1290886

Dances to Evoke the King: The Majestic Genre Chez Louis XIVAuthor(s): Fiona GarlickSource: Dance Research: The Journal of the Society for Dance Research, Vol. 15, No. 2, Papersfrom the Dance to Honour Kings Conference (Winter, 1997), pp. 10-34Published by: Edinburgh University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1290886 .

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DANCES TO EVOKE THE KING: THE MAJESTIC GENRE CHEZ LOUIS XIV

Fiona Garlick

The French overture is considered to epitomise the majesty and splendour of the court of Louis XIV. Its invention has been attributed to Jean-Baptiste Lully, an Italian violinist who first achieved fame as a composer of ballet music at the French court, and came to dominate stage music in France until, and even beyond, his death in 1687. On stylistic grounds, this form of overture is said to have been derived from entrees in French ballets of the early seventeenth century, incorporating elements from the Venetian canzona.1 The earliest recognisable examples have been identified in Lully's ballets l'Amour Malade (1657) and Alcidiane (1658). However, this account of its development takes little heed of the close relationship of the French overture to court dance and ceremonial under Louis XIV. While this paper cannot pretend to arrive at any conclusions as to the precise development or interpretation of the French overture, it is proposed to explore three areas of court dance to which the overture was apparently related, each of which in turn was at some time associated with the presence and participation of the King. These three areas, which could be considered the basis of French majestic dance, comprise: noble deportment, the opening dances of the court ball, and the balletic entree grave.

Of the three, the entree grave is the most readily recognised, as musical theorists since the early eighteenth century have com- pared its slow duple measure and dotted rhythms to the first part of the overture.2 More recently, it has been suggested that these characteristic rhythms recall the measured pace of the king, and that the performance of the overture probably heralded or coincided with the monarch's arrival in the theatre.3 Yet it is hard to reconcile the 'jerky' interpretation of these dotted rhythms with the image of the king making his entrance displaying that imposing but graceful gait which so many dance masters were at pains to impart to their students. Louis XIV was acknowledged to have been a superlative dancer, his natural skill in the dance infusing all his actions

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DANCES TO EVOKE THE KING

with majesty and rendering him an exemplar not only for other courtiers, but for professional dancers as well.

The third area of dance associated with the overture is the group of ceremonial dances with which the court ball tradition- ally opened, beginning with the branles. Joan Wildeblood has already noted the similarities between the first and second branles in the suite, the branles simple and gai, and the French overture with its fugue.4 For corroboration of this possible connection we are indebted to the writings of the Englishman, Roger North,5 whose observations on the changes which took place in English music after the Restoration provide some fascinating insights into musical practices of the French court as introduced by Charles II on his return to England. North's evident acquaintance with the dance illuminates his essays with interesting and at times puzzling references to court and theatrical dance in the late seventeenth century. Several are of particular relevance to the majestic genre.6

Although North is generally critical of the light balletic style of French music for which Charles II had acquired a passion7 and which had supplanted the older English music at court, he has praise for certain musical compositions by Jean-Baptiste Lully: 'With Charles II came in a sort of musick after the Frenche patterne proper for dinner and a ball. Monsr Babtist [i.e. Lully] had refined his country's jejune stile of the ball, with the spirit of the Italian, and introduced a noble harmony in his overtures, and excellent aires in the branles and ballets, I thinck not equal'd by any of his imitators.'s Years later, he expands upon this observation, noting that the French music in request had 'consisted of an Entry (perhaps) and then Brawles, as they were called, that is motive aires, and dances'.9 He explains that

the manner was theatricall, and the setts of lessons composed, called Branles (as I take it) or Braules; that is, beginning with an Entry, and then Courants, &c. And the Entrys of Baptist ever were, and will be valued as most stately and compleat harmony.... But the whole tendency of the ayre had more regard to the foot, than the ear, and no one could hear an Entree with its starts, and saults, but must expect a dance to follow, so lively may human actions be pictured by music.10

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DANCE RESEARCH

Branles

Suites of branles had since the sixteenth century been described as the opening dances of the ball in France.1 When the violins began to play at a court ball in 1612, the young Louis XIII danced the first branle before taking his seat while others continued with courantes.12 In his turn, the seven-year-old Louis XIV led the branles at the ball given in celebration of the marriage of the King and Queen of Poland in 1645.13 Fifteen years later, he and his Queen danced the 'overture' of a masked ball given in honour of an envoy from the Spanish court. Israel Silvestre's engraving of the event clearly shows the curved linear formation of the branles.14 [Illustration 1.] New suites were composed almost every year during the 1660s - not only by Lully but by various other court composers-cum-violinists.'5 The branles continued to perform the same ceremonial function for much of his reign, at least until the magnificent ball held at Versailles to celebrate the marriage of the Duke and Duchess of Burgundy in 1697, though they were abandoned soon after- wards. 16

The prestige and influence of Louis XIV's court was such that in its heyday the suite of branles (and other French dances) was exported to the English, Swedish17 and many German-speaking courts,l8 and probably also to Italy.'9 New branles were amongst the French dances brought to England by fashionable dance masters during the last years of the Commonwealth.20 They were incorporated into the court ball repertoire at the instigation of Charles II in the 1660s, and composers such as Locke and Paisible were responsible for creating suites on the Lullian model.21

