Saltarello Explained

The saltarello is a musical dance originally from Italy. The first mention of it is in Add MS 29987, a late-fourteenth- or early fifteenth-century manuscript of Tuscan origin, now in the British Library. It was usually played in a fast triple meter and is named for its peculiar leaping step, after the Italian verb saltare ("to jump"). This characteristic is also the basis of the German name Hoppertanz or Hupfertanz ("hopping dance"); other names include the French pas de Brabant and the Spanish alta or alta danza.

History

The saltarello enjoyed great popularity in the courts of medieval Europe. During the 14th century, the word saltarello became the name of a particular dance step (a double with a hop on the final or initial upbeat), and the name of a meter of music (a fast triple), both of which appear in many choreographed dances. Entire dances consisting of only the saltarello step and meter are described as being improvised dances in 15th-century Italian dance manuals. (The first dance treatise that dealt with the saltarello was the 1465 work of Antonio Cornazzano.) A clearer, detailed description of this step and meter appears in a 16th-century manuscript in Madrid's Academia de la Historia.[1] During this era, the saltarello was danced by bands of courtesans dressed as men at masquerades. The saltarello gave birth to the quadernaria in Germany, which was then fused into the saltarello Tedesco (German saltarello) in Italy. This "German saltarello", in contrast to the Italian variety, was in duple time and began on the downbeat, and was also known by the name quaternary.[2]

In 1540, Hans Neusidler published an Italian dance under the name Hupff auff (introductory skip), and identified it with a parenthetical subtitle: "saltarella".[3]

As a folk dance

Although a Tuscan court dance in origin, the saltarello laziale[4] became the typical Italian folk dance of Lazio and a favorite tradition of Rome in the Carnival and vintage festivities of Monte Testaccio. After witnessing the Roman Carnival of 1831, the German composer Felix Mendelssohn incorporated the dance into the finale of one of his masterpieces, the Italian Symphony. The only example of a saltarello in the North is saltarello romagnolo of Romagna.

The saltarello is still a popular folk dance played in the regions of southern-central Italy, such as Abruzzo, Molise (but in these two regions the name is feminine: Saltarella), Lazio and Marche. The dance is usually performed on the zampogna bagpipe or the organetto, a type of diatonic button accordion, and is accompanied by a Italian: tamburello or hand-drum.

Medieval saltarelli

The principal source for the medieval Italian saltarello is the Tuscan manuscript Add MS 29987, dating from the late 14th or early 15th century and now in the British Library. The musical form of these four early saltarelli is similar to that of the estampie.[5] However, they are in different metres: two are in senaria imperfecta, and two in quaternaria. No choreographies survive from before the 1430s, and it is not clear that these four dances have any relationship to later saltarelli.

In classical music

Notes and References

  1. [Curt Sachs]
  2. Curt Sachs (1937). World History of the Dance, translated by Bessie Schönberg. New York: W. W. Norton & Company Inc. .
  3. Curt Sachs (1937). World History of the Dance, translated by Bessie Schönberg. New York: W. W. Norton & Company Inc. .
  4. A Carnevale ogni scherzo vale!: filastrocche della tradizione, AliRibelli
  5. Lawrence H. Moe (2003), "Saltarello", The Harvard Dictionary of Music, fourth edition, edited by Don Michael Randel (Cambridge: Belknap Press for the Harvard University Press)

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