IV
The importance of rhythm in instrumental music has already been pointed out. We have mentioned the part it played in the transformation of the heavy canzona into the sonata da chiesa, giving life and character to the themes, and structural regularity to the sections. We have now to consider the development of another cyclic form of music, the Suite, called in Italy the sonata da camera, which had its very being in rhythm. The orthodox suite at the end of the seventeenth century was a series of four short pieces, all of which were in the same key, each having the name of a dance, and differing from the others in its rhythm. The origin of the suite, therefore, is to be sought in the cultivation of dance music, which is essentially rhythmical music, and in the combination of several short dances in a sequence.
The remarkable English collections of music for the harpsichord or virginal already alluded to contain many dance tunes. In the treatment of them, however, as we have said, composers showed the influence of the polyphonic style to such an extent that they frequently disguised or even suppressed the characteristic rhythms as far as possible by cross accents and polyphonic intricacies. Yet that the English composers of that time, great men like William Byrd, John Bull, and Thomas Morley, were conscious of the contrasting characters of various dance rhythms, and of the pleasant effect of playing a dance in one time after a dance in another, is shown by a passage in Morley’s famous book, ‘Plain and Easy Introduction to Practical Music’ (1597), which describes the effect to be got by alternating a pavan and a galliard, ‘the first of which was a kind of staid musick ordained for grave dancing, and the other a lighter and more stirring kind of dancing.’
But the practice of stringing dance tunes together antedates Morley’s book by nearly a century, if not more. Among the first pieces of music ever printed were sets of dance tunes for the lute, which were printed by Petrucci in Venice in 1508. Some of these sets consisted of a pavan followed by other dances—saltarello and piva—which were thematically related to it; and throughout the sixteenth century many such embryo suites made their appearance. In the early lute music of the time the rhythmical element was quite obvious, clearly because the polyphonic style could not be reproduced upon the lute. Indeed music for the lute is the first instrumental music which presents a definite special instrumental style, and this because by its nature the instrument was quite unfitted for polyphony. The separate pieces in the early suites were often thematically related; they were, in fact, variation suites, built up upon the same theme presented in various rhythms. Toward the end of the century it became customary to print together many pieces of the same kind, so that one encounters sets of pavans, of galliards, of passamezzi, of courantes, etc. Thereby the stringing together of dances of different types in the order of a suite disappears from printed music, though doubtless players of the lute and of the harpsichord chose single dances from the various collections and put and played them together according to their own taste.
In Italy the interest, newly aroused early in the seventeenth century, in toccatas and ricercari for the organ, and in the canzona and solo sonata for other instruments, banished for a time interest in the combination of dance tunes; but German and English composers accepted the canzona very slowly, and all through the century gave themselves conspicuously to the combination and development of dance tunes, at first for an ensemble of instruments, and later for the harpsichord. They early broke away from the restrictions of church modes and built up their pieces over a clear harmonic foundation generally richer and more varied than the harmonies of the Italians. But in these early suites, too, there is the same rhythmical hesitation which has been found characteristic of all early instrumental music, and the metrical structure of the various dances is often irregular and unbalanced, so strong were the old polyphonic traditions and the mistrust of liveliness.
Of the old dance tunes two are almost invariably present in the suite up to the middle of the century, the pavan and the galliard. The pavan was a broad, stately kind of music in common time, and was generally divided into three sections, of which the first was in simple harmonic style, and the second and third more contrapuntal. The galliard, on the other hand, was in triple time, and was always set in simple harmonic style. Here is the same principle of construction as that upon which the instrumental canzonas were built—pieces of polyphonic style contrasted with those of a simpler kind.
At what time the pavan and the galliard gave way to the allemande and courante, which are the nucleus of the orthodox suite, has yet to be determined, but at the end of the century the suites of the great German and English writers present uniformly four standard movements, of which the arrangement is allemande, courante, sarabande, and gigue. The origin of the allemande is unknown. It was always in common time and was of stately though not slow movement. Of the courantes there were two distinct types, one called French and the other Italian, both in triple time and both rapid, but the former complex and full of cross accents and the latter simple and gay. The sarabande was of Spanish or Moorish origin and was in slow triple time with the rhythmical peculiarity of a dwelling or accent upon the second beat of the measure. It differed from the other movements in that it was invariably in harmonic style; and its rich though simple chords and the quiet dignity of its movements have expressed many of the deepest and most emotional thoughts of the great masters, Purcell, Handel, and Bach. The gigue was lively and usually in six-eight time. It was the only dance of British origin to find a central place in the suite, which is remarkable in view of the fact that the English masters were among the first to work with the suite form. Between the sarabande and the gigue it was customary to insert one or more extra dances, of which those most frequently met with are the minuet, gavotte, bourrée, etc. At the beginning of the suite was often a prelude in the form of the early canzona, and called ‘sonata’ or ‘symphony.’
Each movement was divided into two nearly equal parts, and each of these parts was repeated. The first began in the tonic key and modulated to the dominant; the second began in the dominant and modulated back to the tonic. Thus there was an harmonic basis which in these movements, as in the movements of the perfected sonata da chiesa of the Italians, was an essential element of the design. The division of the definite movements, which was from the beginning one of the features of the suite, probably had some influence upon the Italian composers and led them to the step of cutting the canzona, too, into definite movements.
All through the century composers in England and in Germany were experimenting with these combinations of dance tunes for groups of instruments. Among the English experimenters should be mentioned Matthew Locke with his collection of suites for strings called ‘The Little Consort of Three Parts’ (1656), each of which contains a pavan, an ayre, a ‘corant,’ and a sarabande; and Benjamin Rogers, one of the most famous composers of his day. Among the Germans, Johann Jacob Löwen with his Sinfonien (1658), which are sets of dance tunes, and Dietrich Becker with ‘Musical Spring Fruit’ (1658), among which is a suite made up in the conventional order of allemande, courante, sarabande, and gigue. One cannot but be astonished to find how closely the suite of the northern masters and the canzona of the Italians kept pace with one another. As proof one has only to note that Becker’s work with its orthodox suite is but a year later than Vitali’s first sonata da chiesa.
Thus by the beginning of the last quarter of the century musicians had developed an instrument style for groups of string instruments and for the organ; they had devised fitting forms independent of words for their musical ideas, they had studied melody and acquired the art of handling it, and they had admitted the stir of rhythm into their most serious work, thereby giving it an animation which would have been summarily condemned a century before. There still lacked men of the highest order of genius to take up the work thus prepared for them.