North's admiration for the majestic quality of Lully's branles rests on what he calls the 'entry'. However, neither choreographic nor musical sources refer to an initial 'entry' or entree. The most complete descriptions of the court branles, from F. de Lauze (1623) and Marin Mersenne (1636), indicate that the suite consisted of between four and six items: the branles simple, gai, a mener ('leading' branle, also called branle de Poitou), double de Poitou, de Montirande and gavotte.22 In musical sources, including those for Lully's two surviving suites, the first movement usually passes

12




1. 'Bal dans la Grande antichambre du Louvre'. Israel Silvestre, 1662. Musee du Louvre, D6partement des Arts Graphiques.

under a collective title such as 'Bransles de Dumanoir', or is simply marked 'Bransle' while the following dances are indivi- dually titled 'Gay', 'Amener' and so on.23

The term entrie is more familiar in the theatrical context: in the mid-seventeenth century it served to denote a section of a ballet equivalent to a scene or act of a play, and was characterised by the arrival of dancers in new costumes to indicate the introduction of

I3



DANCE RESEARCH

a new theme or subject.24 By the end of the century, it was also employed in a generic sense to indicate a dance from a ballet or opera, and many choreographies of the early eighteenth century are so titled.25 In dance treatises, however, from as early as the fifteenth century the term was applied to ballroom dances and distinguished the opening part of a dance, with its customary bows, from the steps and variations which followed. De Lauze himself uses the term in relation to the opening of the branle a mener (third in the suite), explaining that this branle must begin with a bow similar to that before the first.26

It is possible then that North's term 'entry' refers to the first dance of the suite, the branle simple, which began with reverences.27 All the dance sources agree that the opening branle was solemn in character, which might explain why North seems to imply that it was not a dance, but followed by a dance. Mersenne informs us that the branle simple is danced 'very gravely in a circle' while the branle gay is 'quicker'.28 Thirty years later, La Voye Mignot describes branls simples as 'grave', in contrast with the other branles which were to be played 'lightly' or with 'gaiety'.29 De Pure considers that, with the exception of the first in the suite, the branles were more suitable for men than for women, as they progressed from continuous jumping and running to such vigorous agitations of the body in the gavotte that it robbed the suite of any trace of gravity which might be found in the others.30 His view of the branle suite is remarkably consistent with North's opinion that the French branles (along with Italian sonatas and English fancies) might provide miniature models for his ideal concert structure, finding in them a development from gravity to levity which is both decorous and dramatic.31 [llustration 2. Musical Examples 1 and 2.]

Entree grave

Having described the Lullian manner of opening the ball as 'theatrical', North relates the decorum of the ballroom specifically to that of the stage, once again using the term 'entry'. In his discussion of chamber music compositions he approves the practice of commencing in a grave or majestic manner. To begin a sonata with an allegro would be for him 'as if a balle at

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2. 'Danse pour les Bals': Branle de Mr. de Lully, Branle guay, Branle a mener. (Andre Danican Philidor, l'aine, Suite des dances pour les violons, et hautbois. Qui se jouent ordinairement a tous les bals chez e Roy... I'an 1712, f. 3.) Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, MS Vm7.3555 Cliche Bibliotheque nationale de France.

Court began with a morris-dance, or running Barley-break about the room'. Regardless of subject matter, the beginning of a work 'ought to be serious, and as much as may be majestick'. North then cites as examples the 'Italian canzoni of the last age', most

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DANCE RESEARCH

compositions by Corelli, 'some of the opera entrys' which 'seem to argue and declaime' and the entries of Lully. Of the last he writes, 'how stately are his entrys!', and elsewhere asks, 'What is more relevant than a solemn dancer's entry, with his lofty cutts, and no trifling stepps, which soon after follow fast enough?'.32

Here North seems to be referring not to the branles, but to the entree grave, a species of the balletic entree which was classified (along with the loure) as the slowest of all dances in duple or compound time.33 The entree grave and the related loure (the slow jig) are well-represented in French dance notations of the early eighteenth century.34 Both belong specifically to the noble theatrical genre, and are the most technically demanding dances in the serious repertoire. Although he does not refer to the entree grave in particular, John Weaver identifies the 'Grave' category of serious stage dance as 'the most difficult'. It required 'softness, easie Bendings and Risings, and Address' where the 'Brisk' demanded 'Vigour, Lightness, Agility, quicksprings, with a Steadiness, and Command of the Body'. Weaver implies that both included such steps as 'Capers, and Cross-Capers of all kinds; Pirouttes [sic], Batteries, and indeed almost all Steps from the Ground' - all of which are to be found in the extant choreographies. In both genres he acknowledges the superiority of French performers, citing in particular 'Monsieur Pecour' dancing the Chacoone, or Passacaille, which he classed among the dances of the 'grave Movement'.35

Like the suite of French court branles, the solemn entry had close connections with Louis XIV. Most entree graves are male solos associated with the representation of kings, gods and heroes on stage. The best-known example is the entree d'Apollon from Lully's ballet Le Triomphe de l'Amour given in 1681 to celebrate the marriage of the Dauphin.3 Two choreographies exist for this entree, one by Feuillet and one by Pecour.37 [Illustrations 3 and 4.] Although they are not from the original performance choreographed by Pierre Beauchamps, they inevi- tably recall the majestic entrees created for Louis XIV in the role of Apollo or the Sun in numerous court ballets between 1653 and 1670.3 [Illustrations 5 and 6.] Music for Lully's entree d'Apollon appears in many musical collections and provided a model for French music and dance pedagogues in the eighteenth century as the characteristic dance in slow duple time, along

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3. 'Entree d'Appolon pour un homme non dancee a l'Opera', choreography by Guillaume-Louis Pecour to music of the same name from Lully's ballet, Le Triomphe de l'Amour (1681), LWV 59/58. R.-A. Feuillet, Recueil de dances contenant un tres grand nombres, des meillieures entries de ballet de Af. Pecour. . . (Paris: the author, 1704; facsimile reprint, Westmead: Gregg International, 1972), p. 195.

with the first part of the overture.39 [Illustration 7. Musical examples 3 and 4.]

