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Music from the South. 121 |
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Ronde, which is again in common metre. This rhythm, I think, may be described as the one most congenial to French sympathies.
Their Gavotte is close to the minuet, of such elegant gaiety as to deserve expressly complimentary mention. And where in the world is there anything like the mad sweep of the Galoppe !—a dance which it is almost hopeless to attempt anywhere out of France—with all its stream of smooth yet rapid craziness; as unapproachable in its character by the natives of other countries as were the charming floating graces of the three-bar waltz of Germany— ere the modern, and, I think, senseless dislocation of it was invented by Folly, spoiling a good and genuine thing as completely as if (to use a quaint phrase of Dr. Franklin's) you put ' salt to strawberries.'
To the rich wit of the French (who nevertheless are poor in the sense of the whimsical) must be ascribed many of the forms of their music when used to mate sound with sense for stage uses, whether in the Vaudeville, or in the table-song, or in the Amphigouri, that sort of medley which has its equivalent in no other country.
For the most part, when the domain of French popular art has been entered, it will be perceived |
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