Great Music - La Folia 1

“La Folia” (literally folly or madness) is a unique and enduring piece of music in Western Civilization.  It is a simple dance tune, Iberian in origin, that has been used over the past 400 years by many composers.  Scholars differentiate between “early Folias” and “later Folias”.  Early folias date from the 1500s (although some scholars push it back even further), and was originally a fertility dance in ¾ time.  The simple tune was usually played over and over at an ever-increasing pace until the dancers were supposed to be “driven mad” by the tempo and noise.

In the later 1600s, the tune was transformed into a more classical formulation of sixteen bars with a standard chord progression.  Some credit this to Jean Baptiste Lully, while others cite Gaspar Sanz or Francesco Corbetta; although the more likely source is Andrea Falconieri.  Whoever codified the ancient tune, it become an inspiration for a myriad of composers over the years.  Over the next week, we will be looking at how La Folia fared in the hands of Falconieri, Archangelo Corelli, Alessandro Scarlatti, Francesco Geminiani, Antonio Vivaldi, C.P.E. Bach, Antonio Salieri and Sergei Rachmaninoff.

 

Let’s start off with Falconieri. Falconieri was born in Naples in 1585.  Little is known about his early education, although he became an accomplished lute player.  He moved around Italy, plying his trade as a composer and performer, working in Parma and Rome.  He later returned to his native Naples, where he became meastro di cappella at the royal chapel.  He died in 1656.  

 

Here is his version of the Folia, played by the San Francisco Early Music Ensemble Voices of Music.

 

For comparison, I’ll also share today a version of La Folia by Archangelo Corelli.  Corelli was an Italian composer and violinist, born in Fusignano in the Province of Ravenna in 1653.  He studied violin under the renowned virtuoso Giovanni Bassani and composition under Matteo Simonelli.  Corelli was something of a prodigy and had his first resounding success in Paris at the age of nineteen.  Corelli moved around a lot in a day when travel was difficult and gained fame in France, Germany and Italy.  His approach to violin playing (later spread by his pupils Geminiani and Pietro Locatelli) became the standard for the instrument.  Indeed, many violinists chart their pedigree through generations of teachers back to Corelli (even a giant like J.S. Bach studied Corelli carefully.)  Corelli died in 1713, a rich man and left an impressive collection of paintings.  He is buried in the Pantheon in Rome.

Given his position as a pre-eminent violinist, it is small wonder that Corelli’s take on La Folia comes in the form of a violin sonata (actually a set of variations labeled as a violin sonata.)  Here is Corelli’s Violin Sonata Opus 5, No. 12 in D Minor, played by the great Russian Violinist Nathan Milstein.  Although this version features piano accompaniment, rather than the harpsichord, Milstein’s playing is so beautiful, I wanted you to hear it.  Enjoy!