If you have been to many guitar recitals or heard many guitar recordings
the chances are you have been exposed to the baroque suite. You may even
have had the chance to wonder what it is, why there are some pieces that
seem to be called the same in each one, and why there are other groups of
pieces that sound pretty similar but are not called "suites".
What's going on?
This article looks at the Baroque Suite from the historical point of view,
defines it, analyses its components and discusses its relevance to the classical
guitar.
Firstly the historical question. By 'Baroque' we mean that period of musical
history starting sometime around 1650-75 and ending circa 1750. Music before
this had been predominantly in smaller musical forms, for small ensembles
and written in a style that was heavily influenced by vocal music, even
when played on instruments. So it was usually pieces just a few minutes
long (6 minutes is pretty long for a renaissance composition!), for typically
up to 5 or 6 players, and in a very polyphonic style where the voices are
of equal importance. The Baroque developed the use of larger forms, larger
instrumental groupings, and while composition remained largely polyphonic,
instrumental writing became more idiomatic to the instruments concerned
and slightly less concerned with equality of voices.
One important part of music making in the Baroque period (as before and
since) was music for dancing, and the standard pieces used both for actual
dancing and also for much abstract 'listening' music became consolidated
in what is now recognised as the Baroque suite This is based on a group
of four core dances, the Allemande, the Courante, the Saraband and the Gigue.
Other dances can be added to the list, usually between the sarabande and
the gigue, but a suite is quite complete with just those four core elements.
All the dance movements are in binary form, that's to say, in two sections,
both of which repeat. The first section is usually slightly shorter than
the second, and introduces melodic ideas which will be somewhat developed
in the second.
To start with an analysis of the core ingredients.
The Allemande, as its name suggests, is a dance of German character and
origin. It is in 4 time, and stately and dignified in nature. Most allemandes
are ruined if played at all fast, they need an air of unhurried propriety
and a smooth gliding motion.
The Courante is of French origin. Literally it means 'running', and this
is reflected in the rhythm and character of the piece, which is in triple
time. However there are actually two variants; the courante is the French
form and is typically of a broken texture (often described as being influenced
by the lute style), not overly fast though brisk. The corrente is the Italian
form, and this is often of a smoother, lighter texture, frequently made
up of a running upper line and supporting bass line, and suitable for a
faster tempo than the courante.
The Sarabande in the Baroque style is a very slow dance in triple time.
It wasn't always thus; it came originally from the New World and when imported
to Spain was a fast and wild dance with lascivious movements - it was banned
as a result, and ended up with its naughty origins sublimated into an intense
and emotionally charged form in the baroque suite.
Gigue comes from the jig, the dance associated with Scotland and Ireland
and in fact of Scandinavian origin. It is in compound time, ie 6/8, though
occasionally 12/8 or 3/8. Being the final dance it is fast and energetic.
Some composers, principally Bach, use the gigue as the occasion of a little
contrapuntal invention, the first statement of the movement's melodic idea
(heard right at the beginning of the dance) being inverted - ie literally
turned upside down - at the beginning of the second section.
While the national characteristics described are important background for
each dance, and their understanding and suitable interpretation are important
matters to the performer and audience, it should not be supposed that much
of each nation's more superficially obvious musical characteristics are
found in baroque dances; a gigue does not sound Irish!
However you can see from these four dances, slowish-quickish-slow-fast,
how composers and listeners found the contrast of tempo and mood a productive
way to structure a musical entity of some 15-20 minutes. There is rarely
if ever however any tangible musical thread running through the dances,
by way of motif or recognisable common musical element; rather a suite will
tend to have a certain common mood or feel that lends it a sense of integrity
and cohesion. It should also be noted that the same key is generally used
throughout a suite.
Additional movements are commonly found in baroque suites. A prelude to
precede the allemande could be in more or less any shape or form, though
necessarily something to contrast with the allemande in mood and style.
Most other additional movements - sometimes called the galanterie are
found after the sarabande. They include;
Bourée - a brisk dance in four time starting on the 4th beat of the
bar
Gavotte - a medium tempo dance in four starting on the 3rd beat, often found
in pairs
Minuet - a graceful dance in three, usually found in pairs, the second of
which commonly takes a 'rustic' style with imitated drones
Chaconne or Ciaccona - a stately dance in three (somewhat sarabande like)
formed of variations on a melodic/harmonic sequence
Passacaglia - sometimes confused with the above, but strictly a variation
form based on a bass figure.
These and some other less used dances are then the elements composers could
draw on to compile a suite of dances for publication or the edification
of employers. The instruments used could be the lute, baroque guitar, harpsichord,
cello, viols, small ensemble groupings or orchestral-size groupings (which
at this period means upto about 20 players.) It could function as background
music for fancy occasions or dinners, or as listening music for guests.
It was highly organised and stylised music - despite its roots in the common
soil - and was not the sort of music ordinary people heard on a regular
basis, or would be likely to appreciate, as it was associated primarily
with the well educated and the aristocratic.
It should be noted that while the commonest grouping of pieces in this manner
is referred to as a 'suite', there are other possible names, and the differences
are more than merely academic.
Firstly, nearly synonymous with 'suite' is 'partita'; this is a group of
dance movements, the difference usually being that a partita has a much
larger proportion of non-standard movements than the suite, often not possessing
all of the usual four.
Secondly, the term sonata, as used by most baroque composers, refers to
a set of four movements, on a slow-fast-slow-fast-pattern (like the basic
suite!) but without the dance qualities being always present. Thus usually
the slow first movement is too free in style to be an allemande; the second
movement is also free and may be a fugue (as in the Bach solo violin sonatas).
The third movement is sometimes more like a dance, and the conclusion will
usually feature a dance-like rhythm of some kind, and is certainly very
lively. This usage of 'sonata' must be carefully distinguished from that
made by Domenico Scarlatti, who used the term to describe his large output
of single movement, binary form keyboard compositions, many of which are
today heard transcribed for guitar.
One instrument that was never used in fact at this period was the classical
guitar, which in its present form did not exist until the later 18th Century.
The baroque guitar was a smaller instrument with fewer strings and various
differences of tuning and technique, and there are several difficulties
involved in arranging music written for baroque guitar for the modern equivalent,
as there are with music for the baroque lute, despite the apparent similarities
of sound, style of playing etc. However it is true to say that once guitarists
started taking the whole integrity of the music they were performing more
seriously, the issue of performing whole suites, rather than isolated movements
or collections of movements from various different suites, it became very
important to present the suite as a complete unit. It is therefore part
of the issue guitarists have long had with length in compositions, it being
often supposed that the instrument was not suited to long compositions of
structural complexity. The suite solves this by presenting a large structure
that is broken down into easily identifiable parts, ie the various movements,
but still offering a large chunk of music that can be played without breaks
for applause.
Certainly, no other instrument draws on such a wide and varied range of
musical sources for its suites; from the cello (and violin) solo repertoires,
the harpsichord music of Bach and sometimes Handel, the lute music of Weiss
and friends, the baroque guitar music of de Visée and others. In
its way the adoption of the baroque suite was a major step forward in the
instrument's maturity of artistic purpose.
© 1997 Stephen Kenyon