Gregorio Lambranzi

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Page from Lambranzi's "Tantz-Schul"

Gregorio Lambranzi was an Italian dance master and choreographer in the late 17th and early 18th centuries .

Life

Gregorio Lambranzi was active as a choreographer and dancer in the first decades of the 18th century. The exact dates of his life are not known, and no references to his person can be found in contemporary literature, archives or church records. Information about his life can therefore only be derived from his dance publication “Nuova e curiosa schuola de 'Balli theatrali - New and curieuse theatrical tantz school”, published in Nuremberg in 1716.

This suggests that Lambranzi was born in the last third of the 17th century and comes from Venice . So he is in the frontispiece as “Sig. Greg. Lambranzi di Venezia "and as" ital. Tantz master and composer ”. In the foreword, written in both German and Italian, he explains that he himself performed the dances in the major theaters “in Germany, Italy and France”. A Venetian origin also seems likely, since most of the local dances contained come from the northern Italian lowlands ( Bergamasca , Bolognesa, Furlana , Polesina, Romagniola) and several dances were inspired by Venetian motifs such as gondoliers and merchants. The Italian version of the preface is also written in the dialect of Bassa Padana .

Since Lambranzi’s handwritten notes are in German and German Kurrentschrift, the name Lambranzi was also considered as a pseudonym of a Nuremberg dance teacher, for example by Friderica Derra de Moroda:

Description and dance-historical significance

In 1716 Gregorio Lambranzi published the book "Nuova e curiosa schuola de 'Balli theatrali - New and curieuse theatrical tantz school" with copperplate engravings by Johann Georg Puschner with the publisher Johan Jacob Wolrab . In its form it is exceptional and an important source for ballet and cultural history of the early 18th century. With his “Tantz School” Lambranzi contributed to the development of the action ballet and thus the ballet d'action even before Jean-Georges Noverre .

While most of the other dance writings around 1700 concentrate on court ballet and court ballroom dance and use the feature set notation , Lambranzi focuses on theater dance - especially character and grotesque dance - and would like to encourage the reader to make their own creative experiments. Instead of the fixed dance notation feuillets, he therefore uses a combination of pictorial representations (engravings by Puschner) and short descriptions of the dances, in which he specifies the plot and the step material to be used, but otherwise leaves the reader creative freedom: “But it is my opinion not to bind someone to my method, but I leave every dancer the freedom to apply it as he pleases, [...] "

The Tantz School begins with a frontispiece and a foreword in German and Italian and is then divided into two parts, the first containing 36 and the second 31 dances. On 101 boards, 67 dances are described, “… from all sorts of nations and theatrical figures, both in their clothes, as well as how one imagines these dances in the poses, in an artful yet easy manner, together with them Corresponding arias, as the volkomene report shows, must behave, the same as one understands a speech of the same without knowing a Tantz master, and chorographiae, and with the passage everything can easily be brought into memory. "

The page design is uniform: in the upper part there are notes for the music of the dance and the dance name (below the top line of notes), the middle part shows a figure from the dance, in the lower part there is a brief description of the dance in German and one to the Ornamental design based on the dance theme. The preface shows that Lambranzi himself was the draftsman's model. Puschner then transferred the dance figures specified in the sketches to copper engravings and added the background that was not included in the drawing templates.

The dance descriptions contain on the one hand the action of the dance, on the other hand often step names like pas galliarde , tombé , coupé, jeté, etc. a. They therefore require knowledge of the step material used in courtly dances. The following groups of dances can be identified: Court dances (e.g. Entreé, Sarabande , Folie d'Espagne , Paesana, Boureé , Rigaudon ), dances based on professions (merchants, soldiers, craftsmen, farmers, slaves, prisoners) , Dances with characters from the Commedia dell 'Arte (e.g. Pantalone , Arlecchino , Mezzetin , Pulcinella ), dances that take up mythical themes, local and national dances and everyday scenes (e.g. arguments, drunks, old women).

Of the printed version of 1716, 22 copies are known, which are kept in 18 libraries in Europe and the USA. The total print run is estimated at around 300 copies. In the 20th and 21st centuries there were occasional performances of some of the dances, among others in the production “Stroll on the World Side” by the New York Baroque Dance Company (2002), in the production “The baroque mask stage” by the Theater der Klänge (1989) and as part of the Gotha Baroque Festival 2013 by the baroque dance ensemble contretem (p) s Berlin.

