(Fr.; It. tordiglione, dordiglione; Sp. turdión).
A lively 16th-century dance in triple metre, popular as the most usual afterdance to the basse danse commune. Although literary references to the tourdion date from the 15th century (e.g. in La grant danse macabre, Lyons, 1499), the earliest description of the dance is in Antonius de Arena’s macaronic treatise Ad suos compagnos (1519). His description includes a syllabic representation of the step-unit’s rhythm, and he stated that ‘for the tordion there are no precise rules; there is no preliminary and no conclusion’. Arbeau (Orchésographie, 1588) described the tourdion as a dance like the Galliard, but lighter and faster, because the feet were kept close to the ground. Like the galliard, the tourdion had as its main step-unit the Cinque pas, consisting of five steps executed to six beats (e.g. two triple-metre bars or one compound duple bar), with a leap on the fifth beat; the main difference between a galliard cinque-pas pattern and that of a tourdion was that in the latter dance the saut majeur on the fifth beat was replaced by a smaller movement, the saut modéré. The tourdion’s usual choreographic structure, like that of the galliard, began with the dancing couple’s bow and promenade, followed by various sequences danced alternately by the woman and man, ‘until the musicians stopped playing’.
Music for the tourdion usually consists of two or three repeated strains, each consisting, in turn, of four six-beat motifs that match the phrases of the dance. The earliest surviving tourdions are printed as afterdances to the basse danses … in Attaingnant’s Dixhuit basses danses for lute and Neuf basse danses … a quatre parties (both 1530); a few were reprinted in later anthologies. Several tourdions are also included in Moderne’s dance collection Musicque de joye (c1544)...\Frames/F006715.html
Italian dictionaries from the late 16th century onwards invariably define the word ‘tordiglione’ as equivalent to the French dance ‘tourdion’. The choreographic and musical structures of the Italian and French forms are similar; however Caroso (Il ballarino, 1581/R) and Negri (Le gratie d’amore, 1602/R), unlike Arbeau, wrote down their choreographic variations for the tordiglione, and used numerous ornate step-units rather than the cinque pas described by Arbeau. The tordiglione music in Caroso and Negri, consisting of four six-beat motifs oddly barred in duple metre (ex.1), are minimal scores, no doubt meant to be varied by the musicians during the 20 or more playings needed for the dance.
See Basse danse.