Menuet series 2-2c: Pointel's Recuiel des Dances (Amsterdam, 1688)

For sake of comparison with the 15 menuets discussed yesterday, here are five other pieces from Antoine Pointel's Recuiel des Dances. These were chosen more or less randomly from several early pages—with somewhat awkward consequences, as we shall see.

The first has an antecedent+continuation design in the first strain, a design I frankly expected to find more often in the menuets, certainly more than 1 out of 15. In this instance the continuation phrase modulates, which is rare enough in the contredanse literature that one suspects the piece is actually "borrowed" from somewhere else. As indeed turns out to be case. Ironically, given the context of this series of posts, "Plaisir" is taken from Lully: the penultimate number in the Prologue to Phaëton (1683), the opening of which is reproduced below Pointel's score (adapted from Nicholas Sceaux's modern notation). The single pick-up note and consistent two-bar groups suggest the bourrée.

"Qu'a L'Envy" turns out to be another borrowing from Lully, this time the chorus in Acis et Galatée, Act II, scene 6 (1686). Clearly a gavotte en rondeau, Pointel's version follows the original closely, deleting only the flute flourishes that punctuate each phrase. In this instance, the first strain—the rondeau theme—is a true 4-bar theme in Lully's opera; there is no repetition, no additional text. In Pointel's version, we assume that the first strain is meant to be repeated, given the sign at the end of the first system.

"Dite Moy Ianeton" is a much simpler tune. At 4+8 it fits the (presumably) older type that has been a focus of discussion in these recent posts: an antecedent-like phrase that would generate a period if one includes its repetition. An assumption of an 8+8 design by musicians and dancers both seems very likely, given that this is obviously a gavotte—in the older notation that begins with beat 1 rather than beat 3. The gavotte was much given to very square designs, and eventually (by 1730, probably earlier) became overwhelmingly the type of the 2/4 contredanse.

Another simple tune, "L'Escossoise" is a jig in three-bar phrases, a rarety that speaks to its age by 1688. Within this constraint, the first strain is a clear antecedent-consequent period.

"L'Argentine" is another jig with a 4+4 period design in the first strain, but with an unusual move to III in the antecedent (see bar 4). The modal touches throughout suggest, again, that this tune is considerably older than its publication by Pointel in 1688.

What did we learn from this survey of random items? Perhaps mainly the fact of the randomness once we leave the confines of the named menuets. That in itself is nothing odd—anthologies from Playford on into the many in the 19th century draw on a wide variety of sources.

We can say that these five additional numbers confirm—indeed, magnify the significance of—the several, not single, options for the first strain: here we have encountered virtually all the possible options, from a true 4-bar theme to the 8-bar period that is barely more than the four bars repeated to a 6-bar period to a "true" 8-bar period with non-tonic close in the antecedent. ("True" here, of course, means the cliché of the period in the later 18th century.)

Menuet series 2-1: Rebecca Harris-Warwick on irregular phrase groups in Lully

After rather a long while I am picking up the menuet historical survey series again. The last post was nearly a year ago, on 17 June 2016: link.

A few days before that, I wrote, in connection with menuets in Lully operas:

A look at these menuets shows -- by negative example -- how closely Caplin's analysis model and terms fits music of the later 18th and early 19th centuries. When ideas are three bars rather than two and clearly demarcated, there is no problem. Six-bar phrases are common enough in 17th century music, and especially in menuets. The difficulty arises at the next level, as these six-bar phrases consisting of two three-bar ideas are often treated as the first strain in a small binary form. In the analyses here, I have in most instances understood the entire piece as a prolonged theme. Since the distinction is based on length, however, that is not entirely satisfactory as a method. (link to post)

Rebecca Harris-Warwick has explored the issue of varying and irregular phrase lengths and groups more thoroughly in a chapter for the volume Lully Studies (citation at the end of this post). She "demonstrates that only a small proportion of Jean-Baptiste Lully's dance music—roughly a quarter of his binary pieces—is based on consistent four- or eight-bar phrases, a point that remains valid even for generic dances such as the minuet, gigue, or gavotte" (from the RILM abstract).

