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.
