Daniel Rabel’s Grotesque & Boccherini

11 Friday Dec 2015

Posted by michelinewalker in Ballet, Dance, Grotesque, Music

Tags

Ballets, Daniel Rabel, Fadango, grotesque, Luigi Boccherini, Passacaglia

1024px-Daniel_Rabel_-_The_Royal_Ballet_of_the_Dowager_of_Bilbao's_Grand_Ball_-_WGA18592 The Royal Ballet of the Dowager of Bilbao’s Grand Ball by Daniel Rabel
(Photo Credit: FR.Wikipedia)

Ballet des fées des forêts de Saint-Germain – Entrée des Esperlucates
(Photo credit: FR.Wikipedia)[1]

Dances

Ballet de cour
Suite (a music form normally containing dance music)

In 1635, Louis XIII of France composed the Ballet de Merlaison.

As for Suites, they are a musical composition most of which contain a number of dances, such as the minuet.

I have featured a minuet composed by Italian-born Luigi Boccherini, who worked in Spain. His minuet is classical.

However, Boccherini was also influenced by the music of Spain and Portugal, Iberian music: the Passacaglia and the Fandango.

Daniel Rabel

Daniel Rabel (1578 – 1637), an artist, was the stage and costume designer for two ballets.

“Les Fées de la forêt de Saint-Germain” (First performed in February 1625)[2]
“Ballet de la Douairière de Billebahaut” (First performed in February 1626)

The Grotesque

Rabel could not resist a “grotesque” presentation of his ballets: Les Fées des forêts de Saint-Germain (1625) & The Royal Ballet of the Dowager of Bilbao’s Grand Ball (1626).

RELATED ARTICLES

Boccherini’s Iberian Music: the Passacaglia & the Fandango (11 August 2012)
Daniel Rabel’s “Grotesque” Depictions of Ballet (10 August 2012)
The Ballet de cour, the Grotesque & a Minuet by Boccherini (8 August 2012)
The Duc de Joyeuse & Louis XIII as Composer (7 August 2012)

La Musica notturna delle strade di Madrid

Boccherini’s La Musica notturna delle strade di Madrid is our best example of Iberian music by Boccherini.

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[1] In the Wikipedia English entry for Rabel, this image is identified as a depiction of the ballet for the dowager of Bilbao.

[2] “Ballet of the Fairies of the Forest of Saint-Germain”

La Musica notturna delle strade di Madrid, Op. 30 n. 6 (G. 324), Jordi Savall

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Boccherini’s Iberian Music: the Passacaglia & the Fandango

11 Saturday Aug 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, Music

≈ Comments Off on Boccherini’s Iberian Music: the Passacaglia & the Fandango

Tags

Encyclopædia Britannica, Fandango, François Couperin, Iberian Peninsula, Latin America, Louis XIII of France, Luigi Boccherini, Merlaison, Passacaglia, Spain

: Luigi Boccherini by an unknown artist (c. 1764 – 67)

Photo credit:

Boccherini: Wikipedia

Francisco Goya: Wikipedia

(please click on the small picture below to enlarge it)

The “Ballet de cour” and the “Suite”

We explored the ballet de cour, an example of which is Louis XIII‘s Ballet de (la) Merlaison, and we know that the composers of this period wrote Suites or Ordres, as François Couperin named his Suites. Among these dances is the passacalle (from passar), or pasacaille, or passacaglia.

I am including two related blogs, but posts dealing with the flamenco are not listed. This post is about dance music and more specifically music for ballet, such as Louis XIII Ballet de la Merlaison, and musical works consisting of a series of dances: the Suite or Masque.

We have therefore identified two dances: the passacaglia (the chaconne) and the fandango, both of which are dances akin to the dances of Suites, one of which, the fandango, is related to the flamenco.

The Passacaglia

The passacaglia is Spanish in origin, but it quickly spread to other countries. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, “[t]he dance’s original name survives in the passacalle, a lively folk dance for couples popular in western South America.” As it first appeared in 17th-century Spain, “[it] was of unsavoury reputation and possibly quite fiery.”[i] However, “[i]n the French theatre of the 17th and 18th centuries it was a dance of imposing majesty.” The passacaglia is almost identical to the chaconne and as a chaconne it can be part of a Suite.

