In an earlier post, I looked at the ‘French’ saraband. I thought I’d turn to the ‘Spanish’ saraband, but I quickly got caught up in a confusing web of ‘Spanish’ dances.

There are four notated dances that can be defined as ‘Spanish’ sarabands, because of their music. Two are solos for a man, one by Favier (in an undated manuscript) and the other by Feuillet (in his 1700 Recueil de dances). The other two are solos for a woman, from Feuillet’s 1700 collection and Pecour’s 1704 Recueil de dances. All four choreographies use the ‘I^er Air des Espagnols’ from the Entrée ‘L’Espagne’ in the Ballet des Nations at the end of Le Bourgeois gentilhomme. I’ll come back to these dances later.

There are four surviving choreographies to the Folie d’Espagne music.  This is, of course, also a saraband. Two of these dances are very closely related: Feuillet’s solo Folie d’Espagne pour femme published in 1700 was lightly adapted to become a duet, recorded in a manuscript collection where it is attributed to Pecour. There is also one solo for a man by Feuillet, surviving only in manuscript, and another by Pecour in his 1704 Recueil de dances. I will return to these four choreographies too. On the London stage, the Folie d’Espagne was advertised under that title only once – at Lincoln’s Inn Fields on 29 May 1718 when it was performed ‘by a Little Girl that never danced on the Stage’.

Feuillet’s Sarabande Espagnole, a solo for a man in his 1700 collection, is actually a loure or gigue lente, another dance type that often has ‘Spanish’ connotations. There seem to be both ‘French’ and ‘Spanish’ loures, for some of the choreographies using this dance type have a pastoral or amorous context, at least so far as their music is concerned. The most famous ‘French’ loure is Pecour’s Aimable Vainqueur.

Another eight notated dances are designated ‘Spanish’ either in their titles or through their music. Five are loures, three of which are male solos. Two are by Feuillet, an Entreé DEspagnol surviving in manuscript and a Sarabande Espagnole pour homme in his 1700 collection. The third solo is the Spanish Entry in L’Abbé’s A New Collection of Dances dating to the mid-1720s. Pecour has an Entrée Espagnolle pour une femme and an Entrée pour deux hommes in his 1704 Recueil de dances. Both use the same piece of music from the Entrée for Spain in Campra’s L’Europe galante of 1697, as does Feuillet’s Entreé DEspagnol. The other two male solos use another tune from the Entrée L’Espagne in the Ballet des Nations.

Spanish dances were quite popular on the London stage. There were male and female solos, as well as duets, trios and a variety of dances for larger groups. It is virtually impossible to know what these choreographies were like, although the links of so many of the dancers to France and their training in ‘French’ dancing suggest that many were sarabands or loures or perhaps the Folie d’Espagne itself. Most of the advertisements for a ‘louvre’ probably refer to Aimable Vainqueur. However, there are a few billings for male and female solos, which may well be ‘Spanish’ loures. Among the last of the dancers to be advertised in a solo ‘louvre’ was La Barberina in the 1740-1741 and 1741-1742 seasons.

There is also the question of what made a dance ‘Spanish’ (apart from its music). I’ll come back to this.