For example, in the category she refers to as "celebratory dances" (marked as and performed as dances), "the affect may be predictable, but the phrase structure of the dances is not." In several examples she cites, "the reigning affect is joy, and nothing suggests that Lully automatically assigns five-bar phrases to shepherds or nine- and eleven-bar phrases to river gods. On the contrary, the same set of characters may perform back-to-back dances with completely different metrical structures" (49). Even in some of the most formal dance types, such as the theatrical entrée, highly flexible phrase designs reign. Two surviving choreographies of this type, "both . . . for a man and a woman[,] draw upon [a characteristically] intricate and technically demanding step vocabulary. Both demonstrate not only that irregular and varied metrical structures pose no impediment to choreography, but also that such structures are perfectly compatible with dances in the noble style. Lully [composed them] as representatives of the art of dance. The art they exhibit is subtle, and varied, not restricted to predictable, square phrases" (54).

In still another example, Harris-Warwick notes that the music for a dance may appear irregular if heard on its own, but it may well gain a strong sense of symmetry when combined with the dance (as in the mirroring patterns commonly found in menuets) (56). The implications for research are obvious: "dance music operates in conjunction with the visual and the kinetic. A study of the phrase structures of Lully's dances needs to take these intersecting systems into account." 

And the historical generalization she derives from all this is as follows: "Lully [was not] alone in this flexible approach to the construction of dances; seventeenth-century dance music in general exhibits a much freer approach to phrase structures than does the dance music of the eighteenth century, one that embraces irregularity and sees square phrasing as only one possibility among many. The notion that stretching a four-bar phrase into six represents a deliberate distortion of an underlying dance pattern may be tenable in regard to a Haydn minuet, but not to one by Lully" (55-56).

All this seems consistent with my own assertions in blog posts about Lully menuets (link to the first of three), for example, "Form descriptions of Lully menuets from the operas show the fluidity (and uncertainty) of design analysis based on Caplin's model and terminology. We saw in the vocal and instrumental menuets from Atys and Proserpine that the design can appear to be simultaneously a small form and a prolonged theme, and that in the latter case an initial phrase is followed by two continuation phrases" (link). 

Reference:
Rebecca Harris-Warwick, "The Phrase Structures of Lully's Dance Music." In John Hajdu Heyer, ed., Lully Studies, pp. 32-56. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).

Menuets in the keyboard works of D'Anglebert

Five pieces are labeled "menuet" in Jean-Henri D'Anglebert's Pièces de Clavecin (1689), a collection of original compositions and arrangements of orchestral music by Lully.

As in the menuets from Lully's operas, the first strain of the Menuet de Poitou might be read either as a six-bar presentation (the three-bar basic idea is boxed) or a six-bar period with undivided three-bar phrases. The former fits better with Caplin's system, in which an undivided phrase poses a serious problem (we might be reduced to calling it a "phrase-like unit"). Section B (not shown) does have two plausible continuation phrases, at 8 and 6 bars, respectively. Note also that the left hand in bar 4 (circled) differs from bar 1, something better suited to a varied basic idea than to a consequent phrase.

The examples in today's post come from the notated edition by Steve Wiberg (Due West Publications), part of the Werner Icking Music Collection available on IMSLP and used here thanks to Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0.

In D'Anglebert's arrangement of a menuet by Lully, a period is formed by an antecedent-consequent pair, both of its phrases making imperfect authentic cadences on the tonic (though with different figures in the bass). The underlying design, then, might as easily be repetition of a "4-bar theme."

Much the same happens in the next menuet, except that the two closes are half cadences. Again, subtle rewriting of the left hand part (circled) weakens a period designation.

The "4-bar theme" problem is also present in the Menuet "Dans nos bois," where the PAC comes at the end of the first phrase and a half cadence at the end of the second, the opposite of the pattern we would expect as soon as about 1720.

Finally, the first menuet in the volume offers a clear antecedent-continuation theme in eight bars. The section is 16 bars, however, and the stronger cadence arrival appears in bar 8, not bar 16.

