Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 3.djvu/772

760 In many cases there is a considerable group of them, and in these cases it is that the aria is sometimes introduced. This movement has little connection with the modern piece of the same name, as it is generally a short movement in the same balanced form as the other movements, but free from the dance basis and rule of time. It is generally moderately slow, and sometimes consistently melodious, as in Mattheson's Suite in A; but often it is little more than a string of figures, without even melody of much importance. The group of Intermezzi is generally contrasted with the Sarabande and the Gigue either by a square time or by the interchange of moderate movement, such as that of the Minuet; and the conciseness and distinctness of the type is always sufficient to make the relations on both sides perfectly clear.

The Gigue which concludes the series is theoretically, and in most cases actually, of light and rapid style. It is usually based on some rhythmic combination of 3 feet, but even this is not invariable. The balance is in favour of 12-8 time, but 6-8 is also common; and 12-16 and 3-8 not unfrequent, while a few are in some form of common time, as the slow Gigue in the first French Suite of Bach, and the remarkable example in his last Partita in E minor. The old fancy for concluding a work with a fugue is illustrated by the common occurrence of fugal treatment in this member alone of the regular group of the true suite series. This treatment is met with in all directions; in Kuhnau, Mattheson, Handel, Couperin, as well as Bach. The method of application is commonly to begin and carry out a free sort of fugue in the first half, concluding like the other movements in the dominant key; and to take up the same subject freely 'al rovescio' or by contrary motion in the second half, with regular answer as in a fresh fugetta, and carry it out on that basis with the usual direction of modulation, concluding in the original key. Thus the fugal treatment is an accessory to the usual form of the suite movement, which is here as regularly and invariably maintained as in the other members of the group.

The most important accessory which is commonly added to this nucleus is the Prelude. It appears in a variety of forms, and under a great variety of names. The chief point which is most obvious in relation to the other movements is that their characteristic form of nearly equal halves is systematically avoided; in fact any other form seems to have been taken in preference. In many important examples it is the longest and most elaborate movement of all. In some it is a sort of rhapsody or irregular group of arpeggios and other figures based on simple series of chords. Bach commonly developed it on the same broad outlines as some of his largest sonata movements, and the first and last of the Italian Concerto—that is, the distinct balanceing section of clear musical character and full close at the beginning and end of the movement, and the long passage of development and modulation in the middle, sometimes embracing new figures. This is illustrated by the Preludes to the Suites Anglaises in A minor, G minor, F and E minor. In other examples the treatment is fugal, or contains a complete fugue along with other matter of more rhapsodical cast, as in the Toccata of the Partita in E minor; or yet again it is in the form of a Fantasia, or of the Overture as then understood. The effect is certainly to add breadth and stability to the group in no mean degree, and the contrast with the rest of the movements is in every respect unmistakeable. This completes the general outline of the Suite in its finest and most consistently complete form, as illustrated in Bach's Suites Anglaises, which must be regarded as the culminating point of the Suite as an art-form.

In the matter of actual distribution of movements there are plenty of examples of experiments, even in the time when the usual nucleus had come to be generally recognised; in fact there is hardly any large collection of suites which does not present some exceptions to the rules. Bach's departures from the usual outlines are chiefly in the earliest examples, such as the Partitas, in one of which he concludes with a rondo and a caprice. The 'Ouverture à la manière Française,' for Clavier, is in appearance a Suite, but it is clear that Bach had not only the Clavier Suite type in his mind in laying out its plan, but also the freer distribution of numbers in the so-called French Overture said to date from Lulli. In this there is no Allemande; the Sarabande has Intermezzi on both sides of it, and it concludes with an 'Echo' after the Gigue. The works of his which are now commonly known as Orchestral Suites must be put in the same category. For the inference suggested by Dehn's trustworthy observations on the MSS. is that Bach regarded them as Overtures, and that the name Suite was added by some one else afterwards. They depart from the average order of the Clavier Suite even more conspicuously than the above-mentioned work. In his later compositions for Clavier, as has been already remarked, he was very strict. Handel's Suites on the other hand are conspicuous departures from the usual order. They are in fact for the most part hybrids, and very few have the genuine suite character as a whole. The introduction of airs with variations, and of fugues, in the body of the work, takes them out of the category of strict interdependent art forms, and makes them appear rather as casual strings of movements, which are often as fit to be taken alone or in different groups as in the group into which he has thrown them. Moreover they illustrate somewhat, as Nottebohm has also observed, the peculiar position which Handel occupied in art, as not pure German only, but also as representative of some of the finest traits of the Italian branch of the art. The tendency of the Italians after Corelli was towards the Violin Sonata, a distinct branch from the original stem, and to this order some of Handel's Suites tend to approximate. It was chiefly by thorough Germans that the suite-form was developed in its austerest simplicity; and