Some Foolias
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Some Foolias |
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Some composers were so much inspired by the continuous repetition
and variation techniques that they made a reference to La Folia in the
title of their somewhat different compositions. So there are at least
four 'local' Folias: from France, Holland and the cities of Paris and Liège (Belgium).
Other reasons for mentioning the name Folia or Folies could be ignorance of the musical
Folia-theme or an effort to express madness in the literal sense of the word.
This piece is note based upon the Folia-Theme (used by Corelli). For futhers information contact my publisher : Editions Jobert, Paris.
It was performed regularly by the York Winds for whom it was commissioned and later appeared on a Centrediscs vinyl recording (now out of print). Aitken said about the title: 'It was written in the fall of the year at the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire, and intentionally reflects the random order and rich colors of nature as exhibited by trees and 'foliage'. The music follows an idea of all things relating and flowing into each other and, while there are random aspects, it is not at all a 'free piece'.
The instrumental repertoire of the Musical Archive of Moxos is limited and consists only of about 12 pieces.
The works come from two periods of the life at the missions. The oldest ones became part of the collection during
the first half of the XVIII Century. According to reports from that time, this repertoire was large and consisted of music for small
instrumental groups, for specific string and wind instruments (sonatas and concertos) and for keyboard. It would seem that,
at least in some instances, the Indians also used select indigenous instruments in the playing of this repertoire.
Nonetheless, it has not been possible to establish until now how they did it.
This work was found in the Archive only in 2003 and the present interpretation is the first one in over a century, possibly longer
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Duration: 4'19", 17 kB. The complete polka, including all repeats |
Kenneth Gilbert plays Les Folies françoises
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Imbi Tarum plays Les Folies françoises during a live recital
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| Opening of Couperin's Les Folies françoises | |
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Les Folies françoises ou Les Dominos are among Couperin's most famous pieces, and justly so. La Follia is a Portuguese dance; by way of reaction to the Folies d'Espagne (Spanish Folies), then the rage, Couperin also composed Folies. In his hands they adopt French nationality. The composer clearly had Corelli's Follia in mind, as he borrows it form. Couperin's 'international' suite consisting of a theme and eleven variations, is a vast Chaconne, or rather, a Passacaglia. The work is a tightly-knit, which has to be performed as such. Like a carnival procession, each virtue or sentiment tendre is disquised as a folie beneath the mask of a suitable domino.
Philippe Beaussant wrote about Les Folies françoises:
Here the title is intelligible only if one understands the implications of
the word folies in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as wel
as well as the fact that it had nothing to do with la furia france-
se. The folia was a dance with a destiny strangely similar to
that of the passacaglia, the chaconne, and the sarabande.
This dance, or, more accurately, this masquerade, was performed in Portugal
on certain feast-days. Folia (madness) was an appropriate name: the
dancers, in fancy dress and accompanied by the guitar, performed all manner
of sung and mimed improvisations. Like the passacaglia and the
sarabande, the folia crossed the Pyrenees and made its way into
Baroque Europe - and, like those dancers, as it spread, it became tamer,
calmer, more formal, until its only madness was that retained in its title.
In its moderate form, the theme of the Folies d'Espagne (The Spanish
Follies) became extremely popular during the European Baroque, and it is
this point in its history that concerns us here. Lully wrote some lovely
variations which Philidor preserved. Corelli ended his Opus V with a
folia so tame and restrained that it served as the perfect vehicle
for his violinistic expertise and ideal testimony to his own artistry.
Marin Marais's Second Livre of the Pieces de viole used the
form as the occasion for a miracle of lyricism and virtuosity. Thus,
through a curious process of evolution, the folia became, to the
public, the most popular and yet the most hackneyed type of air, and to the
musician, the symbol of a work in which a master composer set forth a
precis or a proclamation of what he believed to be his most unique and
valuable contribution.
At precise this moment, Couperin entered the fray with that halfsmile of
his, pretending he had not changed the folia in the slightest and
saying, " After all these Folies d'Espagne, here are the
Folies francoises (The French Follies).
