A Masque for Dancing

“A Masque for Dancing” for fixed stereo electronic media

by Paul Paccione based on “The Lords’ Masque,” by Thomas Campion

A Masque For Dancing for dancers and fixed stereo electronic media (1996) Music Composed and performed on synthesizer by Paul Paccione (Text by Thomas Campion, 1613. Music composed and performed on synthesizer by Paul Paccione.)

The Lords’ Masque was first presented before King James in 1613, on February 14, Valentine’s Day, in celebration of the marriage of his daughter Princess Elizabeth to the German Elector Palatine.

It was a marriage that would eventually acquire its own mythic significance in Rosicrucian circles. Both the text and music for the original production were composed by poet/composer Thomas Campion (1567). Although the text for the Lords’ Masque has survived, little of the original music remains extant.

The masque, a magical form of Renaissance pageantry that flourished in England, was composed of a unique blend of poetry, drama, marvelous stage effects, song and dance. A forerunner of the masked ball, it was an aristocratic art form, performed mainly at court on holidays and special occasions. The poetic libretto is rich in mythic and allegorical symbolism - its primary function is to clarify the drama. Both dance and music form the basis of the masque’s design. The chief participants’ who were members of the nobility, arrived at a hall disguised, danced before their hosts and then invited those in the audience to share in the revels. It was believed that both music and dance reflected not only the meaning of the masque itself but were a representation of the very rhythm and ordered patterning of the cosmos: the music of the spheres.

Only three of Campion’s original numbers from The Lords’ Masque have survived: the songs “Come Away,” and “Woo her and win her,” and the dance number that accompanies the entrance of the torch-bearers. I have incorporated this music, transformed in various ways, into my own setting. In addition, my setting includes fragments from two of Campion’s lute songs: “Follow thy fair sun, unhappy shadow,” and “Harke, all you ladies that do sleep.” In composing my own music for The Lords’ Masque I have used

the formal structure and patterning of Renaissance dance as a background structure to my own original dance music.

In my use of electronic synthesizer, I hope to have captured the same magical atmosphere evoked by the delicate symbolism contained in both the text and scenario - what one Renaissance composer once described in relation to his own ballet de cour as “a stylized expression of our secret thoughts.”

Scenario 1. Orpheus Appears. Discovery of the scene: Upon the sound of a double consort a curtain masking the lower stage drops to reveal a woodland scene. Orpheus steps forth to summon the goddess of madness, Mania, from her cave and deliver Jove’s command to release from her company of madmen, Entheus, the spirit of ‘Poetic fury.’

2. Strange Music. Twelve ‘Frantics’ enter in the midst of whom Entheus is “hurried forth, and tost up and down.”

3. Mad measure. The ‘Lunatics’ fall into a “mad measure, fitted to a loud fantastic tune.”

4. Solemn Air. The music changes into a “very solemn air,” and all excepting Entheus exit.

The curtain veiling the upper stage drops to reveal Prometheus standing against a background of glittering stars. To him, Entheus explains the business of the evening.

Patron of mankind, powerful, and bounteous Rich in thy flames, reverend Prometheus, In Hymen’s place aid us to solemise These royal nuptials; fill the lookers’ eyes With admiration of thy fire and light, And from thy hand let wonders flow tonight.

5. A SONG: Come Away. Orpheus: “Fly cheerful voices through the air, and clear/These clouds, that yon bid beauty may appear.”

Come away; bring thy golden theft, Bring, bright Prometheus, all thy lights; Thy fires from heaven bereft

Show now to human sights...

6. A Song: Choral Motions. The upper part of the scene is discovered in which clouds and large stars appear. While a choir sings of the spheres blending with the harmony of the royal wedding, the stars behind Prometheus move in “an exceedingly strange and delightful manner.”

Advance your Chorall motions now, You music-loving lights: This night concludes the nuptial vow, Make this the best of nights...

