(Fr.; It. bassadanza).
The principal court dance during the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. It reached a height of cultivation during the 15th century and disappeared after the middle of the 16th century. The musical practice that grew up around it served as a proving ground for many early instrumental techniques such as improvisations over a ground, variations and the forming of suite-like combinations.
While no pre-15th-century documents describing steps and music have been found, the name of the dance was cited as early as 1340 by the troubadour Raimond de Cornet, who wrote of ‘cansos e bassas dansas’. In a poem of about 1415 Alain Chartier described
Ses
fais comme la dance basse,
Puis va avant, et puis rapasse,
Puis retourne, puis oultrepasse.
The character of the dance is implicit in its name, which betokened a dance low to the ground, generally lacking the more rapid movements and leaps characteristic of the ‘alta dansa’ or ‘saltarello’. Combination of these two types to form a varied pair can be documented throughout Europe during the late Middle Ages. The classic phase of the form corresponds to the heyday of the Burgundian court under Philip the Good and Charles the Bold. The main source preserving the Burgundian repertory is the Brussels Basse Danse manuscript (B-Br 9085), an anonymous treatise with steps and music copied in the late 15th century as a retrospect of several decades. Closely related to it is another version of the same treatise, containing many of the same dances, printed at Paris by Michel de Toulouse in or before 1496 and surviving now by the thread of a single copy in the Royal College of Physicians, London. As presented in these and other French, English and Spanish sources, the dance was performed by couples and employed only five different step-units: R (révérence); b (branle); s (simple, usually found in pairs); d (double) and r (reprise or des marche). These five steps were combined into codified patterns called mesures. Several mesures made up a complete dance, some dances being of six mesures (a total of 62 step-units, as in Le doulz espoir). A typical choreographical structure involved alternation of one mesure with another of different length. The Italian variety, called ‘bassadanza’, was recorded by Italian dancing-masters such as Domenico da Piacenza, Guglielmo Ebreo da Pesaro and Antonio Cornazano. Their choreographies allowed more freedom in the variety and sequence of steps, and in the number of participants. In these respects the bassadanza approached a still freer form, the ballo, in which various steps and metres were combined (see Ballo, (2)). All sources, northern and southern, laid great stress on lightness and grace of motion, a quality achieved particularly by raising and lowering the body. The resulting effect was wavelike, described by Cornazano as ‘ondegiarre’. During the 16th century the variety of step sequences disappeared from published and manuscript versions of the dance. The choreography gradually ossified into a single pattern with no more than 20 step sequences, called the basse danse commune, to which could be added a final 12 step sequences, called ‘moitié’ by Antonius de Arena, ‘retour’ by Thoinot Arbeau, and ‘recoupe’ in a musical source, Attaingnant’s Dixhuit basses dances of 1530. The French afterdance most commonly appended to the basse danse during the 16th century was called ‘tourdion’, and was characterized by quicker motions such as little leaps.
Only three 15th-century Italian bassadanza ‘tunes’ have been found in the extant treatises, although bassadanza sections exist in many balli. The lack of mensural sigla in the three Italian treatises and in the more than 50 15th-century Burgundian basse danse ‘tunes’ with dance steps generated considerable controversy among musicologists in the first half of the 20th century. Many dance historians have chosen to perform basse danses and bassadanzas in a triple (6/2) metre, using the ‘tune’ as a tenor, around which other musical parts are improvised (see Bukofzer, 1950); this can, however, cause an interesting hemiola effect when the number of dance movements in a step sequence does not correspond with the 6/2 metrical pulses. For example, if the accompaniment consists of six beats, divided usually into 3 + 3, the dancers would have to move in two against the music’s three, a rhythmic skill that may help explain the quaint speech in Domenico’s treatise: ‘I am the bassadanza, queen of measures, and I deserve to wear the crown; few succeed in my employ and those who dance or play me well must perforce be gifted of heaven’. The advent of the basse danse commune brought an end to more than one challenging feature. The sextuple division of the long was changed to a quadruple one, i.e. from six semibreves to four dotted ones. The 15th-century afterdance, called ‘pas de Brabant’ in the north, stood in the relationship of diminution by one half to the main dance, i.e. from 6/1 to 3/1 = 6/2. Cornazano explained the proportions in reverse, saying that the saltarello had three beats, while in the bassadanza ‘every note is doubled, and the three are worth six and the six, twelve’. Italian theory taught two other diminutions: quaternaria in 4/1, called also ‘saltarello tedesco’ and said by Cornazano to be ‘used more by Germans’; and piva, an expression meaning bagpipe, in 12/4 = 6/4 + 6/4. The latter was little used at court, to believe its speech in Domenico’s treatise: ‘I am called piva, and am the saddest of the measures because the peasants employ me’. Cornazano described it as ‘low and vulgar, unsuitable for magnificent persons and dancers of good standing’. Yet it must have had its proponents even so. J.A. Dalza’s variation suites for lute printed at Venice by Petrucci in 1508 consisted of pavana–saltarello–piva. They testify to the practical consequences of the old measure-theory even as the original dance, the ‘queen of the measures’, was passing out of existence in Italy.