Manuscript in the Bavarian State Library

The manuscript of the "Tantzschul" (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich, Cod. Icon., 343) consists of 43 sheets and contains 85 pen drawings that are not completely identical to the images in the printed version. These drawings were discovered and published in 1936 by the dance scholar Friderica Derra de Moroda in Munich.

Work and editions

  • Gregorio Lambranzi: Nuova e curiosa schuola de 'Balli theatrali - New and curieuse theatrical tantz school . Nuremberg 1716. Copper engravings: Johann Georg Puschner, publisher: Johan Jacob Wolrab.
  • New and curious school of theatrical dancing by G. Lambranzi. A facsimile of the original in the Bavarian State Library, Munich, ed. by F. Derra De Moroda, New York 1972.
  • New and curious school… With all the original plates by JG Puschner, translated by F. Derra De Moroda, with a foreword by CW Beaumont, London 1928, New York 1966; 2002.
  • New and curieuse theatrical Tantz-Schul, ed. by K. Petermann, Leipzig 1975.

literature

  • Klaus Abromeit: Lambranzi's Theatrical Tantz School: Commedia dell'Arte and French Noble Style. In: Studi musicali. Vol. 25, No. 1/2, 1996, ISSN  0391-7789 , pp. 317-328.
  • Stephanie Dahms: Gregorio Lambranzi - dance theory outsider or pioneer of ballet d'action? The new and curieuse theatrical Tantz school as a reflection of the estates, businesses and theaters at the beginning of the 18th century. Peter Dahms, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-00-013346-1 (also: Berlin, Free University, master's thesis).
  • Sabine Ewert: Ballet and pantomime in the Commedia dell'arte, discussed using Gregorio Lambranzi as an example: 'Neue und Curieuse Theatralische Tantz-Schul'. In: Mask and Kothurn. Vol. 22, No. 3/4, 1976, pp. 224-237, doi : 10.7767 / muk.1976.22.34.224 .
  • Daniel Heartz : A Venetian Dancing Master Teaches the Forlana: Lambranzi's Balli Theatrali. In: The Journal of Musicology. Vol. 17, No. 1, 1999, pp. 136-151, doi : 10.2307 / 764014 .
  • Stephanie Schroedter: From "Affect" to "Action". Source studies on the poetics of dance art from the late Ballet de Cour to the early Ballet en Action (= publications of the Institute for Musicology at the University of Salzburg. Derra de Moroda dance archives. Dance research. 5). Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2004, ISBN 3-8260-2538-5 (Also: Salzburg, University, dissertation, 2001).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Kurt Petermann, “Afterword”, in: Gregorio Lambranzi, “Nuova e curiosa schuola de 'Balli theatrali - New and curieuse theatrical Tantz school”, Leipzig 1975, SV
  2. ↑ See Petermann, pp. V-VI. See also Stephanie Dahms: Gregorio Lambranzi - dance theory outsider or pioneer of ballet d'action . Master's thesis Free University of Berlin, p. 6.
  3. ^ Petermann, SV
  4. ↑ See Petermann, p. III.
  5. ^ Gregorio Lambranzi, Nuova e curiosa schuola de 'Balli theatrali - New and curieuse theatrical Tantz school , photomechanical reprint of the original Nuremberg 1716 edition, ed. by Kurt Petermann, Leipzig 1975, title page (above)
  6. ↑ Ibid.
  7. ↑ See Petermann, SV
  8. ^ Silvano Giordano, Gregorio Lambranzi , in: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani - Volume 63 (2004); http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/gregorio-lambranzi_(Dizionario-Biografico)/ .
  9. ↑ Dahms, p. 99 f.
  10. ↑ http://www.theater-der-klaenge.de/produktionen/maskenbuehne/zentrum.php?lang=1
  11. ↑ Program of the Baroque Festival 2013.
  12. ↑ See section work and editions.
personal data
SURNAME Lambranzi, Gregorio
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian dance master
DATE OF BIRTH 17th century
DATE OF DEATH 18th century