Bergamask

Bergamask, bergomask, bergamesca,^[1] or bergamasca (from the town of Bergamo in Northern Italy), is a dance and associated melody and chord progression. It was considered a clumsy rustic dance (cf. Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act V Scene i Lines 341 and 349) copied from the natives of Bergamo, reputed (according to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition) to be very awkward in their manners.^[2]

The dance is associated with clowns or buffoonery, as is the area of Bergamo, it having lent its dialect to the Italian buffoons.^[1]

I-IV-V-I:^[3]

I IV V I I IV V I :||

I IV V I I IV V I

Bergomask is the title of the second of the Two Pieces for Piano (1925) by John Ireland (1879–1972).

Sources

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d (1916). The Musical Times, Volume 57, p.491.
^ One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Bergamask". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 772.
^ Apel, Willi (1969). Harvard Dictionary of Music, p.91. ISBN 978-0-674-37501-7.

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