Perhaps the best account of grave theatrical dance comes from the mid-eighteenth century, when Casanova reported

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4. 'Entree d'Apolon', choreography by R.-A. Feuillet, to music of the same name from Lully'sLe Triomphe de l'amour (1681), LWV 59-58. R.-A. Feuillet, Recueil de dances, composees par M. Feuillet, Maftre de dance (Paris: the author, 1700; fascimile reprint, bound with Chorigraphie, New York: Broude Brothers, 1968), p. 60. Reproduced by arrangement with Bronde Brothers Limited.

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5. Costume design for Louis XIV as Apollo in the Ballet de la Nuit (1654), 4th part, final entree. Workshop of Henry de Gissey. Paris, Bibliotheque Nation- ale, Est., Coll. Hennin, tome XLI. Cliche Bibliotheque nationale de France.

I9



DANCE RESEARCH

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6. Costume design from Louis XIV as Apollo in Les Noces de Pelee et de Thitis

(1654) Prologue. Workshop of Henry de Gissey. Paris, Bibliotheque de l'Institut, Ms 1005, pl. 1. Bibliotheque de l'Institut de France, Paris.

seeing 'le grand' Dupre performing in Campra's opera-ballet Les Fetes Venitiennes at the Paris Opera. Casanova watched the arrival of

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7. 'Entree d'Apollon' (melody),J.-B. Lully, Le Triomphe de l'Amour (1681), LWV 59/58.

a tall, handsome, masked dancer, with an immense black wig that tumbled halfway down his back. His robe reached to his heels and was open in front.... The impressive figure advanced with measured steps. Reaching the front of the stage, the dancer slowly and gracefully raised and moved his arms, now stretching them out, now crossing them, all the while executing some nimble and precise footwork, leaps and pirouettes. Then he vanished like the wind. The whole interlude took scarcely half a minute.

When he reappeared later, Casanova noted that 'he stepped close to the footlights and stood for a moment in a gesture of perfect grace'. Voices from the pit called 'watch him grow!', and Casanova had to agree that 'it did seem as though Dupre's whole body were elastic, as though it were unfolding and growing in size'.40 According to this account, Dupre was sixty years old, but in his dancing maintained the same absolute perfection achieved forty years before. His performances earned him the epithets 'Le Dieu de la Danse' and 'Apollon de la Danse' and French audiences considered the constancy of his dancing a

21



DANCE RESEARCH

matter of pride. Dupre was perpetuating the tradition of the danseur noble, the archetype of which was, of course, Louis XIV himself.

Steps and Rhythms of the Majestic

The common thread which links the opening music of the overture to that of the branle simple and entree grave is the recurrent rhythm of dotted crotchet and quaver pairs. This must surely have its origins in the 'majestic tread' with which Louis XIV opened the dancing at the ball or made his entree in the ballet. Yet in spite of the variety of evidence available, it is difficult to determine the precise nature of those steps. Roger North again provides some food for thought.

As far as the branles are concerned, it has been established that the branle simple was the most solemn. North equated it with 'the most stately step'.41 The term simple would seem to indicate single steps, as distinct from double (that is, divided or embellished) steps or variations.42 De Pure's description of the other dances in the suite as variously 'jumping', 'running' and 'agitating' the body imply by comparison that the branle simple required only decorous steps on the ground.43 This is supported by de Lauze, whose rather inadequate but unique instructions for this branle indicate only stepping, rising and sliding move- ments, with emphasis on the steady carriage of the head and use of the eyes to 'ennoble' the dance.44

In North's opinion, the 'entry' of Lully's branles belonged to a particular species of the grave, characterised by a rhythmic figure he calls the 'start'. He attributes its invention to Lully, declaring that 'all the Entrys of his Branles, as they were called, were of this action, but withal unexceptionable music'.45 [Illustration 8.] Significantly, North goes on to observe of the 'start' that 'the hand nicely agrees with the foot', noting the fashion for the violin bowstroke he calls the 'stabb' or stoccata, which had overtaken the arcata or long bowstroke. This would suggest that the dancer's foot was lowered to the floor at the same time as the violinist's hand made a vigorous downwards bowstroke on the dotted crotchets, and perhaps also that the raising of the foot corre- sponded to the shortened up-bow on the semiquaver.6 To take

22




8. 'The start' from Roger North, The Musicall Grammarian, c. 1728. Hereford Cathedral Library, MS. R.II.xlii, ff. 72-78. Transcribed in John Wilson, ed., Roger North on Music (London: Novello, 1959), p. 185.

this even further, the semiquaver rest which intervenes might indicate that the dancer remained immobile for a split second before preparing for the next step. At any rate, it seems that the dancer made two steps in the course of the bar, and that these were not even walking steps, but dance steps requiring some skill to perform.

