Album notes for El Arte de Tañer (parla09001)
Cabezón’s famous pavanne that probably isn’t a pavanne and maybe not even by Cabezón.
This catchy dance piece with variations originates from a music book published in 1577 by the Spanish organist Luis Venegas de Henestrosa. The piece is attributed to “Antonio”, and this, sort of insider information, has been interpreted by music researchers throughout the years as a reference to the contemporary Spanish organist Antonio de Cabezón. To what degree this is true has already been discussed a lot of times, but it’s probable that Antonio de Cabezón had a greater name than Henestrosa himself at that time, not least in those circles where the potential buyers of the music book were to be found.
“Antonio” may therefore have worked as a musical teaser for the publication.
Pavanne in three
Pavana con su glosa is clearly a dance piece. It also complies with the ordinary form structure of the pavanne, i.e., AA’ BB’ CC’, but even though the piece possesses the stately character and form structure of a pavanne, it has a marked tripartite rhythm, whereas a pavanne is in a simple duple meter. Further more the piece shows a clear folía character. The bass figure is as a matter of fact built on the harmonious chord progression (1) that characterizes this originally Portuguese dance: (i) - V-i-VII-III-VII-i-V- (i).
Is Pavana con su glosa a pavanne or is it a folía? Would it be possible to dance the waltz in a simple duple meter? These interesting questions I’ll leave for others to answer, and instead try to focuse on a very different and more technical detail.
Irregular dance steps
The piece has already been recorded by a large number of excellent musicians, each offering a different idea of how to perform the pavana, nevertheless among all these very valid renderings there was always one thing that annoyed me, namely the inconsistency of the form. Pavana con su glosa consists of two main parts:
First the listener is presented to a number of simple plays through the folía sequence V-i-VII-III-VII-i-V- (i) and secondly variations, or rather improvisations, follow over the same array of sequences.
Unfortunately, in the commonly used transcription (by Higinio Anglés) the improvisation doesn’t follow the exact progression of chords; some extra chords have been added. That is exactly what annoys me. If Pavana con su glosa is a dance piece, shouldn’t the improvisation section be just as be long as the presentation section, containing, so to speak, the same number of steps?
So let us take a closer look at the improvisation section:
As already said, the structure of the piece complies to the pavanne structure AA’ BB’ CC’, i.e. three different parts, each one repeating itself.
What makes the improvisation longer than the presentation, is an extra bar at the fifth harmonious level at the beginning of both the A, A’, B, B’ and the C parts. Let us first look at A and the repetition A’.
In Anglés’ transcription the two parts are identical and consequently both one bar “to long”. Let us start by assuming that a typo, sometime in history, caused the repetition indications to be set erroneously. Let us next assume that the first bar is a kind of pickup measure, that indicates a change from the first part of the dance to the following. Then the A and A’ parts will begin on what corresponds to the 2nd bar in the Anglés transcription.
Now both A and A’ parts follow the same progression in the improvisation as well as in the presentation section.
Now for BB’ parts and now things are getting complicated. In the Anglés transcription the BB’ parts are identical, consequently both having an extra bar at the beginning. The “redundant” bar lies at the V chord level and the melody line begins at a C sharp, exactly as in the last bar of A and A’. Let us now assume that the first bar in Anglés’ transcription of B and B’ originally was meant to replace the last bar of A’ and act as a transition to B. Let us further assume that the same bar was intended also to replace the last bar in B and likewise act as a transition from B to B’. That will give us a B and a B’ part in the improvisation that closely resemble the B and the B’ from the presentation section.
So far we have an improvisation section that follows the presentation section as well in structure as in chord progression (2). It’s now easy to sense the basso ostinato governing the whole AA’ BB’ course of events. But there’s still something that doesn’t fit in C and C’.
C and C’ aren’t identical and last all together 9 bars in the Anglés transcription. As before, if we assume that the first bar of C in Anglés’ transcription originally was meant to replace the last bar of B’ and thus act as a transition to C, we have solved the problem with the uneven number of bars. But we aren’t done yet. In Anglés’ transcription the entire folía chord progression in the CC’ - parts seems to have been dislocated a pulse beat to the left!
Let us therefore assume that the transition from B’ to C ought to have the same dynamic character as the correspondent transition from A’ to B. That is in fact achievable by moving the entire CC’ parts a pulse beat to the right! Thus, the folía progression is, so to speak, set on place. Now the structure of C and C’ in the improvisation section corresponds closely to the same course in the presentation section.
Voíla!, we now have a dance piece with improvisations you’d actually be able to dance to.
Now, that we’re in it …
The pavanne structure with the repetition of its component parts strongly appeals to a shift in dynamics and timbre between the repetitions. In the recording from the Cathedral of Salamanca I’ve recorded the pavana as a duet between the two renaissance positives of the cathedral. Since I felt that each positive ought to have its own improvisation, I have composed an extra improvisation section. The first improvisation on the recording consequently has not been composed by Antonio – whoever he was - but is a new addition, written in Antonio’s style.
Yes, I’m aware of it. The eternal question concerning historical correctness arises again. In response to that I can only say that the current dissection and subsequent repair of Pavana con su glosa isn’t an attempt to come up with a musicological treatise. With the due respect for the work of Higinio Anglés I hasten to emphasize that I’ve not yet seen the original manuscript and therefor I cannot know WHEN in history things went wrong, or IF they have gone wrong at all. That will be another day.
This is exclusively my bid on an interpretation of the famous renaissance piece, from a purely musical point of view.
(1) The Folia chord the progression may vary slightly. Note that this particular progression is a musical palindrome
(2) In the improvisation section the progression V-i-VII-III-VII-i-V- (i) has been replaced by V-i-VII-III-VII-iv-V- (i)
Sources: La música en la corte de Carlos V, con la transcripción del “Libro de cifra nueva para tecla, harpa y vihuela” de Luys Venegas de Henestrosa (Alcalá de Henares, 1557) by Higinio Anglés
English
