August 19, 2009

Kalenda Maya: You Can Dance if You Want To

Album: The Dante Troubadours
Track: "Kalenda Maya" (Track #11)
Composer: Raimbaut de Vaqueiras
Musical Form: Dance music, Troubadour song
Year: ~1200


One of the difficulties with listening to dance music is that is wasn't really meant to just be listened to. I know, dance music isn't supposed to be deep -- I'm supposed to let the rhythm of the music carry me away. Problem is, it always takes me somewhere boring. I was hoping that something I found on my Hopeless Journey would free me of this prejudice, but so far I've been unimpressed.

One of the earliest recorded examples of dance music is "Kalenda Maya," a song with lyrics written by a troubadour called Raimbaut de Vaqueiras (no relation to John Rambo, I think). The melody was composed by some long-forgotten jongleur who fancied plucking triple-meter ditties for drunk Frenchmen for naught but a swig of brandy... or somesuch. Thing is, dance music was seldom written down in medieval times because it wasn't considered important enough. The troubadours would tell you that if a jongleur could compose a danceable melody, anybody could. Regardless, this one was written down because a troubadour decided to put poetry to it and make it respectable. I'm not sure they succeeded, but I'll let you judge that for yourself.

The type of dance that this song was written for was the estampie, in which the dancer either dances with only one foot or stamps both feet... etymologists aren't quite sure which (I wonder who got a Ph.D. for that). Anyway, the dance is a close relative of the Saltarello, a medieval dance that appeared in Italy in the 13th century that gets a good bit of attention in modern popular culture. One notable recording of a Saltarello is by Dead Can Dance, an '80s group famous for popularizing "world music."

For the time being, I can't recommend spending a lot of time on saltarellos or estampies, but this may change as I delve into the Renaissance. Gutenberg invented his printing press in 1440, and the standards for what was considered worthy of being written down dropped significantly. Perhaps the propagation of written dance music even brought it to the level of an art form...

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