Music genre and type of dance
The
sarabande
(from
Spanish
:
zarabanda
) is a
dance
in
triple metre
, or the music written for such a dance.
History
[
edit
]
The Sarabande evolved from a Spanish dance with Arab influences, danced by a lively double line of couples with
castanets
.
[1]
[2]
A dance called
zarabanda
is first mentioned in 1539 in
Central America
in the poem
Vida y tiempo de Maricastana
, written in
Panama
by Fernando de Guzman Mejia.
[3]
[4]
In
1596
, Alonso Lopez, "el Pinciano", traces its origins even to the
cult of Dionysus
. The dance seems to have been especially popular in the 16th and 17th centuries, initially in
Spain
and in the
Spanish colonies
.
The Jesuit priest
Juan de Mariana
thought it indecent, describing it in his
Tratato contra los juegos publicos
(Treatise Against Public Amusements, 1609) as "a dance and song so loose in its words and so ugly in its motions that it is enough to excite bad emotions in even very decent people".
[5]
A character in an
entremes
by
Cervantes
alluded to the dance's notoriety by saying that hell was its "birthplace and breeding place" (in Spanish:
origen y principio
).
[6]
[7]
It was banned in Spain in 1583 but was nevertheless still performed and frequently cited in literature of the period (for instance, by
Lope de Vega
).
[3]
It spread to Italy in the 17th century, and to France, where it became a slow court dance.
[5]
The sarabande was used throughout much of classical music, especially in the baroque era: for example, the music of French baroque composer
Jean-Marie Leclair
(born 1697): Sonata for 2 violins in D major Op.12 no.3; and
Buxtehude
's Trio Sonata in E minor Op.1/7 BuxWV 258, an extraordinary work with this sarabande style, most likely influencing later baroque composers such as
Handel
and
Bach
, who also have notable works using the same theme.
Baroque musicians
of the 18th century wrote
suites of dance music
in
binary form
that typically included a sarabande as the third of four movements. It was often paired with and followed by a
jig
or
gigue
.
[8]
Bach sometimes gave the sarabande a privileged place in his music, where it is often the heart of his suites for cello or keyboard. And outside the context of dance suites, striking examples include the theme and the 13th and 26th variations from Bach's
Goldberg Variations
; and the final movements of both the
St. John
and
St. Matthew Passions
.
The anonymous
harmonic sequence
known as
La Folia
appears in pieces of various types, mainly dances, by dozens of composers from the time of
Mudarra
(1546) and
Corelli
through to the present day,
[9]
custom perhaps influenced by its Spanish origin. The theme of the fourth-movement Sarabande of
Handel
's
Keyboard suite in D minor (HWV 437)
for harpsichord, one of these many pieces, appears prominently in the film
Barry Lyndon
.
[10]
The sarabande was revived in the 19th and early 20th centuries by the German composer
Louis Spohr
(in his
Salonstucke
, Op. 135 of 1847), Norwegian composer
Edvard Grieg
(in his
Holberg Suite
of 1884), French composers such as
Debussy
and
Satie
, and in England, in different styles,
Vaughan Williams
(in
Job: A Masque for Dancing
),
Benjamin Britten
(in the
Simple Symphony
),
Herbert Howells
(in
Six Pieces for Organ: Saraband for the Morning of Easter
), and
Carlos Chavez
in the ballet
La hija de Colquide
.
The sarabande inspired the title of
Ingmar Bergman
's last film
Saraband
(2003). The film uses the sarabande from Bach's Fifth
Cello Suite
, which Bergman also used in
Cries and Whispers
(1971).
[11]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
The Encyclopædia Britannica
(15th ed.). Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago. 1990. p. 445, Volume 10.
- ^
The Concise Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, Volume 1
. Garland Encyclopedia of World Music. 2013-01-11. p. 230.
ISBN
9780415994033
.
- ^
a
b
Richard Hudson; Meredith Ellis Little (2001). "Sarabande".
Grove Music Online
(8th ed.).
Oxford University Press
.
doi
:
10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.24574
.
ISBN
978-1-56159-263-0
.
- ^
Jose Luis Rodriguez Pitti
,
Panama blues
(Panama: El Hacedor, 2010):
[
page needed
]
.
- ^
a
b
Jane Bellingham, "Sarabande",
The Oxford Companion to Music
, edited by Alison Latham (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).
- ^
Cervantes, Miguel de (1615).
"Entremes de La Cueva de Salamanca"
.
Entremeses
.
Ediciones Akal
(published 2007). p. 184.
ISBN
8446027992
.
- ^
Esses, Maurice (1992).
Dance and Instrumental
Diferencias
in Spain During the 17th and Early 18th Centuries: History and background, music and dance
. Pendragon Press. p. 742.
ISBN
0945193084
.
- ^
Percy A. Scholes (ed.),
The Oxford Companion to Music
(London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1977), p. 911.
- ^
Giuseppe Gerbino and Alexander Silbiger, "Folia",
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
, 2nd edition, edited by
Stanley Sadie
and
John Tyrrell
(London: Macmillan, 2001); Elaine Sisman, "Variations, §3: Variation Types",
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
, 2nd edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London: Macmillan, 2001).
- ^
"Barry Lyndon (music from the soundtrack)"
. allmusic.com.
- ^
Ingmar Bergman Saraband ? Sources of inspiration
Archived
2007-09-27 at the
Wayback Machine
Further reading
[
edit
]
- Carvajal, Mara Lioba Juan. 2007.
La zarabanda: pluralidad y controversia de un genero musical
. Arte y expresion. [Zacatecas, Mexico]: Universidad Autonoma de Zacatecas, Programa Integral de Fortalecimiento Institucional; Mexico, D.F.: Plaza y Valdes.
ISBN
978-970-722-562-6
.
- Howat, Roy
(1987). "Debussy, masques, l'isle joyeuse and a lost sarabande".
Musicology Australia
.
10
(1): 16?30.
doi
:
10.1080/08145857.1987.10415177
.
- Louwenaar-Lueck, Karyl (1992). "The sequence of sarabande and air in Bach's keyboard partitas".
Bach
.
23
(1): 38?50.
JSTOR
41640369
.
- Stevenson, Robert (1952). "The First Dated Mention of the Sarabande".
Journal of the American Musicological Society
.
5
(1): 29?31.
doi
:
10.2307/829447
.
JSTOR
829447
.
- Whittall, Arnold
(1990). "Resisting Tonality: Tippett, Beethoven and the Sarabande".
Music Analysis
.
9
(3): 267?86.
doi
:
10.2307/853980
.
JSTOR
853980
.
External links
[
edit
]