Sarabande (Handel)

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Harpsichord by Giuseppe Mondini , Florence 1701, currently in the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg

The Sarabande by Georg Friedrich Handel is a baroque piece of music. It is the third of four dances from his fourth suite in D minor , Handel Works Directory (HWV) 437, which was probably composed around 1705/07 during his time in Hamburg. It was published in print in 1733 in London by the music publisher John Walsh . The saraband is composed for a solo harpsichord . The piece is well known and played a lot. There are arrangements for orchestra and various individual instruments. A sombre orchestral version of Leonard Rosenman related Stanley Kubrick as a kind of funeral music for his film Barry Lyndon from 1975. In Metal - and rock musicians is the Sarabande a popular and versatile for electric guitars edited piece.

Musical structure and background

The piece has a simple structure, the 16-bar theme is first introduced and repeated, then varied twice with one repetition each time. It is set in the key of D minor , the time consists of slow and solemn ³ / ₂. So it consists of three half notes . An important stylistic-rhythmic element of the sarabande is the dotting of the second note in ³ / ₂ time, which is produced by a quarter pause .

{\ key d \ minor \ time 3/2 f'2 f'2 r4 g 'e'2 e'2 r2}

In this piece , Handel uses cadences that are known in music research as Almira cadences (after the musicologist Terence Best). Almira, Queen of Castilien is his first opera, premiered in Hamburg in 1705, in which the courtly dance sarabande contained there has very similar harmonies and tone sequences as the sarabande from HWV 437. These cadences also appear in other works.

{\ key d \ minor \ time 3/2 d '' e '' f''2 e''4 d '' d''2 d''2 r2}

The Sarabande, with its ³ / ₂ time, like the other comparable pieces, belongs to the older type, which was written before 1712. Handel set later sarabands in ³ / ₄ time; so the dance set became faster. According to the musicologist Siegbert Rampe, the piece does not sound like a dance piece, but rather like an aria in the style of a sarabande . In music research, it is assumed that Handel's harpsichord suites were probably never intended for publication, because his subject was opera, which was staged from a commercial point of view. Perhaps these suites, and thus also this sarabande, were initially used by himself for practice, lessons or private performances, perhaps also in improvised variations, as well as instructions for friends and his three students, daughters of King George II . Handel's Sarabanden from the period up to 1710 could have been influenced by the piano suites of Johann Jakob Froberger . He knew Froberger's pieces from Johann Philipp Krieger , who was court conductor in Weißenfels. Handel's father was there personal physician to Duke Johann Adolph I.

Expenses (selection)

  • 1897: Johan Halvorsen : Sarabande con variazioni, Thême de Handel score .
  • Sarabande with Variations - from Suite No. 4 in D minor. In: Play music for folk instruments. Guitar trio. No. 5, J. Trekel, Hamburg (scores, also on the album Panorama de la guitare 2018).
  • 1998: Sarabande from Suite D Minor No. 4 HWV 437 classical orchestra on the album Golden Classics in the Last 300 years.
  • 2009: Sarabande - from Suite No. 4 in D minor for cembalo (HWV 437, full score) - adaptation by Sylvia Corinna Rosin, Moeck, Celle.
  • 2016: Sarabande. HWV 437, Naxos Regular CD.

Audio samples and web links

literature

  • Sarabande - set to music by GF Haendel . In: General musical newspaper . No. 28 . Leipzig July 1828 ( opacplus.bsb-muenchen.de - score, supplement No. 1).
  • Sarabande . In: Encyclopedia of the Entire Musical Sciences or Universal Lexicon of Music . tape 6 : Giant harp to Zyka . Köhler, Stuttgart 1840, p. 142-143 ( books.google.de ).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ List of available music videos on YouTube.
  2. ↑ Sheet music of the first edition by John Walsh, London 1732/33, p. 27 f.
  3. ↑ Bernd Baselt: Handel Handbook . Ed .: Walter and Margret Eisen. tape 3 : Thematic-systematic directory: instrumental music, pasticci and fragments . Bärenreiter, Kassel / Basel / London 1986, ISBN 3-7618-0716-3 , p. 237 f .
  4. ^ Siegbert Rampe (ed.): The Handel Handbook. Volume 5: Handel's instrumental music. Laaber 2009, ISBN 978-3-89007-689-8 , p. 91 f.
  5. ^ Siegbert Rampe (ed.): The Handel Handbook. Volume 5: Handel's instrumental music. Laaber 2009, ISBN 978-3-89007-689-8 , pp. 144 ff.
  6. ↑ Hans Joachim Marx (Ed.): The Handel Lexicon (= Handel Handbook. Volume 6). Laaber, 2011, ISBN 978-3-89007-552-5 , pp. 442 and 665.
  7. ↑ Rovi Staff in a post for Allmusic describing the suite.
  8. ↑ Wolfgang Kostujak on the eight Handel suites for harpsichord ( wolfgangkostujak.de PDF).