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.
EXAMPLE FOR ANALYSIS, No. 3.
Corelli: Gavotte in F-Major.
Here the phrase balance, though entirely satisfying to the sense of rhythm, is much more elastic than in the brawl. The measure-lengths of the phrases are not all the same; they are as follows: 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2. This gives the tune an agreeable variety.
It will be noted, however, that the sequence is still treated rather fumblingly. In the three measures after the double-bar, the same motive is repeated thrice, each time higher than before, and to a fastidious ear the third repetition grows slightly wearisome.
On the whole, nevertheless, the gain in elasticity and freedom over the last example is marked.
The general structure and scheme of modulation in this little Gavotte of Corelli deserves careful attention, because it is in these respects typical of a very great number, indeed of the majority of the short dances of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It is divided into two distinct halves, and while each deals with the same musical material, the two are strongly contrasted in the matter of key. The first begins in the home key and leaves it to end in a contrasted key, in the present case the "dominant." The second, beginning in the dominant, modulates back again to the home key, and ends there. This scheme, called by musicians "binary" or "two-part" form, is a very simple and natural one for short pieces of this kind, and is to be found in thousands of the movements of Corelli, Scarlatti, Couperin, Rameau, Purcell, Handel, Bach, and other masters of their day. It is even more common than the "ternary" form to which we shall come in a moment.