This had several different meanings.
First, it meant that the music expressed a total commitment - it was music
engage. It took its place at a precise point in the history of
music, alongside and in opposition to other works. Couperin was wholly
aware of its position, for he was the pmost perceptive composer of his day.
Even before Rameau, his works took a well-defined, almost polemic direction
within the unfolding history of music. L'Apotheose de Lully,
L'Apotheose de Corelli , and Les Fastes de la Grande et Ancienne
Mxnxstrxndxsx. In these pieces, Couperin was playing a well-defined
intellectual game, which was independent of their musical worth. To a
lesser degree, Les Folies francoises, too, must be understood within
this context.
Moreover the fact that this music belongs to the genre of folies
reveals something else about its nature. It is not, at least initially or
essentially, a series of colorfull, charming little pictures. The anecdotal
aspect of Les Folies francoises is not secondary, but it does come
second. The work is primarily a series of variations similar in form to a
passacaglia, but one quite different from the variations of Corelli
and more like the passacaglia in B minor of the Huitieme Ordre.
Ignoring the titles and subtitles, let us look at the work:
1) A graceful theme in triple time. Couperin was obviously thinking of Corelli here;
the first two measures are taken verbatim from the Concerto per la notte
di Natale. But the theme itself is French, as simple as a song, saying
everything it has to say in only a few measures. Its striking features are
its grace and charm.
2) [technical description of every variation]
These are the Folies
of Couperin as they might have appeared if Couperin
had been other than he was, or if they had not been pointedly French.
For this is the aspect of the work that reveals its explicit purpose. Couperin
ostentatiously naturalized the Folies, taking the position that they
were resolutely French. It is interesting to note those qualities which to Couperin's
mind, made them so unquestionably and conspicuously French.
In the proces of naturalization, they became images; thus they clearly indicate the
link between the life of the imagination and music as Couperin, together with so many other
French musicians, conceived it. [...]
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Duration: 7'25", 27 kB. All seven couplets for flute (original violin) and b.c. (harpsichord) |
| Opening of De Folies van Holland | by J.A.H. Wagenaar 1957 |
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According to the title page the work has been written for either violin, flute or oboe.
It can be played with or without basso continuo (e.g. viola da gamba, viola or bassoon.
The addition of a keyboard is optional. The two parts of the score can also be played on
a single harpsichord, clavichord or piano with an occasional filling out of the harmonies.
And the composer does not promise too much. For, the 42 rather easy and succinct pieces
(organised in 6 suites) may be originally written for the violin - this can be deduced
from the occasional double-touch and the low setting of some of the pieces - but sound
just as rewarding when executed on another instrument.
Who Domingo S. del Croebelis was, I have not been able to trace. It is very probable
though, that behind this very Spanish name a common Dutchman hid himself. The titles
as well as the character most of the tunes points in that direction. A few pieces have a
slight French or Italian intonation, but are essentially a direct continuation
of the typically Dutch "plugge" dances, that were very popular in Holland at
the end of the 17th century.
The book itself bears no dates. But from the typography and the style of the pieces
it can be rather accurately dated around the year 1745.
The 'Folies van Holland' are seven variations on a simple melody in 3/4 time.
Del Croebelis here gives a Dutch version of the Follia-variations (Corelli!) that were
very popular in the 17th and 18th century. The basic melody, however, differs from the
usual Folia melody in that it is more some kind of menuet with variations.
Del Croebelis probably had the violin in mind when writing these variations.
Continuing Dmitri Dianov's expertimentations in earlier styles, the Folia (1996) leads us to an even more abstract, spiritual world, which is at the same time more human, psychological, and where the language and forms of the past intertwine with the richness of contemporary discourse
Folia begins its evolution from a unified texture of sustained tones into extended solo and ensemble passages. [...] The title, meaning layers, refers to the resulting texture.
