Early Guitars and Vihuela

A network for historic guitars and vihuelas

I have two questions concerning this form. Please note, my only explicit experience is with the Gaspar Sanz manuscript. (I hope to move on some day, but I'm still deeply fascinated with this one book.) Anyway, my questions:

1) In the Sanz manuscript I see Pasacalle variations in meters of 3 and in 4. That's a pretty significant difference in my experience. I wonder if anybody can shed light on that, and maybe help with performance tips in treating them either differently or in a similar way, depending on what you think is appropriate. Anyway, I guess harmonically they're the same form, but I'm not used to Spanish music calling different rhythmic compases by the same name (I'm thinking modern here... Flamenco).

2) I wonder about the social and/or musical significance of this form. Why is it that Sanz devotes his fullest harmonic exposition to Pasacalle variations? And Santiago de Murcia does the same, doesn't he? For this form to receive so much attention, it must hold some special significance, no?

Thanks for any insights... cud

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The first part of you query is fairly easy to answer. Passacalles literally means "pass through the streets". Originally it was not a dance as such. It was used as an introduction to and an interlude between each statement of the music for other dances to allow the dancers to get their breath and regroup. For this reason it may be in common time or triple time depending on the meter of the dance which it accompanies. It may also be in a major or minor key for the same reason. It is based on the harmonic progression I IV V or i iv V.

The second part of your query is more difficult to answer but many early Italian guitar books start off with the passacaglia (the Italian term for the same thing) in different keys (using alfabeto) so that players can learn the chords and know how to add them to the other dances. From being very simple they developed into much more elaborate works in their own right. The Italian books of Bartolotti and Corbetta start of with series of very complex variations on the passacaglia and Sanz may have got the idea from them. Both Guerau and Murcia also wrote elaborate sets of variations on the passacalles but they also wrote sets of variations on other dance themes, like marionas, xacaras and so on. Traditionally variation form had always formed an important part of the Spanish instrumental repertoire and the vihuela books and keyboard books of the 16th century include important works in this form...Hope that is helpful and enough to be going on with for the time being. Best Monica
Thanks, it is helpful. I take a couple of points... First, I'm aware that Passacalle means to pass through the streets -- it makes me think of the Spanish term, to dar un paseo... that's a daily regular in the mid-sized cities to take a walk in the local pedestrian zone, maybe after siesta, or at the end of the work day -- and definitely on a Sunday. It's sort of like a daily Easter Parade (in the American sense of the parade -- Easter parades in Spain are something else, again). You stroll around, say hi to folks, and maybe show off your latest set of clothes. In that sense I could imagine a Pasacalle as something of a promenade. But I'm glad to take your suggestion and think of it as an interlude. Time and key issues fall into place from that context.

Also, because of the role as interlude to other sets of music, it makes practical sense that the range of keys would be represented in this more than in other forms. Why make the variations so elaborate? Well, why not? If you're printing it, your reputation is on the line and so you'd better print something decent. And if people are milling about while you play this, why not experiment a little?

As for performance tips, it seems to me the mood, meter, and key are so broad in range that it's really up to the performer to read the music and extract what she can. I mean, with other dance forms there are stricter boundaries -- Canarios want spritely hemiolas, Jacaras want more severe energy, Folias might want to be somber, etc. It seems all bets are off for the Pasacalle -- it depends on which street you're walking down.

I'm having trouble finding books about the social aspect of music in Spain at the time. I guess Murcia was interesting -- I read an article that placed him as a bridge between court and common, where he taught in the court for a while, but later wound up gaining his own living and dying without property (or something like that). I'd love to read more about this level of music as a social component... (You would think the New York Public Library would be more forthcoming with James Tyler's books.)

Thanks cud
Yes - I agree that with Passacalles you have a lot of freedom in the way you can interpret them. I don't know very much about the social background - I guess anything really useful would be in Spanish and printed in Spain. However a lot of the dances and the guitar are associated with the theatre in Spain.

Perhaps you are referring to Alejandro Vera's article in "Early Music" . Poor old Murcia certainly died in poverty but I am not sure about his being a bridge between the court and common. Very little is known about how he actually earned his living (or didn't) apart from the fact that he was guitar teacher to Queen Maria Luisa Gabriela (1st wife of Felipe V) possibly only for a short time.
Yes, I was referring to Alejandro Vera's article. As a layman, I'm allowed to speculate wildly, and am guilty as charged. What I meant is that Murcia apparently experienced favor in the court, and some degree of scrabble in the streets. It would be fascinating if we *could* know more about him.

Are you aware of efforts to reconstruct the theater as it was in Spain at the time? Not necessarily along the lines of actually *building* a theater (like the Globe in London), but painting the experience in one way or another... Or do I need to randomly haunt the Spanish book stores?
I am afraid not really. I guess you know Craig Russell's book on Murcia which does have quite a lot about the dances. Also there is a book by Maurice Esses. The Golden Age of Spanish theatre was rather earlier I think.

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