IV
Meanwhile the growth and relative perfection of another form is to be observed, namely, the suite.[4] This is a conventional group of four short pieces in dance forms and rhythms. A great amount of dance music had been published for the lute in Italy as early as 1502. Of the twenty-one pieces published in the Parthenia more than a hundred years later, five were pavans and ten were galliards. In all these early dance pieces the rhythm is more or less disguised under a heavy polyphonic style; so we may presume that they were not intended to be played in the ballroom, but rather that the short and symmetrical forms of good dance music were regarded by composers as serviceable molds into which to cast their musical inspirations. Indeed, they must have made a strong appeal to composers at a time when they were baffled in their instrumental music by ignorance of the elementary principles of musical structure.
The early Italian lute collections already reveal a tendency on the part of composers to group at least two of these dances together. The two chosen are the pavan and the galliard, the one a slow and stately dance in double time, the other a livelier dance in triple time. Often, it is true, these two are not grouped together in the printed collections; but it seems likely that the lutenists of the sixteenth century were fond of such a selection in performance. In 1597 Thomas Morley, an English musician, published in the form of dialogues his ‘Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke.’ In this he treated of dance music at some length, and made special note of the pleasing effect to be got by alternating pavans and galliards.
This group of two pieces is the nucleus about which the suite developed during the first half of the seventeenth century. The several steps in its growth are rather obscure; and, as they are to be observed more in music for groups of strings than in harpsichord music, it will serve us merely to mention them. The pavan and the galliard gave way early to the allemande and the courante. The origin of the former is doubtful. There were two kinds of courantes—one evidently native to France, the other to Italy. Both were in triple time, but were in many other ways clearly differentiated. To the allemande and courante was later added a slow dance from Spain—the sarabande; and before the middle of the century the gigue, or giga, from Italy, made secure its place as the last of the standard group of four. These four pieces so combined were invariably in the same key. Apart from this they had no relationship.[5] The tie which held them together was wholly one of convention.
Such is the stereotype of the suite when it becomes firmly established in music for the harpsichord, as we find it in the works of the German J. J. Froberger. Froberger died in 1667, but his suites for harpsichord, twenty-eight in all, were written earlier; some in 1649, others in 1656, according to autograph copies. He had been a wanderer over the face of Europe. After studying with Frescobaldi in Rome he had spent some years in Paris, where he had come into contact with French composers for the harpsichord, whose work we shall discuss later on. Thence he had gone to London, where his skill in playing the organ and harpsichord seems to have lifted him from the mean position of pumping air into the organ at Westminster (he had been robbed on his journey and had reached London friendless and poverty-stricken) to that of court favorite. Later he returned to Europe, evidently pursued by ill luck, and he died at Héricourt, near Montbelliard, at the home of Sibylla, Duchess of Würtemberg, a pupil who had offered him refuge.
By far the majority of his suites for the harpsichord, and be it noted they are for harpsichord and not for organ, are in the orthodox order of Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, and Gigue. The dances are all constructed upon the same plan, a plan at the basis of which the new idea of harmony has at last been solidly established. Each piece is divided neatly into two sections of about equal length, each of which is repeated. The harmonic groundwork is simple and clear. The dance opens in the tonic key. If the piece is major it modulates to the dominant, if minor to the relative major; and in that key the first section ends. This section having been repeated, the second section begins in the key in which the first section left off, and modulates back again, usually through one or two keys, to end in the tonic. The whole makes a compact little piece, very neatly balanced. It would seem to be quite sealed in perfection and to contain no possibilities of new growth; but the short passages of free modulation through which the second section pursues its way from dominant or relative major back to tonic contained germs of harmonic unrest which were to swell the whole to proportions undreamed of.
The change from tonic to dominant and back, with the few timid modulations in the second section, offered practically all the contrast and variety there was within the limits of a single piece. Except in the sarabande, the musical texture was woven in a flowing style. The effect is one of constant motion. A figure, not a theme, predominated. The opening figure, it is true, was modified, often gave way to quite a different figure in the dominant key; but the style remained always the same, and there was but the slightest suggestion of contrast in the way one figure glided into another.
In the suite as a whole, the uniformity of key which ruled over all four movements precluded in the main all contrast but the contrast of rhythm. Yet a few peculiarities of style became associated with each of the dances and thus gave more than rhythmical variety to the whole. The counterpoint of the allemande, for example, was more open and more dignified, so to speak, than that of the fleet, sparkling Italian courante. In the French courante a counterpoint of dotted quarters and eighths prevailed, and a shifting between 6/4 and 3/2 rhythm stamped the movement with a rhythmic complexity not at all present in the other movements. The second section of the gigue was almost invariably built upon an inversion of the figures of the first section, and the solid chord style of the sarabande not only contrasted radically with the style of allemande, courante, and gigue, but, moreover, beguiled composers into the expression of personal emotion now noble, now tender, which put sarabandes in general in a class by themselves amid the music of that time.
Though the normal suite was constituted of these four dances in the order we have named, other dances came to find a place therein. Of these the favorites were gavottes, minuets, bourrées, loures, passepieds, and others; and they were inserted in any variety or sequence between the sarabande and the gigue. Sometimes in place of extra dances, or among them, is to be found an air or aria, the salient quality of which is not rhythm, but melody, usually highly ornamented in the style made universally welcome by the Italian opera. More rarely the air was simple and was followed by several variations. The best known of these airs and variations which were incorporated into suites is probably Handel’s famous set upon a melody, not his own, which has long gone by the name of ‘The Harmonious Blacksmith.’ By the beginning of the eighteenth century many composers were accustomed to begin their suites with a prelude, usually in harmonic style.
