Bergamask
Bergamask, bergomask, bergamesca,[1] or bergamasca (from the town of Bergamo in Northern Italy), is a dance and associated melody and chord progression.
Reputation[]
It was considered a clumsy rustic dance (cf. Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act V Scene i Lines 341 and 349) copied from the natives of Bergamo, reputed, according to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, to be very awkward in their manners.[2]
The dance is associated with clowns or buffoonery, as is the area of Bergamo, it having lent its dialect to the Italian buffoons.[1]
Chord progression[]
The basic chord progression is I–IV–V–I:[3]
│⎸ I IV V I I IV V I :⎹⎸
I IV V I I IV V I ⎹│
Works[]
Seventeenth-century Italian composer Marco Uccellini adapted the Bergamasca as a lively instrumental piece titled "Aria sopra 'la bergamasca.'"
Twentieth-century Italian composer Ottorino Respighi adapted the melody as the final movement of his Suite #2 of Ancient Airs and Dances.
Bergomask is the title of the second of the Two Pieces for Piano (1925) by John Ireland (1879–1972).
The title of Claude Debussy's Suite bergamasque is a poetic reference and the piece is not related musically to the Bergamask described here. Likewise, the "Masques et bergamasques" of twentieth-century French composer Gabriel Fauré is musically unrelated.
See also[]
Sources[]
- ^ Jump up to: a b c d (1916). The Musical Times, Volume 57, p.491.
- ^ One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Bergamask". Encyclopædia Britannica. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 772.
- ^ Apel, Willi (1969). Harvard Dictionary of Music, p.91. ISBN 978-0-674-37501-7.
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