Marrocco (1981), however, claimed that the nota senza valore was purposeful, encouraging the dancers and/or musicians to choose a duple or triple metre at will. To be sure, basse danse music published in the 16th century is predominantly in duple metre, and the 16th-century Italian dancing-masters’ choreographies that include ‘bassa’ in their title begin with duple-metre sections and subsequently include a sciolta or gagliarda triple-metre afterdance section.
The cardinal principle of the 15th-century form was that one note of the basse danse tenor corresponded to one complete step-unit. Since every step-unit was of equal duration, lasting three or four seconds in reconstructions by dance historians, there resulted a string of long isometric tones, a cantus firmus constructed to the length of the choreography, which served in performance as the basis for improvised elaborations. Cornazano included three cantus firmi which he labelled ‘Tenori da basse danze et saltarelli’: Re di Spagna (46 notes in length), Cançon de’ pifari dicto el ferrarese (46) and Collinetto (73). They are notated in semibreves. More than 50 different tenors are preserved in the Brussels manuscript and Toulouse’s print ranging in length from 24 to 62 notes. Toulouse contains the sole concordance with Cornazano, its Casulle la novelle (46) corresponding to the famous Spagna tenor. The northern manner of notation was in breves, the blackening of which hinted at the augmentation to longs that players had to make for the basse danse proper. French chansons were a favourite source from which to fashion dance tenors in both Italy and north Europe. The oldest known example of this is Je suis pauvre de liesse (Brussels no.46, 42 notes in length), which was inscribed as a tenor by Noël de Fleurus in some notarial records at Namur dating from 1421–3. The tenors of polyphonic chansons yielded the material for several dance tenors. Much of the vast modern literature on the subject is taken up with such correspondences. Although the source of many dance tenors was in vocal music, their use as dance music was exclusively instrumental. This was made abundantly clear by the Italian masters. Guglielmo counselled the dancers to listen attentively when the instruments begin in order to ascertain which of the two keys, ‘B molle’ (minor) or ‘B quadro’ (major), they employ; and the Italians taught that all performances should begin with preparatory upbeats to lead the dancers into the first step. The most popular dances towards the end of the 15th century were Filles à marier (32 notes in length) and Le petit Rouen (40). This pair inaugurated the Toulouse incunabulum and probably the Brussels manuscript as well, before it was wrongly reassembled in the 19th century. They found their way to England, where their choreographies were written out in the Salisbury Basse Danse manuscript (in Salisbury Cathedral Library) of about 1500 and printed in the Robert Coplande treatise There followeth the manner of dancing base dances (London, 1521). Filles à marier also reached Spain, while Le petit Rouen lived on far into the 16th century as a German Hoftanz. Unlike most tenors in the repertory, these two were built symmetrically in phrases of eight notes. Their periodic nature may provide a clue to their wide dissemination – they were easy to remember. The symmetrical grounds of the 16th-century passamezzo family may be viewed as one offshoot. Signs that the old cantus firmus practice was giving way about 1500 are evident even in the Brussels manuscript. La franchoise nouvelle (24), for instance, takes the form of a melody using a variety of rhythmic values, constructed in short phrases of two longs, each with varied repeat; still reminiscent of the past is the notation in a low register and the division of the long into six semibreves. Tuneful melodies in many small sections with abundant repetitions became the normal accompaniment to the 16th-century form. French chansons remained the favourite model for imitation, especially those of Claudin de Sermisy. The final stage is illustrated in Arbeau’s treatise of 1588: a basse danse commune arranged from Claudin’s Jouyssance vous donneray.