However, Lully's branles simples (and entrees graves) reveal no such shortened upbeats, but instead include many paired dotted crotchets and quavers. This raises the spectre of musical performance practice - a matter which will not be pursued here. While evidence for the steps of the branle simple is inadequate, if North's comment were extended to apply to the performance of the entree grave, then it would probably have implications for the interpretation of the dance itself. As Feuillet indicates, this entree was danced in quadruple time, each bar containing the equivalent of two bars' worth of steps in duple time.47 Thus, where in a gavotte, for example, rhythmic altera- tion in the form of notes inegales could apply on the level of the quaver without distorting the rhythms of the dance, in the entree grave it shifted to the semiquaver level.48

Regardless of such matters of interpretation, North's identifi- cation of these rhythms can still provide an insight into the underlying character of the dance. To his example of the 'start' North adds 'a basso andante to shew how well that sober style joynes with the desultory action of the upper part, as of one pacifying the rage of an angry person'.49 Here he seems to allude to a duality inherent in the character of the majestic genre: power or rage tempered by measure and gravity. The exaggerated contrasts of the dotted rhythms are contained within the evenly measured steps of the andante, which latter he considered to express 'steddyness of mind'.50 This is most consistent with

23



DANCE RESEARCH

descriptions of the majestic in music, which indicate gravity and slowness combined with lively expression.51

As to the entree grave, North's passing reference contrasts the 'lofty cutts' of the 'dancer's solemn entry' with the 'trifling steps' which follow. He seems to imply that the dance consisted of a grave prelude to 'light' and virtuosic steps. Yet the choreographic notations for entrees graves record sequences of consistently complex steps, with jumps, turns, beats and other ornamental gestures of the legs which might be classed as 'trifling' in character, depending on their manner of execution. [Illustration 3.]

The accounts of theatrical dance in the majestic genre from North and Casanova suggest that the elaborately choreographed entree preserved in notation might once have opened with or been preceded by a solemn entry onto the stage. Almost all notated solo or couple dances begin and end at a central point upstage, and presuppose that the dancer or dancers have already made their entrance, or have made their bows and advanced into the dance space of the ballroom.52 North's comments may therefore refer not to the entree grave as preserved in notation, but to the majestic entrance which preceded it. Alternatively, his comments may bear witness to changes in the nature of the entree itself.

The entree grave of the court ballets may originally have been in essence a danced walk. If so, the extant choreographies might be regarded as embellished forms of that majestic entree, perhaps as a professional development after the King retired from the stage. In the ballroom, the nobleman (and above all the King) was expected to refrain from excessive display of virtuosity, demon- strating only those skills which would pass for natural graces. A similar decorum may have applied when the King appeared on stage in the figure of a god or king.

The elegantly measured walk of the nobleman had long been considered the foundation of noble deportment and the basis of court dance technique. In the early seventeenth century de Lauze refers to the necessity of practising demarches graves specifically in preparation for approaching or receiving company in society.53 Presumably these were walking steps like the passi gravi of the Italian dance masters not long before. In the later seventeenth century, however, the pas grave was a dance step, also known as the temps de courante. As this name implies, it was a slow

24




sustained step used frequently in courantes, and occasionally in most other dance types, including entrees graves.54 Pierre Rameau describes it as a single step with a single mouvement (that is, a bend and rise), unlike most other step-units, with two or more steps and perhaps additional mouvements. It was in this sense a single walking step, embellished by a rise on the toes, and by a curving, sliding gesture of the stepping foot. In his opinion, these slow steps contributed a large part to the beauty of dancing when they were performed with the requisite nobility, contrasting with the vivacity of more rapid steps.55

As late as 1779 Gennaro Magri attributed the invention of the pas grave to Beauchamps, dance master to Louis XIV.56 Whether or not this is true, it was certainly a step associated with the King, for Rameau writes that the courante was Louis XIV's preferred dance and the one in which he excelled. The courante was, he observes, formerly the dance with which dance lessons com- menced, and one which more than any other inspired an 'air of nobility'.57 Nor surprisingly, the French courante (as distinct from the Italian corrente) contains the same slow dotted rhythms to be found in the entree grave, branle simple and first part of the French overture. [Illustration 9.] Much later Quantz includes the courante with the entree and loure amongst the dances to be played majestically.58

Epitaph of the Branles and Conclusion

To return once again to North's 'entries' of the branles, it is also possible that another movement preceded the branle simple. In the late sixteenth century, the Pavane fulfilled a processional function at the opening of the court ball, before the branles. Arbeau's often-quoted description gives a fine account of this majestic dance both on and off the stage.59 Pavanes were used ceremo- nially at the French court up to the first few decades of the seventeenth century: several are preserved in the Philidor collection, with titles indicating their use for royal marriages and coronations.60 However, under Louis XIV the Pavane seems to have been abandoned in this context, to appear occasionally in ballets and as a figured ball dance,61 and there is little indication that any other dance took its place. Instead around 1680 we find

25



DANCE RESEARCH

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evidence for the decline of the branles, with the courante most

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probably taking over the role as the formal opening dance. From roughly the same period there are also reports that entries de

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evidence for the decline of the branles, with the courante most

From roughly the same period there are also reports that entrees de ballet were being used to open the ball.63 When by 1708, both

