A French term used during the 17th and early 18th centuries for a technique of variation in which more or less elaborate ornamentation is added to the original melody, while the supporting harmonies remain the same. By extension, the embellished melody itself was also known as a double (the unadorned version of the melody was called the simple). With its twin meanings the term double is thus equivalent to diminution (see Diminution) and Division. In vocal music, double technique came to the fore as a method of embellishing the air de cour in performance. The classic examples of vocal doubles are to be found in the strophic airs for solo voice by Michel Lambert (1610–96). Probably issued as models, Lambert’s doubles were the first to be published in any quantity. His airs comprise two verses of poetry. For the first verse, the melody is presented with little ornamentation; for the second, diminutions transform the melody into a double. Vocal doubles in Lambert’s style, by Honoré d’Ambruis, Jean-Baptiste de Bousset and others, persist in collections of airs sérieux et à boire throughout the Baroque period. The concepts of simple and double seem to have derived originally from steps used in Renaissance dances such as the pavane and the branle, and in instrumental music of the 17th and 18th centuries the term double is applied in the main to dance variations. Composed for solo lute, viol or harpsichord, these were cultivated in Germany, especially, as well as in France. In 18th-century keyboard suites, single pieces are often supplied with a variation labelled double, for example Les canaries in ordre no.2 of François Couperin’s first harpsichord book (1713), and Les niais de Sologne in Rameau’s Pièces de clavecin (1724). Bach added a double to the Courante of his first English Suite and the Saraband in his sixth. In the same spirit of melodic variation the Polonaise in Bach’s Orchestral Suite in B minor is also followed by its double, although, unusually, the flute’s embellished melody in the double is heard against the simple melody, now transferred to the cello. For further information, see M. Reimann, ‘Zur Entwicklungsgeschichte des Double’, Mf, v (1952), 317–32; vi (1953), 97–111.
See also Improvisation, §II, 3(iii)
GREER GARDEN