Holborne: Pavane and Galliard (P

Holborne: Pavane and Galliard (p.191)

Context

Music for a consort – typically of viols, as on the recording, but the pieces could be played by recorders or a mixture of available instruments
Intended for domestic performance. Being able to perform music was considered a mark of an educated person in Elizabethan times.
The pairing of a Pavane (slow duple time) with a Galliard (lively triple time) was very common in C16. Both are dances, but the music here was never intended for dancing; they are elaborate instrumental interpretations of dance forms, similar in that respect to the sarabandes and gigues of the C18 Baroque suite

Polyphonic – the music is largely spun from the interweaving of melodic lines, each instrument with its own independent part. The only exception is the middle section of the Galliard, which is more homophonic, though with some part movement
Imitation is the key technique – one line copying another, overlapping each other – see parts 1 and 4 in the opening bars of the Pavane, for example
The fifth part is generally less active and rests on a single note between bars 34-9 and 54-7 of the Pavane and bars 17-8 of the Gallliard

Largely conjunct melodic lines – not so far from the vocal music of the time, especially in the Pavane
The opening four notes of line 1 in the Pavane are taken from Dowland’s song Flow my tears (Anthology p.347) which had been published during the 1590s and had become very famous (hence the Pavane’s title The image of melancholy)

Fluid in the Pavane. Although there are regular barlines, the music is not necessarily bound by them – in b.35, for example, part 1 would stress the third beat of the bar, imitating part 2 at a minim’s distance
Rhythms in the Galliard are more complex, and the interweaving of rhythmic patterns is sometimes very intricate, as in b.1-2, for example
There are many hemiolas in the Galliard (3/2 changing to 6/4, as in b3)

Diatonic D major in the Pavane and A minor/major in the Galliard
The music was composed towards the end of the Renaissance and at the time when the modal system, with its scales beginning on different white notes, was giving way to the major-minor system which was used throughout the C17-19 and is still important in C21
The music is composed a lines, rather than as a tune over a series of chords, and the harmonic rhythm is fluid (unlike that of Haydn’s symphony, which changes chords once or twice per bar, for the most part)
The three sections of both pieces end with a clear cadence in the following keys: D – A – D
Most sections end with a perfect cadence (V – I)
The exception is the second section of the Galliard. It uses a phrygian cadence (IVb – V in D) which is an old version of an imperfect cadence
Although much of the time the interweaving parts create simple triads, there are also a lot of dissonances in the form of suspensions and passing notes
Another harmonic feature are the occasional false relations, such as the C sharp – C natural in bar 11 of the Pavane