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Scan 126
Grove's Dictionary of music and musicians, 1927
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1to the fancied resemblance to a peacock's tail, caused by the robes and cloaks worn by the dancers, as they swept out in the stately figures of the dance. Several good descriptions of the pavan have come down to us. Rabelais 1 tells us that it was one of the 180 dances performed at the court of the Queen of Lanternois on the visit of Pantagruel and his companions; Tabourot, in his Orchésographie, says that in his time pavans were still popular, although not as much danced as formerly.2 At state balls the dancers wore their long robes, caps and swords, and the music was performed by sackbuts and oboes. In masquerades, pavans were played as processional music, and were similarly used at weddings and religious ceremonies. Like all early dances, the pavan was originally sung as well as danced, and Tabourot gives the following example for four voices, accompanied throughout by the drum on one note.
3Pauane à quatre parties.
5Bel le qui tiens ma vie captiue
6dans tes yeux, Qui m'as l'ame rauie D'un
7soubz-riz gracieux, Viens tost me secou-
8rir Ou me fauld-ra mourir Viens tost me
9secou-rir ou me fauld-ra mourir.
11* The treble sings D, the alto F.
131 Pantagruel, Bk. v., published 1562.
142 Besard, in the Preface to his Thesaurus harmonicus Divini Laurencini Romani (Cologne, 1603) after praising the sweetness and elegance of the English music of his day, makes particular mention of the Pavans, adding that the word 'Pavan' is nothing else than the Italian 'Paduana.' He also mentions that the French often call their Passomezzos, Pavans.
16Sir John Davies in his Orchestra (1596) has the following curious verses, in which the motions of the sun and the moon are compared to dancers of pavans and galliards:
18'For that braue Sunne the Father of the Day,
19Doth loue this Earth, the Mother of the Night;
20And like a reuellour in rich array,
21Doth daunce his galliard in his lemman's sight,
22Both back, and forth, and sidewaies, passing light.
24'Who doth not see the measures of the Moone,
25Which thirteene times she daunceth euery yeare?
26And ends her pauine thirteene times as soone
27As doth her brother.'
29There are numerous specimens extant of pavans by instrumental composers of the 16th and 17th centuries, and in almost every case the pavan is followed by a galliard, the two thus anticipating the saraband and gigue of the later suite. Thus Morley (Introduction, Part 3), after speaking of Fantasies, says:
31'The next in grauity and goodnes vnto this is called a pauane, a kind of staide musicke, ordained for graue dauncing, and most commonlie made of three straines, whereof euerie straine is plaid or sung twice, a straine they make to containe 8, 12 or 16 semibreues as they list, yet fewer then eight I haue not seene in any pauan. … After euery pauan we vsually set a galliard.'
33And Butler (Principles of Music, 1636), speaking of the Doric mode, has the following:
35'Of this sort are Pavins, invented for a slow and soft kind of Dancing, altogether in duple Proportion. Unto which are framed Galliards for more quick and nimble motion, always in triple proportion, and therefore the triple is oft called Galliard-time and the duple, Pavin-time.'
37Amongst the best known of these forerunners of the Suite, we may mention John Dowland's 'Lachrymae or Seauen Teares, figured in seauen passionate Pauans with diuers other Pauans, Galliards and Almands' (1605); and Johann Ghro's 30 pavans and galliards 'nach teutscher art gesetzt' (1604). For another description of the dance see Bishop Earle's Microcosmographie, ed. by Bliss (Nares's Glossary).
39The Spanish pavan, a variety of the original dance which came from Spain (where it was called the 'Grand Dance,') was of a more elaborate character than the original. Judging from the frequent occurrence of its air in the early English Lute and Virginal Books, it must have become very popular in England.3 The following is the tune which Tabourot gives for it: it is not the same as that which is found in the English books.
41W. B. S.
433 In Starter's Friesche Lust Hof (1634) it is called 'Engelsche indraeyende Dans Londesteyn.'
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