again in bar 5, as well as the strong contrast in the two ideas of the continuation phrase.

No. 1. Here every idea is different -- what I call a galant theme, with contrast as the expressive goal.

No. 2. Very similar to the preceding.

No. 6

New essay published -- 17th century German and Austrian music

I have published a new essay on Texas Scholar Works: Seventeenth-Century Germany and Austria: Ascending Cadence Gestures. Link.

Here is the abstract:

The seventeenth century in Europe was a particularly rich time for experimentation in musical performance, improvisation, and composition. This essay, meant as an addendum to Ascending Cadence Gestures: A Historical Survey from the 16th to the Early 19th Century (published on Texas Scholar Works, July 2016), documents and analyzes characteristic instances of rising cadential lines in music by composers active in Germanophone countries—and, as it happens, particularly in the cities of Hamburg in the north and Vienna in the south.

Among the composers whose work is discussed are Johann Caspar Kerll, Johann Heinrich Schmelzer, Johann Rosenmüller, Georg Muffat, and Georg Böhm.

Menuet series 2-13 (Telemann)

Telemann cultivated the galant style in a serious way. His keyboard music and sonatas and fantasies for violin, however, are poor sources for menuets -- many are written in the three-movement design Allegro-Andante-Allegro -- and I turned to the orchestral works for examples. Because that repertoire is very large, I arbitrarily worked with overtures (suites) whose home keys are G or A.

This sentence fits the model quite well. The modern notation, btw, is by Michel Rondeau. I have included only the two clarino parts (identical to violin 1 & 2) and the bass.

This is quite similar to the first example above.

Here is a good example of the galant theme: antecedent + a continuation phrase that contrasts rather than develops.

Here there is less contrast because of the repetition of the basic idea's rhythms.

And here is a case that radicalizes the above. The same rhythms in every bar but the last bring much closer attention to shapes. In such a constrained context, bars 3-4 do sound like a contrasting idea and bars 5-6 like a second contrasting idea. Note that there are some broader connections: the arches showing the same overall direction in each phrase and the motivic ground in the basic idea and in bars 5-6.

Menuet series 2-12 (Gottlieb Muffat)

Another close contemporary of J. S. Bach, Gottlieb Muffat—who was Georg's son—worked throughout the first half of the 18th century in the Viennese court (among his students was the future Empress Maria Theresa). The six suites in the Componimenti musicali (~1739) contain 13 menuets. Here are comments on several of them.

Suite no. 5, the trio to the second menuet, offers a simple presentation phrase, but the continuation emphasizes contrast, not development. So although I have called it a sentence, this first strain really belongs to a separate category, presentation + contrast, a design that is not only common in the menuet, along with the allied antecedent + contrast, but becomes more and more so in the second half of the 18th century, to the point that it is the preferred form for menuets by J. C. Bach and Mozart.

Suite no. 1, trio to the menuet. Similar to the preceding.

Suite no. 5, second menuet. A "classic" antecedent + continuation theme, with considerable fragmentation in bars 5-7.

Suite no. 6, trio to the menuet. The distinctiveness of the chromatic figure, the placement of the mirror at bar 5, and the extent of the mirroring all favor hearing this theme as a period.

Suite no. 2, menuet. A reasonably straightforward period; the transposition of the basic idea in the consequent is substantial but the arpeggio figure with the rhythms maintained makes the relationship clear.

Suite no. 6, menuet. The formal functions as a "galant theme" make sense. This one is interesting because of the mirroring of rhythms -- see the two (a)s and the two (b)s -- and shapes -- the two (a)s. Despite the mirroring, the continuation phrase is contrasting rather than developmental.

Suite no. 2, trio. Once again the continuation is a contrasting phrase. The presentation is extended by simply adding two bars that transpose bars 3-4 down a third.

Suite no. 6, "menuet III." The previous example hints at a figure realized in this one. I have labeled the formal functions as a sentence, but the effect overall is not 4 + 4 but rather 6 + 2: three statements of an idea followed by a formula cadence with a different melodic figure.

Much the same effect occurs in the 8-bar antecedent of the 16-bar period in J. S. Bach's French Suite in D minor, menuet II. Look especially at the alto voice (arrow).

We will see this 6 + 2 arrangement—and even its reverse, 2 + 6!—in menuets by later composers.