The Fandango

As for the fandango, the Encyclopædia Britannica tells that it is an “exuberant Spanish courtship dance and a genre of Spanish folksong. The dance, probably of Moorish origin, was popular in Europe in the 18th century and survives in the 20th century as a folk dance in Spain, Portugal, southern France, and Latin America. Usually danced by couples (men), it begins slowly, with the rhythm marked by castanets, clapping of hands, snapping of fingers, and the stamping of feet; the speed gradually increases.”[ii]

In Italian-born Classical composer Luigi Boccherini‘s répertoire, we find traces of the music of the land where he lived and worked: Iberia (Spain and Portugal). The fandango is an Iberian dance and is related to the Andalusian malagueña and flamenco.

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[i] “passacaglia.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 11 Aug. 2012. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/445625/passacaglia>.

[ii] “fandango.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 11 Aug. 2012. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/201489/fandango>.

11 August 2012

WordPress

The images are by Francisco Goya (2nd video)

The Ballet de cour, the Grotesque & a Minuet by Boccherini

08 Wednesday Aug 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Dance, Music, Wars of Religion

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Ballet de Cour, Daniel Rabel, French Wars of Religion, grotesque, Huguenot, Luigi Boccherini, Minuet, Suites

800px-daniel_rabel_-_the_royal_ballet_of_the_dowager_of_bilbaos_grand_ball_-_wga185921

The Royal Ballet for the Dowager of Bilbao’s Grand Ball by Daniel Rabel (1626)

Photo credit:

Grand Ballet de la douairière de Billebahaut (1626), Wikipedia, under Ballet de Cour

Luigi Boccherini (1764-1767), Wikipedia

The Royal Ballet for the Dowager of Bilbao’s Grand Ball by Daniel Rabel

The Wars of Religion

After writing about the Duc de Joyeuse who slaughtered Huguenots, it may be a good idea to look at absolutism. In France, absolutism meant: one king, one language, one religion. It was achieved at a cost that makes absolutism a Pyrrhic victory. Chasing away the Huguenots deprived France and New France of citizens who, by and large, were an asset to their community and would be asset to the countries to which they fled.

The Ballet de cour

Yet, as the Wars of Religion took their toll, courtiers danced. Jean-Baptiste Lully composed ballets de cour, but composers also wrote Suites, mostly dances. JS Bach‘s English Suites, French Suites and his Partitas (for the keyboard) are a good example of the union of rythme and melody, but his suites were not the galant music composed by his sons, the eldest, Wilhelm Friedemann and Johann Christian.

The “Classical” Suite for the keyboard consisted of an allemande, a courante, a sarabande(very slow), and a gigue (fast). It was developed in France and grew to contain the minuet, the gavotte, the passepied, and the bourrée. Some suites are introduced by a prelude.

The image at the top of this post features a grotesque ballet de cour. The grotesque flourished in the late years of the 16th century and the early years of the 17th century in France, showing a distorted form of beauty perhaps consistent with the pity of the wars of religions. The gargoyles of medieval cathedrals reflect a related duality.

Daniel Rabel was a 16th-century French court artist during the French religious wars. For several years he was a set and costume designer for nascent ballets de cour which he somehow ridiculed through grotesque depictions that can be associated with comedy.

Boccherini’s Menuet

But let us listen to a menuet by Luigi Boccherini. The menuet, or minuet, is a triple–meter dance (1–2–3 ; 1–2–3), perfect for a bal at court. The Waltz also has a triple meter: 1–2–3. As we know, Louis XIII wrote a ballet de cour, the Ballet de Merlaison, dance music. I do not know if Louis XIII’s music has already been entered into one of the official periods of music. I would surmise it is Baroque music. However, the Ballet de la Merlaison has been revived and was performed in May 2012, in Compiègne. But let us discuss Boccherini, whose music is delightful.

Luigi Rodolfo Boccherini (Lucca, Italy, 19 February 1743 – Madrid, Spain, 28 May 1805) is an Italian-born composer who worked and died in Spain. He composed in the Galante style, fashionable between the 1720s to the 1770s) and is a Classical composer. Boccherini was influenced by Spanish music. His Musica notturna delle strade di Madrid, but the Menuet I am featuring could have been composed by Haydn. It is in the sensitive style.