In the music of the great French lutenists and clavecinists of the seventeenth century the suite never crystallized into a stereotyped sequence. The principle of setting together several short pieces in the same key was none the less clearly at work, though nothing but the fancy of the composer seems to have limited the number of pieces which might be so united. On the other hand, the idea of emphasizing rhythm as the chief element of contrast within the suite was often secondary to the idea of contrasting mood. How much of this contrast of mood was actually effective it is hard to say, but the great number of little pieces composed either for lute or clavecin in France of the seventeenth century, were given picturesque or fanciful names by their composers.
This custom was firmly established by the great lutenist, Denis Gaultier, whose collection of pieces, La rhétorique des dieux, comprises some of the most exquisite and most beautifully worked music of the century. The pieces in the collection are grouped together by modes; but the modes by this time have become keys, and differ from each other in little except pitch. The greater part of the pieces are given names, borrowed for the most part from Greek mythology. Phaèton foudroyé, and Juno, ou la jalouse are indicative of the general tone of them.
Close upon Gaultier’s pieces for lute came the harpsichord pieces of Jacques Champion, son of a family of organists, who took upon himself the name of Chambonnières. Two books of his pieces were published in 1670. Here again the pieces are grouped in keys, in, however, no definite number; and, though most have still only dance names to distinguish them, many are labelled with a title.
In spite of these titles, the tendency to call upon an external idea to aid in the construction of a piece of music is not evident in this early harpsichord music. There is little attempt at picture drawing in music. The names are at the most suggestive of a mood, indicative of the humor which in the composer gave birth to the music, hints to the listener upon the humor in which he was to take it. The structure of the music is independent of the titles, and is of a piece with the structure of the dance tunes which make up the German suite. The influence of this music was not important upon the growth of form, but upon the molding and refinement of style.
To be sure, a tendency toward realistic music crops out from time to time all through the seventeenth century. The twitter of birds no less than the roar of battle was attempted by many a composer, resulting, in the case of the latter especially, in hardly more than laughably childish imitations. Further than this composers did not often go until, just before Bach entered upon his professional career, J. F. Kuhnau, of Leipzig, published his extraordinary Biblical sonatas. Besides these, the ‘Rhetoric of Gods,’ the ‘Hundred Varieties of Musical Fruit,’ the ‘jealous ladies’ and the ‘rare ladies,’ even the battles and the gossips, all of which have been imitated in music, appear conventional and absolute. Here is narrative in music and a flimsiness of structure which is meaningless without a program. There are six of these strange compositions, upon the stories of David and Goliath, of David and Saul, of Jacob and Leah, and others. Some years later they undoubtedly suggested to Sebastian Bach the delicate little capriccio which he wrote upon the departure of his brother for the wars. Apart from this they are of slight importance except as indications of the experimental frame of mind of their composer. Indeed, beyond imitation and to a small extent description, neither harpsichord nor pianoforte music has been able to make much progress in the direction of program music.
Kuhnau’s musical narratives were published in August, 1700. Earlier than this he had published his famous Sonata aus dem B. The work so named was appended to Kuhnau’s second series of suites or Partien. It has little to recommend it to posterity save its name, which here appears in the history of clavier music for the first time. Nor does this name designate a form of music akin to the sonatas of the age of Mozart and Beethoven, a form most particularly associated with the pianoforte. Kuhnau merely appropriated it from music for string instruments. There it stood in the main for a work which was made up of several movements like the suite, but which differed from the suite in depending less upon rhythm and in having a style more dignified than that which had grown out of experiments with dance tunes. In addition, the various movements which constituted a sonata were not necessarily in the same key. Here alone it possessed a possible advantage over the suite. Yet though in other respects it cannot compare favorably to our ears with the suite, Kuhnau cherished the dignity of style and name with which tradition had endowed it. These he attempted to bestow upon music for the clavier.[6]
The various movements lack definite form and balance. The first is in rather heavy chord style, the chords being supported by a dignified counterpoint in eighth notes. This leads without pause into a fugue on a figure of lively sixteenth notes. The key is B-flat major. There follows a short adagio in E-flat major, modulating to end in C minor, in which key the last movement, a short allegro in triple time, is taken up. The whole is rounded off by a return to the opening movement, signified by the sign Da Capo.
Evidently pleased with this innovation, Kuhnau published in 1696 a set of seven more sonatas called Frische Clavier Früchte. These show no advance over the Sonata aus dem B in mastery of musical structure. Still they are evidence of the efforts of one man among many to give clavier music a life of its own and to bring it in seriousness and dignity into line with the best instrumental music of the day, namely, with the works of such men as Corelli, Purcell, and Vivaldi. That he was unable to do this the verdict of future years seems to show. The attempt was none the less genuine and influential.
In the matter of structure, then, the seventeenth century worked out and tested but a few principles which were to serve as foundation for the masterpieces of keyboard music in the years to come. But these, though few, were of vast importance. Chief among them was the new principle of harmony. This we now, in the year 1700, find at the basis of fugue, of prelude and toccata, and of dance form, not always perfectly grasped but always in evidence. Musical form now and henceforth is founded upon the relation and contrast of keys.
Consistently to hold to one thematic subject throughout a piece in polyphonic style, skillfully to contrast or weave with that secondary subjects, mark another stage of development passed. The fugue is the result, now articulate, though awaiting its final glory from the hand of J. S. Bach. To write little dance pieces in neat and precise form is an art likewise well mastered; and to combine several of these, written in the same key, in an order which, by affording contrast of rhythms, can stir the listener’s interest and hold his attention, is the established rule for the first of the so-called cyclic forms, prototype of the symphony and sonata of later days. Such were the great accomplishments of the musicians of the seventeenth century in the matter of form.