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• 8 Neapolitan Dances c. 1620

8 Neapolitan Dances c. 1620

for 4 instruments.

These pieces come from two collections, one printed, one manuscript, both associated with Naples at a time when much interesting music was being composed in or around that city. Nos. 2-4 come from the Breve racconto della festa a ballo,, published there in 1620. It includes not only the choreographies for the dances that were included in the festa a ballo, but, more unusually, the music for several of them. As can be seen, some of the titles of the pieces indicate instruments, at least in a general way: no.3, for instance, seems to have been performed with a substantial orchestra of some forty instruments, presumably mostly strings. The remaining pieces come from a manuscript also of Neapolitan origin, MS 4.6.3 of the Biblioteca Majella, which contains some thirty or so dances, by various composers, notably Trabaci; it also contains the only known dance piece by Gesualdo. The manuscript dates from 1629, but the repertoire probably goes back a decade or two.
Although most of the pieces seem to be newly-composed material, two pieces draw on standard dance repertoire: no. 1 here is a rather effective version of the popular Spagnoletta, and the first four bars of the Ballo de´ Cigni are based on the Bergamasca.
The significance of the title of no. 5 is not clear. It may have a theatrical origin, referring perhaps to Grecian or Roman deities. Alternatively it may be a reference to the passamezzo antico, as, while not following the old ground bass as such, its harmonic language is similar.
The Gesualdo piece is full or surprises. Care needs to be taken to relate the phrasing to the harmonic structure. For instance, bat 23, which looks like the beginning of an innocent little 4-bar phrase, needs to follow through from bar 22 in which the subsequent dissonance is prepared.
The gagliarda by the mysterious d´Arpa has a tenor part which for most of the time doubles the bass up an octave. This kind of scoring is more effectively on strings than wind, so we have supplied an alternative version, printed inside the cover, with a more conventional tenor part.
The original note values have been halved in triple-time pieces, but retained in the duple-time ones. The occasional editorial accidental appears above the stave, applying to the one note only.