Sarabande

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Sarabande

In music

Music

Music is an art form whose media is sound organized in time. Common elements of music are pitch , rhythm , dynamics , and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture ....
, the sarabande (It., sarabanda) is a dance

Dance

Dance is an art form that generally refers to Motion of the body, usually rhythmic and to music, used as a form of Emotional expression, social social interaction or presented in a spirituality or performance setting....
in triple metre

Triple metre

Triple metre is a musical metre characterized by a primary division of 3 beats to the bar, usually indicated by 3 or 9 in the upper figure of the time signature, with 3/4 and 9/8 being the most common examples....
. The second and third beats of each measure are often tied, giving the dance a distinctive rhythm

Rhythm

Rhythm is the variation of the length and accentuation of a series of sounds or other events....
of crotchets and minims in alternation. The crotchets are said to have corresponded with dragging steps in the dance.

The sarabande is first mentioned in Central America

Central America

Central America is a central geography region of the Americas. It is the southernmost, isthmus portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast....
: in 1539, a dance called a zarabanda is mentioned in a poem written in Panama

Panama

Panama, officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of Central America and, in turn, North America. Situated on an isthmus connecting North and South America, some categorize it as a transcontinental nation....
by Fernando Guzmán Mexía.

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Encyclopedia

In music

Music

Dance

Triple metre

Rhythm

Central America

Panama

Spain

Spain or the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in Southern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though Espa?a , Estado espa?ol and Naci?n espa?ola are used interchangeably....
. 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

Miguel de Cervantes

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was a Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright. His magnum opus, Don Quixote, considered the first modern novel by many, is a classic of Western literature and is regularly regarded among the best novels ever written....
and Lope de Vega

Lope de Vega

Lope de Vega was a Spain Spanish Baroque literature playwright and poet. His reputation in the world of Spanish language letters is second only to that of Miguel de Cervantes, while the sheer volume of his literary output is unequalled:...
).

Later, it became a traditional movement of the suite

Suite

In music, a suite is an ordered set of instrumental or orchestral pieces normally performed in a concert setting rather than as accompaniment; they may be extracts from an opera, ballet, or incidental music to a play or film , or they may be entirely original movements ....
during the baroque

Baroque music

Baroque music describes a period or style of European classical music approximately extending from Dates of classical music eras. This era is said to begin in music after the Renaissance music and was followed by the Classical music era....
period, usually coming directly after the Courante

Courante

The courante, corrente, coranto and corant are just some of the names given to a family of triple metre dances from the late Renaissance and the Baroque....
. The baroque sarabande is commonly a slow triple rather than the much faster Spanish original, consistent with the courtly European interpretations of many Latin dances. This slower, less spirited interpretation of the dance form was codified in the writings of various 18th century musicologists; Johann Gottfried Walther wrote in his Musicalisches Lexicon (Leipzig, 1723) that the sarabande is "a grave,...somewhat short melody," and Johann Mattheson likewise wrote in Der Vollkommene Capellmeister (Hamburg, 1739) that the sarabande "expresses no passion other than reverence" .

The sarabande form was revived in the 20th Century by composers such as Debussy

Claude Debussy

Achille-Claude Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he is considered one of the most prominent figures working within the field of Impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions....
, Satie

Erik Satie

Alfred ?ric Leslie Satie was a France composer and pianist. Starting with his first composition in 1884, he signed his name as Erik Satie....
and, in a different style, Vaughan Williams

Ralph Vaughan Williams

Ralph Vaughan Williams Order of Merit was an England composer of symphony, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film Film score. He was also a collector of England folk music and folk song; this also influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, which began in 1904, many folk song arrangements being set as hymn tunes,...
(in Job) and Benjamin Britten

Benjamin Britten

Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, Order of Merit Order of the Companions of Honour was an England composer, conducting, viola and pianist....
(in the Simple Symphony).

