Sarabande
In music, the sarabande (Sp., zarabanda; It., sarabanda) is a dance in triple metre. The second and third beats of each measure are often tied, giving the dance a distinctive rhythm of quarter notes and eighth notes in alternation.[vague] The quarter notes are said to correspond with the dragging steps in the dance.[citation needed]
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History [edit]
The sarabande is first mentioned in Central America: in 1539, a dance called a zarabanda is mentioned in a poem written in Panama by Fernando Guzmán Mexía.[1] Apparently the dance became popular in the Spanish colonies before moving back across the Atlantic to Spain. While it was banned in Spain in 1583 for its obscenity, it was frequently cited in literature of the period (for instance in works by Cervantes and Lope de Vega).[2]
In the Baroque era the suite typically included a sarabande, as the third of four movements in the standard 18th-century form: allemande, courante, sarabande, gigue. Johann Sebastian Bach sometimes gave the sarabande a privileged place in his music even outside the context of dance suites; in particular, the aria theme and climactic 25th variation from Bach's Goldberg Variations are both sarabandes.
The sarabande form was revived in the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by the Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg (in his Holberg Suite of 1884), French composers such as Debussy and Satie, and in England, in different styles, Vaughan Williams (in Job: A Masque for Dancing), Benjamin Britten (in the Simple Symphony) and Herbert Howells (in Six Pieces for Organ: Saraband for the Morning of Easter).
One of the best-known constant-harmony variation types is the anonymous La Folia whose harmonic sequence appears in pieces of various types (mainly dances) by dozens of composers from the time of Mudarra (1546) and Corelli through the present day.[3] The theme of the fourth-movement Sarabande of Handel's Keyboard suite in D minor (HWV 437) for harpsichord is a variation of this piece, and is featured prominently in the film Barry Lyndon.[citation needed]
Other sarabandes [edit]
The sarabande inspired the title of Ingmar Bergman's last film Saraband (2003). The film uses the sarabande from Johann Sebastian Bach's Fifth Cello Suite, which Bergman also used in Cries and Whispers (1971).[4]
References [edit]
- ^ "Richard Hudson: "Sarabande", New Grove Online (subscription access)". Retrieved 2006-11-13.
- ^ Richard Hudson and Meredith Ellis Little, "Sarabande: 1. Early Development to c1640", The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London: Macmillan Publishers, 2001).
- ^ Giuseppe Gerbino and Alexander Silbiger, "Folia", The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London: Macmillan Publishers, 2001); Elaine Sisman, "Variations, §3: Variation Types", The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London: Macmillan Publishers, 2001).
- ^ Ingmar Bergman Saraband - Sources of inspiration
Further reading [edit]
- Carvajal, Mara Lioba Juan. 2007. La zarabanda: pluralidad y controversia de un género musical. Arte y expresión. [Zacatecas, Mexico]: Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas, Programa Integral de Fortalecimiento Institucional; México, D.F.: Plaza y Valdés. ISBN 9789707225626.
External links [edit]
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Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Saraband. |
- Example of a reconstructed Sarabande by Kaspar Mainz, with Il Giardino Armonico
- Streetswing.com Dance History Archives
- Example of a Sarabande dance choreography "La Sarabande à deux", Feuillet (1704)
