More on Forms with Refrains (3)

This is a follow-up to the post on the contredanse La Griel. I wrote there: "Contredanse folios published by the dancing master La Cuisse and reproduced on the Library of Congress American Memory site contain two remarkable fold-out graphics that collate music, text and graphic descriptions of figures, and drawings of the dancers."

La Griel, of course, is one: La Bionni is the other. Virtually everything said in the earlier post about La Griel applies equally to La Bionni, including the varying lengths of the figures and the grand rond or rond ordinaire danced to the first strain and its repetition. The music as performed (five strains with repeats, in an ABACA design) is reproduced below. (Click on the thumbnail for a larger image.)

From all this, three points may be made. First, it is hard to overemphasize the importance of the more or less formal (or ritualized) frame for the dance (in the rond ordinaire at the beginning and courtesies at the end). Second, it is equally hard to overemphasize the importance of the refrain. Third, although the musician is tempted to say that the refrain "structures" the music, that is only half the story, because a refrain in the music by no means signals a repetition of a figure in the dance.