Estampie
|
|
The Estampie is both a medieval dance and musical form.
There are no surviving dance manuals describing the estampie as a dance. Illuminations and paintings from the period seem to indicate that the estampie involves fairly vigorous hopping. The etymology of the name is disputed; an alternative name of the dance is stantipes, which suggests that one foot was stationary during the dance; but the more widely accepted etymology relates it to estamper, to stamp the feet.
The estampie musical form consists of a series of verses, often of different lengths, and two refrains, sometimes called "open" and "closed", which alternate. The various verses can be of different lengths, and are often only faintly related in theme to the preceding and following verses. There can be any number of verses, though there must be at least three.
The two refrains typically open with the same phrase. The first, or "open" ending, begins with that phrase and concludes with a short passage. The second, or "closed" ending, is usually longer than the first ending, and concludes with a longer passage. Thus, where A, B, C. . . represent the various verses, R(o) the open ending, and R(c) the closed ending, the structure of an estampie is:
- A — R(o)
- A — R(c)
- B — R(o)
- B — R(c)
- C — R(o)
- C — R(c)
- .
- .
- .
A similar structure was shared with the saltarello, another medieval dance. Some estampies, such as the famous Tre fontane ("Three Fountains") estampie, contain florid and virtuosic instrumental writing; they may have been intended as abstract performance music rather than actual dance music.
For further reading
- Timothy McGee, Medieval Instrumental Dances.
Estampie is also a German medieval band with a web site [1] (http://www.estampie.de).pl:Estampie