The third movement arises from this tragic background: a chaconne whose title, Folia, may recall the ancient dance of that name but is more directly related to the consequences of quite another kind of human folia, or madness. The movement's elegiac character is sustained by an unbroken 6/8 rhythm and an uninterrupted sequence of three notes (E, A and G sharp) which appears 71 times, first in the viola, then in the cello part, and finally (a last farewell) in the first violin.
As Puebla drove them to the concert, Mazzola recalls, "he played a CD of
Rachmaninoff's Corelli Variations for us. It was a revelation to me. I didn't
know it, and I promised Emilio that I was going to make my own variation on
the Corelli theme."
As it turned out, the theme became a crucial agent in the performance.
Mazzola continues, "you can in fact hear the short theme (something like
c...d...b.....a...b...a-flat) all over the concert. It turned out that
the theme fits incredibly well in my own harmonic, melodic, and rhythmic
strategies."
The theme that Rachmaninoff worked with, from Corelli's 12th Violin Sonata
in D minor, first published in 1700, was already a found theme. It had
its source in the "Folía", madness, dance that originated in the
late fifteenth century as a fertility dance, with each dancer carrying
another, dressed as a woman, on his shoulders (the levity of the burdens
of history). The dance, its participants "literally driven mad by the
noise and the stirring rhythm", was eventually refined into a court dance
far from its origins, but it has had an extraordinary history as a musical
theme that is traced in detail in the web-site La Folia: A Musical Cathedral.
(See http://people.a2000.nl/pgabler).
Geisser and Mazzola decided to call this CD Folía for its spontaneous
mixture of madness and control. Just as germane as that central inspiration
are the individual titles here, setting the performance in the Aztec world,
both mythic and historical, of Mexico City.
So the most exciting thing about tonight is the world premiere tonight of Ego Folium by composer Jorden Heys. ��This piece was commissioned by @melbrecital especially for us!! Thanks Jorden! We can’t wait to perform your piece for the first time tonight! As ity.
Giber Folia, composed in 1973, was first premiered at "Piccola Scala" on the 30th of April 1974, during the celebration of Malipiero’s 60th birthday. The title is the anagram of the name of clarinet player Gerbi Alfio, to whom the composition is dedicated. "Folia" is the english degeneration of "Follia", a musical structure from 17th century which eventually would became an air with variations on a "basso" not always "ostinato". In English 'Giber' means mocker, sneerer, but as the composer states in the preface "has no reference at all with people involved". The work has an airy and fluency feeling of his own, along with Malipiero’s typical sudden and unexpected changes, from pseudo-elegiac of the beginning to fast hammer-style of piano solo, from soft pastel of "Tempo I" to "con rabbia" (with anger) that reveal intensely marked spirals, and so on during the whole composition: a gemmation developing conversation, like a growing weed, that takes shiny and refracting faces of a prism, but with rounded off edges thanks to a hearty and fluent talk, rapidly complying to the spirit and technique of the chosen wind instrument. Particularly remarkable the episode in 15/8 tempo (nearly a variation) that became a 12/8, a very rare if not unique tempo in Malipiero’s compositions, who has a sort of idiosyncrasy to x/8 tempos used as standard fixed background rhythm. Even remarkable the short and aleatory finale, not to be intended as a coquetry but, as presented and controlled, rather as a calm down before the end, coherently with general trend of a composition made by sonic chemistry whose elements spontaneously interact and melt into distilled and clear solutions.
Folia daliniana, Montsalvatge's most recent symphonic work, was premiered
during the Festival Internacional de Cadaqués in July 1997. In Folia daliniana
Montsalvatge was inspired by the life and work of the painter Salvador Dalí.
Dalí, widely recognised as one of the greatest painters in the 20th century,
was closely associated with the town of Cadaqués, situated on the 'Costa Brava',
the rocky Mediterranean coastline north of Barcelona. Montsalvatge wanted to evoke
Dali's deep identification with the special atmosphere of Cadaqués and the countryside
which surrounds the town which were always a source of inspiration for Dalí. Montsalvatge
based 'Folia daliniana' on the Folia de España, a dance based on a simple minor-key
chord progression that was popular in Renaissance Spain and Portugal. The Folia became
the basis for countless Baroque Sarabandes as well as innumerable 18th and 19th century
sets of variations
Folia daliniana is scored for four soloists - flute, oboe, clarinet and bassoon - with
string orchestra and percussion. It was written as a concertino, in which the orchestra
and soloists join together in the intrada or ripieno, which, in turn, alternates with
a virtuosic intermezzo for each soloist.
