Sinking in a Sink-a-pace: Dowland and Dance
VOICES, INSTRUMENTS AND DANCERS – ONLINE PRESENTATION
Tutor: Elizabeth Dodd
Reviewer: Caroline Wood
Dowland tended to use much of the same music for both instrumental and vocal collections, and also had a deep understanding of dance forms. His works should be of interest equally to instrumentalists, singers, and dancers, and this was Elizabeth’s main reason for her choice of composer. She also observed that some singers and players do not always give dance the consideration its historic importance deserves.
Elizabeth instanced first of all the pavan, whose music in its youth was subordinate to the dance; but in middle age was caught up in 16th and 17th century composers’ tendency to see dance and instrumental music as one and the same (though not always: after all, Morley said of the fantasy, “the composer is tied to nothing, but that he may add, diminish, and alter at his pleasure” [Harman’s edition, p296]). Elizabeth’s examples of the pavan in its middle age included The Shooting of the Guns Pavan, which, while programmatic ‘art music’, used a rhythmical form that could still be danced to.
Elizabeth linked the arrival of the pavan’s third age to a change in musicians’ working practices. Before the 1580s, professional dance musicians were unlikely to have used written music, and would have played, and improvised upon, well-known grounds. After this time, composers used the structure of the pavan to write music in a more contrapuntal style, closer to fantasies for viols, often using 5-part vocal motets as models; some of the best examples are by Peter Philips, Alfonso Ferrabosco the younger, William Byrd, and Anthony Holborne. In the 17th century, composers such as John Jenkins and William Lawes took the pavan quite far away from its origins into a new art form, typified by the harmony and part-writing of Henry Purcell at the close of its era (after unexpected extra time).
Elizabeth noted that according to Diana Poulton, and Peter Holman, Dowland composed the words of the songs to fit the pre-existing tunes; although evidence generally seems to support this view, Elizabeth felt there were some places where it was questionable.
Turning to the 5-part pavan, we listened to Dowland’s Lachrimae Antiquae pavan while looking at a score. This showed a very different rhythmic and harmonic quality of part-writing from the earlier Shooting of the Guns pavan. The final two bars of Lachrimae Antiquae include an extra semibreve, but Elizabeth thought this was still a piece that could be danced to.
The Galliard was the major triple-time dance of the 16th century, and Poulton thought that it was Dowland’s favourite form. As a dance, it was mainly for men to show off their fitness and agility; when danced by a couple, the lady was only given quite simple steps. Elizabeth explained how the steps were arranged in units of 6 beats, and normally 4 units to a section; The simplest unit (the tordion) consisted of five low springs performed in 6 beats, with a leap into the air on beats 4 and 5, and a landing on beat 6. Holborne’s galliards start with a half bar of three beats, thus throwing the emphasis onto the dancer’s lift on beat 4 (Elizabeth showed us a video clip to demonstrate this).
Using examples from Dowland songs, Elizabeth discussed the question of dance-stress versus word-stress; this was particularly relevant to singers and instrumentalists. She suggested that the ways words should be stressed when played and sung could be the same as those used when dancing. Although it might sometimes lead to unnecessary accents in the vocal line, this would open up many more possibilities, and allow the singer more ways of interpreting the rhythmic lines.
Finally, Elizabeth talked about tempi, and gave examples of interpretations that would be too slow or fast to dance to comfortably, but which nevertheless she found convincing. However, she suggested that the most successful performances were those played at an appropriate speed for dancing. Her main conclusion was that, although singers in Dowland’s day might have paid more attention to putting across the meaning of words than worrying about dance speeds, both singers and instrumentalists would have had the shared background of an intimate knowledge of the dance form, and therefore an instinctive awareness of how to play and sing the music.
This was a most interesting, well-illustrated, and informative talk, especially for those of us who do not have any background in or knowledge of early dance. Although we should be flexible in our approach to singing and playing, especially in terms of speed and stresses, we should always be aware of the dancer; this certainly increases the possibilities of different ways to play the music.
Caroline Wood
Published in June 2021 Newsletter
