Five Elizabethan Dances (from Romeo and Juliet) (2012)

Large Wind Ensemble or Symphonic Band – 6 min.
Publisher: Lauren Keiser Music Publishing

Audio

Score (Free Download)

Program Note

Five Elizabethan Dances is drawn from the music that sets the scene and provides the accompaniment for the Ballroom Scene from Don Freund’s Romeo and Juliet: A Shakespearean Music Drama for singing actors and piano. The style of the dances is freely drawn from dances found in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book (music from ca. 1562 to 1612), spiced up with changing meters and chromatic twists of melody and harmony reflecting a more recent musical language. Each of the dances represents a pivotal scene-within-a-scene:

1. Galiard: Entry Dance (pompous)
​LORD CAPULET
​Welcome, gentlemen! ladies that have their toes
​Unplagued with corns will walk a bout with you.

2. Basse danse: Romeo sees Juliet across the room (tender)
​ROMEO
​Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight!
​For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.

3. Dumpe: Indignant Tybalt (heavy, rugged)
​TYBALT
​This, by his voice, should be a Montague.
​Fetch me my rapier!

4. Pavan: The Lovers Touch (cool on the surface, burning inside)
​ROMEO
​Then move not, while my prayer’s effect I take.
​(They kiss.)
​Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged.
​JULIET
​Then have my lips the sin that they have took.
​ROMEO
​Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged!
​Give me my sin again. (Kiss again.)

5. La Volta: Unmasking, Departure (festive)
​JULIET
​Come hither, nurse. What is yond gentleman?
​NURSE
​His name is Romeo, and a Montague;
​The only son of your great enemy.