Page:EB1911 - Volume 26.djvu/68

Rh The sarabande is a slow movement in triple time beginning on the full bar, and with at least a tendency to the rhythm {missing image}} of which Handel's aria Lascia ch'io pianga is a familiar example. Bach's sarabandes are among the most simply eloquent and characteristic of his smaller compositions. Then come the galanteries, from one to three in number. These are the only suite-movements which ever have an alternative section and a da capo (with the exception of Couperin's courantes and the courante in Bach's first English suite). The commonest galanteries are: (1) the minuet, often with a second minuet which is called “ trio ” only when it is in real three-part writing. It is a little faster than the stately minuet in Mozart's Don Giovanni, but it is never so quick as the lively minuets of Haydn's quartets and symphonies which led to the Beethoven scherzo; and it invariably begins, unlike many later minuets, on the full bar; (2) the gavotte, a lively dance in a not too rapid alfa breve time (the textbooks say time, but there is no case in Bach which could possibly be played so slowly, whatever the time signature may be). The gavotte always begins on the half-bar. A second alternating gavotte is frequently founded on a pedal or drone-bass, and is then called musette; (3) the bourrée, which is not unlike the gavotte, but quicker, and beginning on the last quarter of the bar; (4) the passepied, a lively dance in quick triple time, beginning on the third beat. These dances are not always cast in binary form, and there are famous examples of gavottes and passepieds en rondeau. Other less common galanteries are (5) the loure, a slow dance in time and dotted rhythm (dactylic in accent and amphimacer in quantity); (6) the polonaise, a leisurely triple-time piece, either a shade quicker or (as in the exquisite unattached examples of Friedemann Bach) much slower than the modern dance-rhythm of that name, with cadences on the second instead of the third beat of the bar; (7) the air, a short movement, quietly flowing, in a more florid style than its name would suggest. It sometimes precedes the sarabande. The suite concludes with a gigue, in the finest examples of which the decorative binary form is combined with a light fugue style of the utmost liveliness and brilliance. The gigue is generally in some triplet rhythm, e.g., , , ; but examples in a graver style may be found in slow square time with dotted rhythms, as in Bach's first French suite and the sixth Partita of the Klavierübung. In gigues in the typical fugato style Bach is fond of making the second part either invert the theme of the first, or else begin with a new subject to be combined with the first in double counterpoint. The device of inversion is also prominent in many of his allemandes and French courantes.

All suites on a large scale, with the exception of Bach's second and fourth solo violin sonatas, begin with a great prelude in some larger form. Bach's French Suites are small suites without prelude. His English Suites all have a great first movement which, except in the first suite, is in full da capo concerto form. His clavier Partitas show a greater variety of style in the dance movements and are preceded by preludes, in each case of a different type and title. Some large suites have finales after the gigue; the great chaconne for violin solo being the finale of a partita (see ).

Handel's suites are characteristically nondescript in form, but, in the probably earlier sets published after what is called his first set, there is a most interesting tendency to make several of the movements free variations of the first. Earlier composers had already shown the converse tendency to make variations take the forms of suite movements. In general Handel's suites are effective groups of movements of various lengths, with a tendency to use recognizable suite movements of a Franco-Italian type.

In modern times the term “ suite ” is used for almost any group of movements of which the last is in the same key as the first, and of which a fair proportion show traces of dance-rhythm, or at least use dance titles. It is often said that the suite-forms have shown more vitality under modern conditions than the classical sonata forms. But this only means that when composers do not feel inclined to write symphonies or sonatas they give their groups of movements the name of suite. Certainly there is no such thing as a definite modern suite-form distinguishable from the selection composers make, for use in concert rooms, of incidental music written for plays, such as Grieg's Peer Gynt suites.

SUKHUM-KALEH, a seaport of Russian Caucasia in the government of Kutais. Pop. (1900), about 16,000. It is situated 106 m. N. of Batum, and has the best road stead on the east coast of the Black Sea, being sheltered by mountains on three sides and never freezing. In spite of the difficulties of communication with the interior, and the malarial marshes which surround the town, it has become important for the export of grain (chiefly maize). There is also a trade in tobacco. It stands on the site of the ancient Greek colony of Dioskurias. The annual mean temperature is 59° F. There are here a cathedral and a botanical garden. The town was captured by the Russians in 1809, but not formally relinquished by Turkey until 1829. In 1854 and again in 1877 it was occupied by the Turks.

 SUKKUR, or, a town and district of British India, in Sind, Bombay. The town is situated on the right bank of the Indus, 24 m. N.W. of Skikarpur. Pop. (1901), 31,316. Sukkur has always commanded the trade of Sind, and the river is now crossed by a cantilever bridge carrying the North-Western railway to Kotri. The town was ceded to the Khairpur mirs between 1809 and 1824. In 1833 Shah Shuja defeated the Talpurs here with great loss. In 1842 it came under British rule.

The was created in 1901 out of part of Shikarpur district, the remainder of which was formed into the district of Larkana. Area, 5403 sq. m. It is chiefly alluvial plain, but there are slight hills at Sukkur and Rohri. In the higher-lying parts are salt lands (Kalar), or even desert in the area known as the Registan. The climate is hot, dry and enervating. The annual rainfall at Sukkur town averages only 4½ in. The population in 1901 was 523,345, showing an increase of 10% in the decade. A considerable part of the district is irrigated, the principal crops being wheat, millets, rice, pulses and oil seeds. Earthen, leathern and metal ware, cotton cloth and tussore silk are manufactured, also pipe-bowls, snuff-boxes and scissors. Lines of the North-Western railway serve the district, and there is a branch from Sukkur towards Quetta.

SULA ISLANDS (Sulla, Xuila; Dutch Soela), a chain of islands forming a prolongation of the eastern peninsula of Celebes and the Banggai Islands, Dutch East Indies. The three main islands are long and narrow (Taliabu, 68 m. long, Mangoli or Mangala, 63 m. and Besi, 30 m.). The two first lie in line, separated by the narrow Chapalulu Strait; Besi extends at right angles to the south coast of Mangoli. The natives of Taliabu are allied to those of the Banggai Islands and the eastern peninsula of Celebes; but immigrant Malays are the principal inhabitants. Economically, Besi is the most important island. A Dutch commissioner resides at Sanana, at its northern extremity. It is fertile, and produces wax and honey, and coal has been found.

 SULCI, an ancient town (mod. S. Antioco), situated on the east coast of an island on the south-west of Sardinia. The date of its foundation is not known, but it is certainly of Carthaginian origin. The assumption that it was originally an Egyptian colony is not justified. Its walls, of large rectangular blocks of stone, can be traced for a circuit of upwards of a mile: it extended to the low ground on the shore near the modern cemetery, where a dedicatory inscription set up by the people of Sulci in honour of Hadrian in A.D. 128 was found (F. Vivanet in Notizie degli Scavi, 1897, 407). Various discoveries have been made within the circuit, both of Phoenician and of Roman antiquities, including several statues and inscriptions and many smaller objects, gems, &c., but at present few traces of ancient buildings are left, owing to their continued destruction in medieval and modern times. A cistern of fine masonry, perhaps dating from the Punic period,