In 1976 ex-Deep Purple organist Jon Lord

Jon Lord

Jon Douglas Lord is an English composer, Hammond organ and piano player.Lord is recognised for his Hammond organ blues-rock sound and for his pioneering work in fusing rock and classical or baroque forms....
based his album Sarabande
Sarabande (Jon Lord album)

Sarabande is the second solo album by Jon Lord. It's a Classic Rock fusion album recorded near D?sseldorf . The orchestra was conducted by Eberhard Schoener....
entirely on the concept of a baroque dance suite. Performed by the Philharmonia Hungarica

Philharmonia Hungarica

The Philharmonia Hungarica was a symphony orchestra, based in Germany, which existed from 1956 to 2001.It was first established in Baden bei Wien near Vienna by Hungary musicians who had fled their homeland after it was 1956 Hungarian Revolution....
and a selection of rock musicians (including Andy Summers on guitar, who would later join The Police

The Police

The Police were an English Power trio Rock music band consisting of Sting , Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland . The band became globally popular in the late 1970s, playing a style of rock that was influenced by jazz, punk rock and reggae music....
), the album mixes classical and rock influences.

Perhaps the most famous sarabande is the anonymous La folie espagnole whose melody

Melody

In music, a melody , also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones which is perceived as a single entity....
appears in pieces by dozens of composers from the time of Monteverdi

Claudio Monteverdi

Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi , was an Italian composer, viol, and singer.Monteverdi's work, often regarded as revolutionary, marked the transition from the music of the Renaissance music to that of the Baroque music....
and Corelli

Arcangelo Corelli

Arcangelo Corelli was an Italian violinist and composer of Baroque music....
through the present day.

Handel's Sarabande

Although George Frideric Handel

George Frideric Handel

George Frideric Handel was an England Baroque music composer of Germany birth who is famous for his operas, oratorios, and concerto grosso. His life and music may justly be described as "cosmopolitan": he was born in Germany, trained in Italy, and spent most of his life in England....
wrote many sarabande movements, the one included as the fourth movement in his Keyboard suite in D minor (HWV 437)

Keyboard suite in D minor (HWV 437)

The 'Keyboard suite in D minor' was composed by George Frideric Handel, for solo keyboard , between 1703 and 1706. It is also referred to as Suite de pi?ce Vol....
for solo

Solo (music)

In music, a solo is a piece or a section of a piece played or sung by a single performer. In practice this means a number of different things, depending on the type of music and the context....
harpsichord

Harpsichord

A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a musical keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when each Key is pressed....
achieved immense popularity when an orchestrated version was used by Stanley Kubrick

Stanley Kubrick

Stanley Kubrick was an influential American-British filmmaker, screenwriter, Film producer and photographer. He directed a number of highly acclaimed and often controversial films....
for his 1975 film Barry Lyndon
Barry Lyndon

Barry Lyndon is a period film by Stanley Kubrick loosely based on the novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray. It recounts the exploits of unscrupulous 18th century Ireland adventurer Barry Lyndon, particularly his rise and fall in England society....
. Later, Brian De Palma

Brian De Palma

Brian De Palma is an US film director. In a career spanning over forty years, he is probably best known for his suspense and thriller films, including such box office successes as Carrie , Dressed to Kill , Scarface , The Untouchables , and Mission: Impossible ....
featured the same orchestration as the overture for his 2007 film Redacted
Redacted (film)

Redacted is a film written and directed by Brian De Palma that is a fictional drama loosely based on the Mahmudiyah killings in Iraq. This film, which is a companion to an earlier film by De Palma, 1989's Casualties of War, was shot in Jordan....
. Also, in another direct reference to Barry Lyndon, Michael Winterbottom

Michael Winterbottom

Michael Winterbottom is a prolific United Kingdom filmmaker who has directed sixteen films in the past thirteen years. He began his career working in British television before moving into features....
included this sarabande in A Cock and Bull Story
A Cock and Bull Story

'A Cock and Bull Story' is a 2006 in film United Kingdom comedy Film director by Michael Winterbottom. It is a Story within a story, featuring Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon playing themselves as egotistical actors during the making in a screen adaptation of Laurence Sterne's 18th century novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gent...
in a new arrangement by Michael Nyman

Michael Nyman

Michael Laurence Nyman, Order of the British Empire is an England composer of minimalist music, pianist, libretto and musicologist, perhaps best known for the many movie soundtrack he wrote during his lengthy collaboration with the film director Peter Greenaway, and his multi-platinum The Piano to Jane Campion's The Piano....
.