The singers invite the spirits of the stars to appear in human form and to grace the nuptials with dance. Clouds engulf the glittering lights and in their place stand eight lord masquers: “The ground of their attires was massy cloth of silver, embossed with flames of embroidery; on their heads, they had crowns, flames made all of gold-plate enameled, and on the top a feather of silk representing a cloud of smoke.”

7. A SONG: The Torch-bearers Dance. Sixteen pages perform a torch dance on the lower stage.

8. A FULL SONG: Supported now by clouds descend. The lord masquers come down from the upper level in a bright transparent cloud. Their descent completed, the cloud “brake in twain, and one part of it (as with a wind) was blown overthwart the scene.”

While the cloud is vanishing, the lower stage undergoes a sudden change. The woodland disappears, and in its place appears four “noble women-statues of silver” standing between “pilasters all of gold, set with rubies, sapphires, emeralds, opals and such like.”

Supported now by clouds descend, Divine Prometheus, Hymen’s friend: Lead down the new transformed fires And fill their breasts with love’s desires, That they may revel with delight, And celebrate this nuptial night...

9. THE FIRST INVOCATION IN A FULL SONG: Powerful Jove. To the accompaniment of song the first four statues are transformed into living women.

Powerful Jove that of bright stars, Now hast made men fit for wars, Thy power in these statues prove And make them women fit for love.

10. THE SONG: Woo her and win her. While this song is sung, and the masquers court the four new transformed ladies, four other statues appear in their places.

Woo her and win her, he that can!

Each woman hath two lovers, So she must take and choose a man, Till time more grace discovers...

11. THE SECOND INVOCATION TO THE TUNE OF THE FIRST: Powerful Jove.

The other four statues are transformed into women.

12. The first new entering dance: Pavane. The masquers pair off and begin their first new entering dance, a Pavane.

13. Dialogue Song: Breathe you now. Between dances, “while they (the masquers) breathe, the time is entertained with a dialogue song.”

Breathe you now, while lo Hymen To the bride we sing: O how many joys and honours, From this night will spring...

Live with thy bridegroom happy, sacred bride; How blest is he that is for love envied!

14. THE MASQUERS’ SECOND DANCE: Alamain. The masquers resume their dance, an Alamain.

15. Dialogue Song: Breathe Again.

Breathe again, while we with music Fill the empty space; O but do not in your dances Yourselves only grace...

Now in the revels frolic-fair delight, To heap joy on this ever-honoured night.

16. Solemn Revels: Galliard. The masquers choose partners from the onlookers. The bride and bridegroom are brought to the dancing floor and dancing follows: a Galliard.

17. Solemn Revels continue: Sarabande.

18. A SONG: Cease, Cease. a halt.

A new song brings the dancing to

Cease, cease you revels rest a space; New pleasures press into this place, Full of beautie and of grace.

A deep perspective scene is disclosed, in the midst of which stands a silver obelisk, and beside it golden statues of the bride and bridegroom.

19. A SONG: Come triumphing.

Come triumphing, come with state, Old Sibylla, reverend dame; Thou keep’st the secret key of fate, Preventing swiftest Fame.

This night brings only words of joy, And speak them plain, now be not coy.

Old Sybilla appears and blesses the bride and bridegroom.

20. A SONG AND DANCE TRIUMPHANT OF THE MASQUERS: Dance, dance!

A “dance triumphant of the maskers,” accompanied by the song: Dance, dance! and visit now the shadows of our joy, All in height, and pleasing state, you changed forms employ.

And as the bird of Jove salutes with lofty wing the morn, So mount, so fly, these trophies do adorn...

21. THE SONG: No longer wrong the night.

The final song:

No longer wrong the night Of her Hymenaean right; A thousand cupids call away, Fearing the approaching day; The cocks already crow: Dance then and go!

22. Wedding Bells.

23. The Final Call. A final call for all in attendance to gather for the going-out dance of the masquers.

23. The last new dance of the masquers: Branle. The exit dance of the masquers.

FINIS