26




branles and courante had finally been forgotten, in the words of the Marquis de Sourches, the court 'was reduced to commencing the ball with the Minuet', a dance which at that time had none of the pomposity and grandeur which it subsequently acquired.64 This may explain why de Sourches had reported the previous year that the 'Symphonie' was playing 'une belle ouverture d'opera de la facon du fameux Lully' when the King arrived in the ballroom at Marly in the company of Queen (Mary) and Princess of England.65 Just four years later, Louis Bonin writes on the proper conduct of balls that the musicians must play an overture, after which the king and queen of the ball are the first to dance the courantes or minuets.66

Can it be a coincidence that Philidor's second, revised collection of music from the French court ballroom from 1712 begins with seven ballet overtures, followed by a suite of branles by Lully?67 The first page of the overtures is dedicated to the King and Queen of England, 'by order of His Majesty'. [Illustration 10.] This may refer either to the exiled James II and his Queen, Mary of Modena, or to their son, the Prince of Wales and future Pretender (James III), whom Louis XIV recognised as the English King after 1701. They had been guests of Louis XIV from the last years of the seventeenth century, and in 1708 the Pretender was granted the honour of opening the court ball.68 By this time, French overtures had already been used to introduce German dance suites in the Lullian manner since Kusser's Composition de musique of 1682.69 The presence of the four court branles in the sixth suite of J. C. F. Fischer's Journal du Printemps of 1695 seems to betray the ballroom origins of this development of the French overture, suggesting that North was not alone in favouring the aesthetics of the French court ball for chamber music compositions.70

The development of the French overture occurred precisely during the period in the 1650s when Louis XIV was leading the dance both at the ball and in court ballets. As Menestrier writes of ballets, the overture presents the 'exposition of the subject'.71 At the ball, the King appeared at the apex of the pyramid of French society, leading members of the royal family and highest nobility in the branles and courantes, while in ballets he figured as the leading dancer in entrees of suitably royal or godlike subjects.

27



DANCE RESEARCH

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10. 'Pour le Roy et la Reine D'Angleterre par ordre de Sa Majeste': Jean- Baptiste Lully], Ouverture Entre les actes d'Edipe lan 1664 and Ouverture de George Dandin lan 1668. (Andre Danican Philidor, l'amne, Suite des dances pour les violons, et hautbois. Qui se jouent ordinairement d tous les bals chez le Roy ... I'an 1712, f. 1.) Cliche Bibliotheque nationale de France.

When he retired from the dance floor the grave branles and courantes were probably superseded by ballet entrees, overtures and minuets. The decorum of the court ballroom was in this way extended to the theatre, and finally (as North would have it) to

28




the concert room, giving pride of place to the king, and evocations of majesty in his honour.

Musical Examples

1. Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-87), Branle & Branle gai from MS de Cassel, Suite X (c.1665), CD 'Musiques a Danser a la Cour', La simphonie du Marais, dir. Hugo Reyne. Erato CD 0630-10702-2 (1995) [Disc 2, tracks 2 & 3: 3'12]

2. Matthew Locke (1621/2-77), First and Second Brawls from Suite of Brawles in B flat, CD 'Four and Twenty Fiddlers: Music for the Restoration Court violin Band'. The Parley of Instruments Renaissance Violin Band, dir. Peter Holman. Hyperion CDA 66667 (1993) [Tracks 13 & 14: 3'14].

3. Jean-Baptiste Lully, Entree d'Apollon from Le Triomphe de l'Amour (1681), LP 'Les Caracteres de la Danse', Ris et Danceries, dir. Pierre Sechet. STIL LP 1405 S 81 (1981) [2'11].

4. Jean-Baptiste Lully, Entree d'Apollon from Le Triomphe de l'Amour (1681), keyboard arrangement by Jean-Henri d'An- glebert (1689), CD 'Musiques a Danser a l'Opera', Les Talens Lyriques, dir. and harpsichord, Christophe Rousset. Erato CD 0630-10702-2 (1995) [Disc 1, track 20: 3'14].

NOTES

George Gow Waterman, 'French Overture' in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. by Stanley Sadie (London: Macmillan, 1980), VI, 820-2. 2 J. F. Demotz de la Salle lists the march, entrie de ballt, the first part of an opera overture, gavotte, loure and pavane as having two grave beats. Methode de musique (Paris: Pierre Simon: 1728), p. 169.

For example Claude Palisca, Baroque Music (2nd ed., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1981), p. 269, refers to the overture saluting the arrival of Louis XIV at Lully's productions. 4 Apologie de la Danse by F. De Lauze 1623: A Treatise of Instruction in Dancing and Deportment (London: Muller, 1952), p. 194. 5 According to the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (London: Macmillan, 1980, vol. 13), the Hon. Roger North, lawyer, author, amateur musician and perhaps the first English music critic, was born in Suffolk c.1651. He lived in London in his early years, became Member of Parliament and Queen's Attorney

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DANCE RESEARCH

General under James II, but after the Revolution of 1688 retired from public life to become a country gentleman at Rougham in Norfolk, where he died in 1734. 6 North declared on the subject of musical affects that, 'it may be a rule, that no musick can be well timed, that may not be danced, or with men's actions may not conforme'. John Wilson, ed., Roger North on Music: Being a Selection from his essays written during the years c.1695-1728 (London: Novello, 1959), p. 119, from Hereford Cathedral Library, MS. R.II.xlii, ff.1-98, The Musicall Grammarian ... (1728). 7 Wilson, e.g. pp. 127, 197, 221. 8 Wilson, p. 221, from an untitled notebook by North dating between 1695 and 1701 (BL ADD. MS. 32,532, f.11').