It also made an appearance on the 2008 HBO Series John Adams, about the life of the second president of the United States

John Adams

John Adams was an Politics of the United States and the List of Presidents of the United States President of the United States , after being the List of Vice Presidents of the United States Vice President of the United States for two terms....
. It appeared in episode 4, when Adams (Paul Giamatti

Paul Giamatti

'Paul Edward Valentine Giamatti' is an Emmy_Award, Golden_Globe_Award-winning and Academy Award-nominated United States actor. He began his career as a supporting actor in several films produced during the 1990s including Private Parts , before earning lead roles in several critically acclaimed projects in the 2000s including American Splend...
) meets King George III (played by Tom Hollander

Tom Hollander

Thomas Anthony "Tom" Hollander is an award-winning English actor who has appeared in productions such as Enigma , Gosford Park, Cambridge Spies, Pride and Prejudice and Pirates of the Caribbean films....
) while serving as Minister to Great Britain.

The Levi's campaign "Freedom to Move" used a different arrangement of the sarabanade to accompany it's titular jeans' surreal commercial.

Other sarabandes

The sarabande inspired the title of Ingmar Bergman

Ingmar Bergman

Ernst Ingmar Bergman was a Sweden director, writer and Film producer for film, stage and television. He depicted bleakness and despair as well as comedy and hope in his explorations of the human condition....
's last film Saraband
Saraband

Saraband is a Sweden telemovie by film director Ingmar Bergman and his last theatrically released work. The film is a sequel to Bergman's Scenes from a Marriage , bringing back to the screen the characters of Johan and Marianne, played by Erland Josephson and Liv Ullmann respectively....
(2003). Each of Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and organ whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque music period and brought it to its ultimate maturity....
's cello suites contains a sarabande, and the film uses the sarabande from his fifth suite, which Bergman also used in Cries and Whispers
Cries and Whispers

Cries and Whispers is a 1973 Sweden film about two sisters who watch over their third sister on her deathbed, torn between fearing she might die and hoping that she will....
(1971). The sarabande from the second Bach suite serves as the primary theme in Bergman's Through a Glass Darkly
Through a Glass Darkly (film)

Through a Glass Darkly is a 1961 in film Cinema of Sweden written and director by Ingmar Bergman, and produced by Allan Ekelund. The film is a Three act structure ?chamber film,? in which four family members act as mirrors for each other....
(1961). The sarabande is also the inspiration behind Indian/Persian musician Karishmeh Felfeli

Karishmeh Felfeli

Karishmeh Felfeli-Crawford is a pianist, vocalist,broadcaster educator and Artistic Director of which is based in Dublin, Ireland. Karishmeh divides her time between Ottawa, Canada and Dublin, Ireland....
-Crawford's Performance Project who cites the Sarabande from Johann Sebastian Bach's Sixth French Suite as the inspiration behind the name.

The Swedish

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic countries on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden has land borders with Norway to the west and Finland to the northeast, and it is connected to Denmark by the ?resund Bridge in the south....
alternative rock

Alternative rock

Alternative rock is a genre of rock music that emerged in the 1980s and became widely popular in the 1990s. Alternative rock consists of various subgenres that have emerged from the independent music scene since the 1980s, such as Grunge music, Britpop, gothic rock, and indie pop....
band ALPHA 60

ALPHA 60

ALPHA 60 is an alternative rock band from Uppsala, Sweden, formed in 2008. Their name is a reference to the 1965 film noir classic Alphaville ; Alpha 60 being the computer controlling Jean-Luc Godard's dystopian city....
have a song called Sarabande, partially containing a variation on this chord progression.

Sarabande

Handel's Sarabande

Other sarabandes

External links