FORM IN MUSIC

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 429, 12 September 1947, Page 12

FORM IN MUSIC

THE third of a series of brief articles by

BESSIE

POLLARD

Mus. Bac..

on "Form in Music."

These articles are closely related to a series of |

programmes om the same topic now being heard from 2YC on Friday evenings. Each of our articles is illustrated by a few bars of the music under discussion,

3 The Suite RADITIONAL dance tunes formed the backbone of instrumental music when it was groping its way towards dis-asso-ciation from vocal music around the 16th Century. So it followed that composers began to group together existing dance tunes to be played in sequence as a Suite. Even in 16th Century lute-books we find dances of the

day in groups of two or three, but it was the ubiquitous J. S.-Bach who gave the Suite its typical outline with four main movements (Allemande-Courante -Sarabande-Gigue) and a preferential arrangement of one to three dances, the "galanteries," slipped in before the final movement, Now let us examine a standard Bach Suite. The opening Allemande is a stately dance in a moderate 4/4 time. Then follows the continuously running Courante, which could be one of two types, French or Italian. Next is the Sarabande. It is ‘said to be derived from a dance taken to Spain by the Moors, but by the time it had taken its place in the classical Suite it had become thoroughly decorous. The group of galanteries was made up of more recent dance movements of French extraction-those mostly used were the Menuet, the Gavotte, the Bourree; less often used were the Loure, the Polonaise, the Air. The Suite concludes with a lively movement in compound time and in fugal style called the Gigue-an extremely patrician relation of the humble English | or Irish Jig. : Handel frequently allowed the strict classical order to languish in his Suites _-probably to create variety-by intro- ducing such alien movements as the Fugue, or Air with variations. His nearcontemporary, the French composer Francois Couperin-le-Grand, also varied the traditional forms in his "ordres," or Suites, by giving these charming move‘ments quaint descriptive titles — Allemande, "La Ténébreuse," Sarabande, "La Majestueuse"; Gigue, "La Milordine." i After Bach, for some time the Suite almost lapsed as a determinate form, but during the 19th Century the title was ‘reborn to name and group incidental _music from plays, operas, and ballets

and so on. Later, the pictorial Suite became a very important form in concert programmes. Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade is of this type, consisting of a chain of symphonic pieces with the main unifying idea summoned up by the gorgeous pageantry of the Arabian Nights. In Gustav Holst’s great symphonic Suite The Planets, the requisite basic unity is obtained from the occult concept underlying the planets’ astrological aspect rather than from a concrete portrayal or narrative. Twentieth century neoclassical composers have written Suites

(in "modern, dress" harmonically) in some cases incorporating classical dance forms with modern popular dances. Who knows if the fox-trot, rumba, and modern waltz tunes and rhythms of to-day will one day emerge as movements for the Suite of a future time cycle? "THE SUITE"-the third of the series FORM IN MUSIC-will be heard from Station 2YC at 9.30 p.m. on Friday, September 19. Te A or EN OE Sk NN a