Wilson, p. 299, from BL ADD. MS. 32,533, The Musicall Grammarian... (c. 1726). '0 Wilson, p. 350, from Hereford Cathedral Library, MS. R.II.xlii, Memoires of Musick ... (1728), 'The Restauration, and the style of Babtist'. "t Thoinot Arbeau, Orchesography, translated by Mary Stewart Evans, ed. by Julia Sutton (New York: Dover, 1967), pp. 128, 129. 12 Francois Fassardi, Le Grand Bal de la Reine Marguerite ... (Paris: Jean Nigaut, 1612), p. 9. In the same year, Praetorius opened his collection of French dance music, Terpsichore (Wolfenbuttel: the author, 1612), with two suites of branks which included in name if not in style all the elements to be found in the suites fifty years later. 13 Theodore and Denys Godefroy, Le Ceremonialfranfois. .., 2 vols (Paris: S. and G. Cramoisy, 1649), II, 135. 14 Gazette de France, on the ball held in the Louvre on Sunday 29th January, 1662, quoted by Ian Dunlop, Royal Palaces of France (New York and London: W. W. Norton, 1985), p. 11. Jean Loret mentions only courants, which suit his rhyme. La Muze historique (4 vols, Paris: P. Jannet, 1857-78), III, 462-3, from Book XIII, Letter V, 4th February, 1662. 15 Paris, BN Musique Vm6.5 contains dated brank suites by Dumanoir (1661, 1662, 1666), Mayeux (1663, 1666), Bruslard (1664) and Lully (1665, LWV 31). The Uppsala collection (from the Swedish court c. 1651-1652) includes branle suites by Constantin and other French as well as local composers (see Jaroslav J. S. Mracek, ed., Seventeenth-Century Instrumental Dance Music in Uppsala University Library Instr.mus. hs 409 (Stockholm: Edition Reimers, 1976)). The Kassel collection, dating from slightly later, includes others by Dumanoir (see Jules Ecorcheville, Vingt Suites d'orchestre du XVII' sicle franfais: publiees pour la premiire fois d'apris un manuscrit de la bibliotheque de Cassel et pricidies d'une itude historique (Paris: L.-Marcel Fortin; Berlin: Leipmannssohn, 1906)). 16 Jacques Bonnet, Histoire ginirak de la danse, sacrie et prophane (Paris: d'Houry fils, 1724; facsimile reprint, Bologne: Fomi, 1972), p. 134. Lully's branks were only published at the end of the century, in Philidor's Suite de dansespour ks violons et hautbois, qui sejotient ordinairement aux bals chez le Roy (2 vols, Paris: Christophe Ballard, 1699) and Antoine Pointel, Airs de danses angloises, hollandoises, et franfoises, d deux parties (2 vols, Paris and Amsterdam: Christophe Ballard, 1700). 17 See Uppsala collection already cited and Sir Bulstrode Whitelocke, A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the years 1653 and 1654, ed. by Charles Morton, rev. by Henry Reeve (2 vols, London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1855), I, 293. The Mercure galant reported in the March 1700 edition (p. 149) that a masquerade ball in Stockholm opened with the branles. 18 On the evidence of the Kassel collection cited above, and N.B.N., Exercitium Musicum (Franckfurt am Main: Balthasar Christoph Wusts, 1660), which includes three brank suites by Guillaume Dumanoir. 19 Marco Uccellini included 'Brandi alla francese per ballare' in his Sinfonici Concerti ... op.9 (Venice: Francesco Magni, 1667).

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20 R. Flecknoe's Enigmaticall characters (1658) on the subject of 'A French dancing- master in England', describes how 'he gos [sic] a Pilgrimage to Paris every year, and distributes his new Branks Gavots and Sarabands, like precious Reliques amongst his Schollars at his return'. Quoted by John Harley, Music in Purcell's London: The social

background (London: Dennis Dobson, 1968), pp. 154-5. 21 See Samuel Pepys's Diary entries for 31 December, 1662 and 15 November, 1666. Matthew Locke, composer to the court violins from 1660, composed Suites of Brawls now preserved in The Rare Theatrical, compiled around the 1680s (New York Public Library, Drexel MS 2976). Gerhard Diesineer included two suites of branles in his Instrumental Ayrs (n.p., n.d., [c. 1685]). Henry Playford published three suites of four branls each, two anonymous and the third by 'Monsieur Peasable' (James Paisible) in the augmented seventh edition of Apollo's Banquet (London: Henry Playford, 1692), Part II. 22 F. de Lauze, Apologie de la danse (n.p.: 1623; facsimile reprint, Geneva: Minkoff, 1977), pp. 38-42, 57-64; Marin Mersenne, Harmonic Universelk (Paris: Sebastien Cramoisy, 1636; facsimile reprint, 3 vols, Paris: CNRS, 1965; reprint, 1975), B pp. 167-9. Musical sources suggest that the fourth and fifth branles were optional, or may have abandoned in the later seventeenth century. See Fiona Garlick, 'The Measure of Decorum: Social Order and the Dance Suite in the Reign of Louis XIV' (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of New South Wales, 1992), Table 3, p. 208.

