Stretto fuga and Sequential Schemata in the Keyboard Fantasies of Orlando Gibbons
Jonathan Oddie · Historical Performance · 2018
Although historically informed performance has often claimed to privilege the intentions of the composer, the possibility of investigating these intentions through musical analysis has generally received less attention than questions of performance practice. Focusing on keyboard fantasias by the English composer Orlando Gibbons (1583–1625), I argue that historically sensitive analyses can bring us closer to understanding the composer's musical concerns and provide relevant insights for interpretation in performance. Gibbons's fantasies frequently use sequential patterns derived from stretto fuga, a technique for composing or improvising in strict imitation that was widely known among sixteenth- and seventeenth-century musicians. These patterns appear in many different guises, as points of imitation, transitions, and chordal frameworks for ornamentation with divisions. The simplicity of these models makes it clear where Gibbons has departed from strict regularity, inviting questions about the reasons for these compositional actions. Finally, the way in which Gibbons deploys these patterns suggests a concern for form, particularly where successive sections draw on related ideas. This technique is central to the “Fantazia of Foure Parts” from Parthenia, in which almost all the thematic material derives from variations on closely related sequential patterns. Techniques related to stretto fuga represent an essential grammatical background against which Gibbons's compositions can be understood, and analyses that take these concepts into account reveal a greater concern for form and unity on his part than typical conceptions of the keyboard fantasia would suggest.