The American Harp Journal - Extras - Summer 2017 (revised)

Ballet and the Harp
by Cynthia Price-Glynn
Introduction
BALLET is a collaborative art involving visionaries
of many kinds. Choreographers,
musicians, dramatists, composers, set
designers, costumers and lighting designers all work
together to make their collective visions manifest on
stage. Within this community of skilled people, the
harpist might seem insignificant. However, as ballet
evolved from an amusing entertainment for royalty
to a profound statement of artistic expression, harpists
have been and continue to be an important part
of the whole, just as the art of ballet has exerted
great influence on the evolution of the classical harp
and its music over the last five hundred years.
The Origin of Ballet
Ballet’s roots can be traced to the 16 th -century
French court. Catherine de Medici, upon her marriage
to King Henry II in 1547, arrived in France
with a passion for festivals and brought with her Italian
dancers to perform and teach. She soon began
ordering and producing lavish parties, which came to
be called Magnificences.
These Magnificences served as a valuable distraction
for the many feuding nobles in France, luring
them away from infighting and toward other pursuits,
such as sports, games and tournaments. The
multi-day festivals grew to feature sumptuous banquets
and spectacular entertainments encompassing
dramatic scenarios, poetry, charades, masquerades,
special effects, music, and ballroom dancing. In
1581, a unique Joyeuse Magnificence was produced at
the wedding celebration of Catherine’s son, Henry
III, the recently crowned King of France. Catherine’s
director of court festivals, Balthazar de Beaujoyeulx,
choreographed and directed this expensive and extravagant
event. He drew from within the court an
author, dramatist, set and costume designers and two
composers who wrote the instrumental and vocal
works. The result was full spectrum theater in which
all the festival components of spoken and mimed
drama, music and song, surprise effects, and dances
choreographed for the occasion were combined into
a unified performance that lasted over five hours.
The title for this extensive production was “Balet
Comique de la Royne.” 1 The plot was inspired by
Homer’s story of Circe from Book 10 of the “Odyssey.”
In it, the evil sorceress Circe changed Odysseus’
men into animals and held them captive for a year.
Odysseus eventually breaks her spell and restores
his men to sanity and reason. The story served as an
allegory, Circe’s realm representing the 16 th -century
kingdom of France, mired in religious civil wars. The
ending celebrated the peace Henry III would bring to
France and his destiny as the savior of France’s preeminence
in the Western world.
The dances featured structured patterns and
geometric arrangements. The music was in a simple
chordal style designed to accompany the poetry
and story narrative, which was spoken or sung
throughout the performance. (Eventually, this developed
into the recitative style in Italian operas.)
The instruments (winds, brass, strings, keyboards
and harps) were divided into ten groups that accompanied
specific characters. For example, flutes
1 The two French words “balet” (today with two L’s) and
“comique” had passed from the original Greek to Latin
and then to the Italian words for dance, “baletto,” and for
amusing, “comico.” In time, the word “ballet” has come to be
defined as theatrical dance.
2 THE AMERICAN HARP JOURNAL – EXTRAS