Herbert Schneider, Chronologisch-thematische Verzeichnis sdmtlicher Werke von Jean- Baptiste Lully (Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1981), LWV 31/1-11, 19-26. 24 See, for example, Michel de Pure, Idie des spectacles anciens et nouveaux (Paris, 1668; facsimile reprint, Geneva: Minkoff, 1972), pp. 235-41. 25 See LMC (Meredith Ellis Little and Carol G. Marsh, La Danse Noble: an Inventory of Dances and Sources (Williamstown, New York, Nabburg: Broude Brothers Ltd., 1992)), nos. 2580-4400. 26 De Lauze, pp. 41, 60. The first page of a Burgundian basse danse manuscript tells us that: 'la grand mesure pour entree de basse dance se doit marchier par une desmarche' followed by other steps (reprinted in Ernest Closson, ed., Le Manuscrit dit des basses danses de la Bibliotheque de Bourgogne (Paris: 1912; facsimile reprint, Geneva: Minkoff, 1976). Similarly, the Spanish dance manuscript by Jaque of the same period (early seventeenth century) makes a distinction between the entrada of a dance such as the folias and gallarda, with its bows, and the mudanzas or variations which followed (cited by Maurice Esses, Dance and Instrumental Diferencias in Spain during the 17th and Early 18th Centuries (3 vols, Stuyvesant: Pendragon, 1992), I, 653 etc.). 27 De Lauze, pp. 37-8, 57. 28 Harmonic Universelle, B, pp. 167-8. 29 Traiti de musique (2nd e., Paris: 1666; reprint, Geneva: Minkoff, 1972), pp. 21-2. 30 Idie des spectacles (Paris: 1668; facsimile reprint, Geneva: Minkoff, 1972), p. 279. 31 Wilson, p. 14, from BL ADD. MS. 32,506, Notes of Me, ff.69-87v, 'As to Musick' c. 1695). 2 Wilson, pp. 259-60 and n. 5, from The Musicall Grammarian (c. 1726), f.143-143'

and The Musicall Grammarian (1728), ff.82-98'. 33 R.-A. Feuillet, Choregraphic (Paris: the author, 1700; facsimile reprint, New York: Broude Brothers, 1968), p. 87. 34 LMC nos. 1320a, 2720, 2740, 4000, 4180, 4260 are all entries graves choreographed to music by Lully. 35 An Essay Towards an History of Dancing (London: Jacob Tonson, 1712), pp. 163-4, reprinted in Richard Ralph, ed., The Life and Works of John Weaver (London: Dance Books, 1985). 36 LWV 59/58.

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DANCE RESEARCH

37 LMC nos. 2720 and 2740, published in 1700 and 1704 respectively. The second, by Pecour, is described as 'non dancee a l'Opera'. 38 For example as the Rising Sun in the ballet Ballet de la Nuit (1653), as Apollo surrounded by the nine Muses in the Ballet desNoces de Pelie et de Thetis (1654), as the Sun with the twelve Hours in Hercule Amoureux (1662), and in the Ballet de Flore (1669), and again as Apollo in Les Amants Magnifiques (1670). Charles Silin, Benserade and his Ballets de cour (Baltimore, 1940; reprint, New York: A.M.S. Press, 1970), p. 222, 236, 306, 385, 391.

LWV 59/58. See Demoz de la Salle, cited above; Charles Masson, Nouveau Traiti des rigks ... (3rd ed., Paris: 1705; facsimile reprint, Geneva: Minkoff, 1971), pp. 6-7; [Borin], L'Art de la danse (Paris: J.-B.-C. Ballard, 1746), pp. 11, 22.]

Quoted in Paul Nettl, transl. and ed., The Other Casanova: A Contribution to Eighteenth-Century Music andManners (New York: 1950; reprint, New York: Da Capo, 1970), pp. 48-52. Dupre, like Pecour before him, was reputed to excel in Chaconnes and Passacailles, the dances identified by Weaver with the grave genre of serious dancing. Le Cerf de la Vieilleville's description of Pecour's performance in Armide similarly remarks upon his 'beautiful arms' and 'majestic steps' which 'even on his decline rendered him a Dancer almost without match'. Comparaison de la musique italienne et de la musiquefranfaise (2nd ed., Brussels, 1705-6; reprint, Geneva: Minkoff, 1972), p. 60. 41 Wilson, p. 185, from The Musicall Grammarian, c. 1728, ff.72-78. 42 Arbeau's branles doubl and simple are distinguished only by their step sequence, and are both classified as solemn (Orchesography, pp. 128-33). Praetorius writes that the branle simpl acquired its name because of the simplicity of its steps (Terpsichore, Preface ? IV). 43 Idie des spectacles, p. 279. 44 De Lauze describes a sequence of eight steps, some on the flat of the foot, some on the toes, and half of them sliding, pp. 38-9, 57-8. 45 Wilson, p. 185, from The Musicall Grammarian ... (1728). 46 Kenneth Cooper and Julius Zsako, 'Georg Muffat's Observations on the Lully Style of Performance', Musical Quarterly, LIII (1967), 220-45 (228). The 'foot' could also be taken to refer to the traditional manner of beating time, though it was usual to have only one downstroke to each bar, not two as is implied here, and to maintain even strokes in duple time. Michel Pignolet de Monteclair, Mithode facile pour aprendre djouer du violon (Paris: the author, c. 1711-12), p. 13. 4 Chorigraphie, pp. 87, 89. 48 Muffat, ed. cit., p. 232. 49