Three menuets from Armide

This continues from yesterday. Form descriptions of Lully menuets from the operas show the fluidity  (and uncertainty) of design analysis based on Caplin's model and terminology. We saw in the vocal and instrumental menuets from Atys and Proserpine that the design can appear to be simultaneously a small form and a prolonged theme, and that in the latter case an initial phrase is followed by two continuation phrases. The same things are true in one of the three named menuets from the prologue to  Armide (1686).

This is the second menuet in a pair. Note the three-bar basic idea and the overall design as a sentence. In section B, however, the first continuation is 8 bars, which seems quite unreasonable for a phrase, but I see no clear way to parse ideas within it. Perhaps Caplin's "continuation-like unit," used for looser form sections in later Viennese music, would be appropriate here. The second continuation, also, differs from the models in the earlier operas, in that it is a repeat of the first, not aa new phrase.



The first menuet in the pair also repeats the first continuation to form the second. Here an expansion of an underlying 4-bar phrase to six by means of sequences (see bars 19-21) is a plausible explanation and not unlike a design one might find in Haydn or even later composers. The overall design is antecedent-continuation and/or small binary.

 The third menuet is simpler: an antecedent with two contrasting ideas is followed by a six-bar continuation that ends with a perfect authentic cadence. This design is a simple, balanced binary form (with repetition of each part).

Menuet designs in three Lully operas

Dance is thoroughly integrated into all of Lully's music, and certainly in the operas. For this project, I am restricting myself to pieces named "menuet" in 19th century editions (which are based on contemporary or early 18th century publications).

A look at these menuets shows how closely Caplin's analysis model and terms fits music of the later 18th and early 19th centuries -- by negative example. When ideas are three bars rather than two and clearly demarcated, there is no problem. Six-bar phrases are common enough in 17th century music, and especially in menuets. [note added on 17 June 2017: Meredith Ellis Little, in the "Menuet" article on Oxford Music Online, comments that three-bar phrases were "characteristic of the branle," the most common group dance before the mid-17th century. Thus, we might assume that Lully's use of it reflects a conservative aspect of his work.]  The difficulty arises at the next level, as these six-bar phrases consisting of two three-bar ideas are often treated as the first strain in a small binary form. In the analyses here, I have in most instances understood the entire piece as a prolonged theme. Since the distinction is based on length, however, that is not entirely satisfactory as a method.

Nevertheless, we can learn enough about these pieces to say that an antecedent-continuation design prevails, though often as antecedent-continuation 1-continuation 2.

Thanks to text repetition and rhyme, this sung menuet from Atys (1676) provides the clearest example: a six-bar antecedent followed by two six-bar continuation phrases. Strictly speaking, however, the design is aabc (note that the antecedent phrase is repeated exactly, with the same text), which could lead one to read the whole as a compound sentence, where a+a forms a 12-bar presentation and b+c is a 12-bar continuation. The tension one feels between theme, small form, and compound theme appears to be more acute in the 1680s than it does a century later.

Here is the instrumental menuet that precedes the duo. The opening six bars are clear enough. I didn't mark the phrase on the score, but it is obviously a six-bar presentation with two three-bar ideas. The harder part is the second section. I initially analyzed the design as a continuation phrase with two three-bar ideas expanded to five bars (see my "expansion?" note in mm. 9-10), but this seemed like (literally) stretching things a bit too far. Thus, noting again the tension between form levels, we could construe the entire menuet simultaneously as an antecedent with two continuation phrases, or a small binary form (the repetition of bars 1-6 making the demarcation of A-B clear), or a large sentence consisting of presentation (6 + 6 bars) and continuation (5 + 5 bars).

Here is a menuet from the prologue to Proserpine (1680) that is built the same way. In this instance, I think the division of the continuation phrases into distinct ideas is less certain.

The final example is another menuet from the prologue. Here again, a parsing of the continuation phrases into distinct ideas is not as obvious as one might like.

Tomorrow, three menuets from Armide (1686).