MGG2 (I. Brainard)
E. Closson, ed.: Le manuscrit dit des basses danses de la Bibliothèque de Bourgogne (Brussels, 1912/R)
O. Kinkeldey: ‘A Jewish Dancing Master of the Renaissance (Guglielmo Ebreo)’, Studies in Jewish Bibliography … in Memory of Abraham Solomon Freidus (New York, 1929), 329–72 [repr. with suppl., Brooklyn, 1966]
V. Scholderer: Introduction to facs. of L’art et instruction de bien dancer (Michel Toulouze, Paris) (London, 1936)
A. Michel: ‘The Earliest Dance Manuals’, Medievalia et humanistica, iii (1945), 117–31
M.F. Bukofzer: ‘A Polyphonic Basse Dance of the Renaissance’, Studies in Medieval & Renaissance Music (New York, 1950), 190–216
O. Gombosi: ‘The Cantus Firmus Dances’, Compositione di Meser Vincenzo Capirola (Neuilly-sur-Seine, 1955), pp.xxxvi–lxiii
I. Brainard: Die Choreographie der Hoftänze in Burgund, Frankreich und Italien im 15. Jahrhundert (diss., U. of Göttingen, 1956)
D. Heartz: ‘The Basse Dance: its Evolution circa 1450 to 1550’, AnnM, vi (1958–63), 287–340
O. Kinkeldey: ‘Dance Tunes of the Fifteenth Century’, Instrumental Music: Cambridge, MA, 1957, 3–30, 89–152
E. Southern: ‘Some Keyboard Basse Dances of the Fifteenth Century’, AcM, xxxv (1963), 114–24
D. Heartz: ‘Basse Dances’, Preludes, Chansons and Dances for Lute Published by Pierre Attaingnant (1529–1530) (Neuilly-sur-Seine, 1964), pp.xxxi–lxxxvii
J.L. Jackman, ed.: Fifteenth Century Basse Dances, WE, vi (1964)
F. Crane: ‘The Derivation of Some Fifteenth-Century Basse-Danse Tunes’, AcM, xxxvii (1965), 179–88
J.P. Cunningham: Dancing in the Inns of Court (London, 1965)
D. Heartz: ‘A 15th-Century Ballo: Rôti bouilli joyeux’, Aspects of Medieval and Renaissance Music: a Birthday Offering to Gustave Reese, ed. J. LaRue and others (New York, 1966/R), 359–75
E. Southern: ‘Basse-Dance Music in some German Manuscripts of the 15th Century’, ibid., 738–55
D. Heartz: ‘Hoftanz and Basse Dance’, JAMS, xix (1966), 13–36
F. Crane: Materials for the Study of the Fifteenth Century Basse Danse (New York, 1968) [incl. extensive bibliography]
R. Meylan: L’énigme de la musique des basses danses du quinzième siècle (Berne, 1968) [incl. extensive bibliography, classified according to primary and secondary sources]
I. Brainard: The Art of Courtly Dancing in the Early Renaissance, ii: The Practice of Courtly Dancing (West Newton, MA, 1981)
W. Marrocco: Inventory of 15th Century Bassedanze, Balli & Balletti in Italian Dance Manuals (New York, 1981)
Y. Guilcher: ‘Les différentes lectures de l'Orchésographie de Thoinot Arbeau’, Le recherche en danse, i (1982), 39–49
F. Garavini: ‘Le traité de danse d'un étudiant provençal autour de 1520: Antonius Arena’, Le recherche en danse, iii (1984), 5–14
M. Franko: ‘Renaissance Conduct Literature and the Basse Danse: the Kinesis of Bonne Grace’, Persons in Groups: Social Behavior as Identity Formation in Medieval and Renaissance Europe, ed. R.C. Trexler (Binghamton, NY, 1985), 55–66
M. Padovan: ‘Da Dante a Leonardo: la danza italiana attraverso le fonti storiche’, La danza italiana, iii/aut. (1985), 5–37
B. Sparti: ‘The 15th-Century Balli Tunes: a New Look’, EMc, xiv (1986), 346–57
J. Sutton and F.M. Walker, eds.: F. Caroso: Nobiltà di dame (Oxford, 1986, 2/1995)
J. Ward: ‘The English Measure’, EMc, xiv (1986), 15–21
A. Pontremoli and P. La Rocca: Il ballare Lombardo: teoria e prassi coreutica nella festa di corte del XV secolo (Milan, 1987)
T.J. McGee: Medieval and Renaissance Music: a Performer’s Guide (Toronto, 1988)
A. Francalanci: ‘The “Copia de Mo. Giorgio del guido di ballare basse danze e balletti” as found in the New York Public Library’, Basler Jb für historische Musikpraxis, xiv (1990), 87–179
M. Padovan, ed.: Guglielmo Ebreo da Pesaro e la danza nelle corti italiane del XV secolo: Pesaro 1987 (Pisa, 1990)
A. Feves: ‘Fabritio Caroso and the Changing Shape of the Dance, 1550–1660’, Dance Chronicle, xiv (1991), 159–74
D.R. Wilson: ‘A Further Look at the Nancy Basse Dances’, Historical Dance, iii/3 (1994), 24–8 [on the dances in F-Pn fonds fr.5699, formerly 10279]
DANIEL HEARTZ (with PATRICIA RADER)