Saltarello

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File:Pinelli Saltarello.JPG
Saltarello. Illustration by Bartolomeo Pinelli.

The saltarello is a musical dance originally from Italy. The first mention of it is in Add MS 29987, a late-fourteenth- or early fifteenth-century manuscript of Tuscan origin, now in the British Library.[1] It was usually played in a fast triple meter and is named for its peculiar leaping step, after the Italian verb saltare ("to jump"). This characteristic is also the basis of the German name Hoppertanz or Hupfertanz ("hopping dance"); other names include the French pas de Brabant and the Spanish alta or alta danza.[1]

History

File:Saltarello dance pattern.png
Saltarello rhythm[2]

In 1540, Hans Neusidler published an Italian dance under the name Hupff auff (introductory skip), and identified it with a parenthetical subtitle: "saltarella".[3]

As a folk dance

Although a Tuscan court dance in origin, the saltarello laziale[4] became the typical Italian folk dance of Lazio and a favorite tradition of Rome in the Carnival and vintage festivities of Monte Testaccio. After witnessing the Roman Carnival of 1831, the German composer Felix Mendelssohn incorporated the dance into the finale of one of his masterpieces, the Italian Symphony. The only example of a saltarello in the North is saltarello romagnolo of Romagna. The saltarello is still a popular folk dance played in the regions of southern-central Italy, such as Abruzzo, Molise (but in these two regions the name is feminine: Saltarella), Lazio and Marche. The dance is usually performed on the zampogna bagpipe or the organetto, a type of diatonic button accordion, and is accompanied by a tamburello or hand-drum.[citation needed]

Medieval saltarelli

The principal source for the medieval Italian saltarello is the Tuscan manuscript Add MS 29987, dating from the late 14th or early 15th century and now in the British Library. The musical form of these four early saltarelli is similar to that of the estampie.[5] However, they are in different metres: two are in senaria imperfecta, and two in quaternaria.[6]: 168  No choreographies survive from before the 1430s, and it is not clear that these four dances have any relationship to later saltarelli.[1]

In classical music

File:Saltarello - Giorgio Mainerio (c.1535-1582) - viol consort & organ.webm
A saltarello published by Giorgio Mainerio in 1578. Ernst Stolz plays the viol consort and the organ. The images are paintings by Tiziano.

Sources

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Meredith Ellis Little ([n.d.]). "Saltarello", in: Deane Root (ed.), Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. Accessed December 2017. (subscription required).
  2. ↑ Alfred Blatter (2007). Revisiting Music Theory: A Guide to the Practice. Abingdon; New York: Routledge. p 28. ISBN 9780415974394.
  3. ↑ Curt Sachs (1937). World History of the Dance, translated by Bessie Schönberg. New York: W. W. Norton & Company Inc. p 324.
  4. ↑ A Carnevale ogni scherzo vale!: filastrocche della tradizione, AliRibelli
  5. ↑ Lawrence H. Moe (2003), "Saltarello", The Harvard Dictionary of Music, fourth edition, edited by Don Michael Randel (Cambridge: Belknap Press for the Harvard University Press) ISBN 978-0-674-01163-2
  6. ↑ Timothy J. McGee (2014). Medieval Instrumental Dances. Bloomington; Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.ISBN 9780253013149.
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