II. PRIMITIVE DANCES.
The rude dances which spring up spontaneously in all communities, savage as well as civilized, and of which we in America have examples in the war-dances of Indians and the cake-walks of negroes, are thus seen to be pregnant of influence on developed musical art, no less than the folk-songs which we discussed in the second chapter, and the more academic music in the polyphonic style which we treated in the third. Both songs and dances, indeed, sometimes enter into artistic music even in their crude form, but in most cases composers treat them with a certain freedom, and in various ways enhance their effectiveness, as Haydn, for instance, treats the Croatian folk-tune "Jur Postaje," in the Andante of his "Paukenwirbel" Symphony. In Figure XVI the reader will see both the crude form of the tune and the shape into which Haydn moulds it for his purposes.
"Jur Postaje."
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HAYDN'S Version.
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FIGURE XVI.
In the long process of development which songs and dances thus undergo at the hands of composers, they of course lose to some extent their contrasting characters, until in modern music the dance and the song elements are as inextricably interwoven as the warp and the woof of a well-made fabric.
As imitation is only slightly available in homophonic music, the unity so vital to all art is attained in dances chiefly by transpositions of motives, often in systematic "sequences," by more or less exact balance of phrases, and by restatement after contrast. In crude examples these means are crudely used; in the work of masters they are treated with more subtlety and elasticity; but always a careful analysis will discover them. It will now prove enlightening to compare, from this point of view, three dance tunes of very different degrees of merit.
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FIGURE XVII.
A "Branle" or "Brawl" from Arbeau's Orchesographie, (1545).
Figure XVII shows an ancient "Branle" or "Brawl" of the sixteenth century, taken from Arbeau's "Orchesographie," published in 1545.
The strong meter, causing a distinct accent on the first note of each measure, will at once be noted, especially if it be contrasted with the more moderate accentuation of the folk-songs of Chapter II. Such strong meter is naturally characteristic of all dance tunes, intended as they are to guide and stimulate the regular steps of the dancer.
The phrase balance, though marked, is not absolutely regular, but the two two-measure phrases at the beginning and the single one at the end suffice to give an impression of pronounced symmetry. The six-measure phrase after the double-bar is generated by the sequential treatment of the little motive of measure 5.
This sequence (measures 5, 6, 7, 8, 9) is worthy of note because of the excessive length to which it is carried. Five repetitions are too many, and grow monotonous. A more skilful composer would have secured his unity without so great a sacrifice of variety—in a word, he would have treated a device good in itself with less crudity.
The exact repetition of measures 3-4 at the end is an effective use of restatement after contrast. Although the whole of the original theme is not given, there is enough of it to give the sense of orderliness in design.
A Gavotte in F-major by Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713), the famous violin virtuoso of the seventeenth century, printed in Augener's edition of Pieces by Corelli, will illustrate a distinctly higher stage in the treatment of a dance form. This is well worth a brief analysis.