Wilson, p. 185. 50 Wilson, p. 194. 51 For example, Sebastien de Brossard, Dictionaire de musique (2nd ed., Paris: 1705; facsimile reprint, Hilversun: Knuf, 1965), p. 42. 52 Favier's choreography for Le Mariage de la Grosse Cathos is interesting in this regard, because it indicates that the dancers remained on stage from the opening processional to the closing recessional, between which the action was continuous, with dancers moving aside at the end of each dance to make way for the next part of the performance. The production was not intended for a proscenium stage, however, but for the apartment of the Princesse de Conti. Rebecca Harris-Warrick and Carol G. Marsh, Musical Theatre at the Court of Louis XIV: Le Mariage de la Grosse Cathos (Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 49, 51. 53 Apologie, pp. 27, 54-5, under the heading 'On the Principles of the Dance'. 54 Sol notes that the pas grave is used in 'grandes Entrees serieuses' as well as loures, sarabandes and courantes. C. Sol, Mithode tris facile ... (The Hague: the author, 1725), p. 51.

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55 Le Mattre a danser (Paris, J. Villette, 1725; facsimile reprint, New York: Broude Brothers, 1967), pp. 115, 120-1. 56 Theoretical and practical treatise on dancing by Gennaro Magri; Napls 1779, transl. by Mary Skeaping, Anna Ivanova and Irmgard E. Berry (London: Dance Books, 1988), p 29.

Le Maftre d danser, pp.110-11. Perhaps significantly, in the oval figure of 'La Courante', a notation similar to the ballroom courante described by Rameau (pp. 111-13), the pas grave occurs mostly in the man's steps, while the woman's steps include more coupis to help her to cover the greater distance on the outer track of the oval. BN MS fr. 14884, [II], p. 167. 58 Johann Joachim Quantz, On Playing the Flute, trans. and edited by Edward R. Reilly (2nd ed., London: Faber; 1985), p. 291 (Ch. XVII, section VII, ?58). 59

Orchesography, p. 59: 'A cavalier may dance the pavan wearing his cloak and sword, ... walking with decorum and measured gravity.... On solemn feast days the pavan is employed by kings, princes and great noblemen to display themselves in their fine mantles and ceremonial robes. They are accompanied by queens, princesses and great ladies, the long trains of their dresses loosened and sweeping behind them, sometimes borne by damsels. And it is the said pavans, played by hautboys and sackbuts, that announce the grand ball and are arranged to last until the dancers have circled the hall two or three times . . . Pavans are also used in masquerades to herald the entrance of the gods and goddesses in their triumphal chariots or emperors and kings in full majesty'. 60 See BN Res. F.494. Five pavanes are edited by Bernard Thomas in Twelve Dances from the Philidor Collection (Rcs. F.494) (London Pro Musica, LPM TM70, 1986). North himself refers to the Pavan as a 'grave air' of the 'old masters', used for 'solemne musick', Wilson, p. 181, from The Musicall Grammarian (1728).

See LMC nos. 6760, 8340 and Philidor's opening music for Le Manage de la Grosse Cathos, entitled 'Pavane'. Favier's choreography indicates first a 'Marche' with simple walking steps, then a 'Marche dansante' to the same music, with a range of steps reminiscent of a Bourree or other lively dance in duple time (Harris-Warrick and Marsh, pp. 126-31). 62 For example, in 1680 the King's brother welcomed the new Dauphine to his estates at Saint-Cloud with 'cette maniere de Bal ou il n'y eut point de Branle'. This event lasted only an hour and a half, and rank was observed in couple dances, presumably courantes, begun by the Dauphin and Dauphine (Mercure galant, May 1680, pp. 300-2). 63 The Mercure galant for June 1678, pp. 116 f. gives a brief account of an impromptu ball given at Ath, at the beginning of which the violins played several entries de ballet. In 1700 a court ball at Marly opened with entries performed by noble masquers ffebruary, p. 164).

Mimoires, entry for 5 January 1708 (XI, 7, note), quoted by Norbert Dufourcq, ed., La Musique a la Cour de Louis XI V t de Louis XV d'apris les Mimoires de Sourches et Luynes 1681-1758 (Paris: Picard, 1970), pp. 29-30. 65 Dufourcq, p. 29, from Mimoires, X, 269. 66 Die Neueste Art zur Galanten und Theatralischen Tantz-Kunst (Frankfurt and Leipzig: ioh. Christoff Lochner, 1711), p. 231.

BN Musique Vm7.3555: Andre Danican Philidor, I'aine, Suite des dances pour les violons. . ., l'an 1712. 68 The Mercure galant reports in January 1708, pp. 280-1, that Louis XIV stood as a mark of respect while 'His Britannic Majesty' danced. 69 J. S. Kusser, Composition de musique, suivant la methode franfaise, contenant six ouvertures de theatre accompagnies de plusieurs airs (Stuttgart: Paul Treu, 1682).

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DANCE RESEARCH 70 Published in Augsburg. A copy of this work was included in the Philidor Collection, BN Res. F.529, and was thought for some time to have been by Lully. 71 Claude-Fran9ois Menestrier, Des Ballts anciens et modemnes scion ks regks du theatre (Paris: Rene Guignard, 1682; facsimile reprint, Geneva: Minkoff, 1972), p. 258.

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1290886

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