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Duration: 0'39", 2 kB. The 27 opening bars of the piece |
Then there are the delightful 'Bagatelles ou Folies de Liège' where a basso ostinato recur in twelve variations in the manner of a passacaglia and with mounting virtuosity; a minuet rounds the 'folies de Liège' off like a kind of final variation. But it should be noted that the theme is quite unlike the ubiquitous 'Folies d'Espagne' associated with Corelli. Whether Renotte based based it on a local tune is hard to say since progressions in thirds over a ground bass were a commonplace of early 18th-century music. The 17th-century fashion for the follia was declining during his lifetime, though Grétry for instance was later to revive it. José Quintin has pointed out that knowledge of it was still taken for granted in the opera 'Les Hypocontes'by Renotte's Walloon compatriot Jean Noël Hamal.
Despite the title of the movement, the theme of La Folia is not used
in this composition.Die von den Violinen und dem Vibraphon in Engführung
vorgetragenen Themen in dem mit "LA FOLLIA" bezeichneten Satz II
aus dem "CONCERTO GROSSO PER BATTERIA* E DUE ORCHESTRE D'ARCHI von Witold
Rudzinski sind nicht identisch mit der durch Corelli berühmt gewordenen "Folies
d'Espagne". Sie erscheinen auch nicht in der Bassgruppe (Contrabässe pizzicato).
Womöglich steht Rudzinskis "Concerto grosso", welches stilistisch
der sogenannten Avantgarde** des 20.Jahrhunderts zuzuordnen ist, im Kontext
zu Arnold Schönbergs Umarbeitung von Händels "Concerto grosso" op.6
Nr.7 zum "Konzert für Streichquartett und Streichorchester".
Denn Schönberg hielt Händel für radikal verbesserungsbedürftig.
Deshalb "verbesserte" Schönberg
auf seine Art Händels (an Corelli orientiertes) "Concerto grosso",
womit er es aber in Wahrheit zerstörte wie die Musik selbst.
Theodor W(iesengrund) Adorno ("Frankfurter Schule") konnte es zu
allem Übel nicht lassen, noch eins draufzusetzen, indem er um 1956 nachtrat
und sinngemäß verkündete: Wer sich heutzutage noch an einem "provokant
gesunden Concerto grosso" von Händel labe, der gehöre zu den "Schmetterlingssammlern".
Vielleicht wollte Rudzinski sich der "Frankfurter Schule" andienen? Und
demonstriert mit seinem "Concerto grosso", dass nicht nur Händels,
sondern auch Corellis und Geminianis Concerti grossi - incl. Geminianis Streichorchesterfassung von Corellis "Follia" - "radikal
verbessert" werden müssten?
Kurzum: dies meine Assoziationen beim Betrachten von Rudzinskis Partiturauszug.
*1. "Batterie(frz.) [Batteria,ital.]: Bez[eichnung] für die Gruppe der
Schlaginstr[umente], in Gegenüberstellung zu den Streichern und Bläsern eines
gr[oßen] Orch[esters] oder Jazzorch[esters]; 2. aus dem 18.Jh. stammende Bez[eichnung]
der KiM [Kirchenmusik] für staccato gespielte Figuren (z.B. gebrochene Akkorde,
Albertibauml;sse usw.) Quelle: Horst Seeger, Musiklexikon in zwei Bänden. 1966 Leipzig.
**Schönberg, Stockhausen, Penderecki etc.
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Duration: 0'39", 2 kB. The 4 opening bars of which three are indicated below |
| The 3 opening bars of La Folia by Trojahn | Reproduced with permission of Bärenreiter, Kassel |
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