Canario (i).

A villancico from the Canary Islands. It is called a Negrilla when it

depicts the music, song and dance of the black people of the islands.

Canario (ii).
An old dance from the Canary Islands. It is characterized by jumps,
zapateado (stamping of the heels) and abrupt, violent choreographic
movements, accompanied by fast music with energetic and highly
syncopated rhythms. The dance was introduced into Spain as early
as the 16th century and became popular on the Continent as the
Canary.

Canary
(Fr. canarie; It., Sp. canario).
A form of dance and music popular in Europe from the mid-16th
century to the mid-18th. Two main types of music existed, an early
Spanish and Italian canario and the later French canarie.
Covarrubias Horozco described the canario in his Tesoro de la
lengua castellana o espaola (1611) as a type of saltarelo gracioso
that came to Spain from the Canary Islands. A piece called Endechas
de canaria appeared in Pisadors vihuela book of 1552, and the
dance was mentioned by Diego Snchez de Badajoz in the Farsa de
Sancta Brbara (published in his collected works of 1554), and by
Cervantes, Lope de Vega and many other Spanish writers throughout
the 17th century. Discussing its origins and character, Arbeau
(Orchsographie, 1588) noted that its passages are gay but
nevertheless strange and fantastic with a strong barbaric flavour.
This earlier canary often employs a short, two-phrase scheme that is
relatively fixed melodically and harmonically (ex.1). Both phrases
have the same harmonic progression (IIVIVI, also used by the
Spanish saraband, the villano and the passamezzo moderno, or
sometimes simply IIVVI) and, in some cases, almost the same
melody. The two phrases, each usually made up of four triple beats,
are alternated and repeated in various ways, producing a strong
sense of ostinato. Cesare Negri, in Le gratie damore (1602/R, 2/1604
as Nuove inventioni di balli), accompanied his description of the
canarys choreography with music much like ex.1b, but with the C in
each phrase harmonized with a VII chord instead of IV. Caroso gave
examples in Il ballarino (1581/R) and Nobilt di dame (1600)
somewhat like those in ex.1, providing a choreography for the canary
by itself, as well as appending one at the end of several groups of
dances. It is a fiery wooing dance with rapid heel-and-toe stamps
and noisy sliding steps (Sutton, 1998). Shakespeare seems to refer
to such a choreography in his Loves Labours Lost and Alls Well that
Ends Well.

Other music examples, some of which differ from ex.1, appear in the
Moresca deta le canarie of Barbetta (1585) and a Canario spagnuolo
(manuscript, I-Lg 774) for lute, canaries for ensemble by Allegri
(1618), Zannetti (1645), and G.B. Vitali (1667), and examples from
1606 to 1677 for the five-course guitar. In Spain the canary appeared
in the guitar books of Sanz (1674), Ruiz de Ribayaz (1677), Guerau
(1694) and Santa Cruz (manuscript, E-Mn 2209), and still survives as
a folksong.
The French canarie is in 3/8 or 6/8 time and is made up of four- and
eight-beat phrases with beats using the sautillant figure (ex.2). Some
canaries have an upbeat but most do not. Their music has no fixed
melody or harmony and may be major or minor, with the free
sectional structure common to most late Baroque dances (usually two
repeated sections, with a variable number of bars in each). Several
18th-century writers (Walther, Musicalisches Lexicon, 1732;
Mattheson, Der vollkommene Capellmeister, 1739) described the
canary as a fast gigue.

The canary became popular in France from the 1660s when Lully first
used it in his court ballets (Ballet des Gardes, Act 3; Ballet de Flore,
Act 15; Ballet des Muses, Act 4; Le bourgeois gentilhomme, Act 1
scene i). It became one of the optional dances of the suite, appearing
in compositions for solo lute (Bouvier, Denis Gaultier) and clavecin
(Chambonnires, Louis Couperin, Lebgue); later it was included in
ballets and operas by, for example, Campra, Destouches, Lalande,
Collasse and La Coste. German composers (Gottlieb Muffat, J.C.F.
Fischer, Kusser, Telemann) used it in suites for keyboard, small
ensemble and orchestra, as did English composers including Purcell.
11 choreographies, including three by English choreographers, are
extant in the Beauchamp-Feuillet notation (Little and Marsh). Most
are difficult theatre dances employing virtuoso steps such as
cabriolets. Canaries often appeared in pairs, for example in Lully's
Bellrophon (1675, Act 5 scene iii; Little and Marsh, no.1320).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
E. Cotarelo y Mori: Coleccin de entremeses (Madrid, 1911),
pp.ccxxxviccxxxvii
J. Pulver: Dictionary of Old English Music (London, 1923), 279
M. Querol Gavald: La msica en las obras de Cervantes
(Barcelona, 1948), 99101
M. Dolmetsch: Dances of Spain and Italy from 1400 to 1600
(London, 1954), 5273 [the music on pp.634 is not from Negris
book]

L.H. Moe: Dance Music in Printed Italian Lute Tablatures from 1507
to 1611 (diss., Harvard U., 1956), 667, 27078, 458
M. Garca Matos: Viejas canciones y melodas en la msica
instrumental popular de las danzas procesionales practicadas
an en Espaa, Miscelnea en homenaje a Monseor Higinio
Angls, i (Barcelona, 1958), 28990
M. Nelson: Canarios, Guitar Review, no.25 (1961), 1822
M. Ellis: The Dances of J.B. Lully (16321687) (diss., Stanford U.,
1967), 8994
W. Hilton: Dance of Court and Theater (Princeton, NJ, 1981)
B. Bang Mather: Dance Rhythms of the French Baroque: a
Handbook for Performance (Bloomington, IN, 1987), 2214
M. Little and C. Marsh: La danse noble: an Inventory of Dances and
Sources (Williamstown, MA, 1992)
J. Sutton and F.M. Walker, eds.: Courtly Dance of the Renaissance
(New York, 1995; Eng. trans. of F. Caroso: Nobilit di dame,
1600)
J. Sutton: Canary, International Encyclopedia of Dance (New York,
1998)
RICHARD HUDSON/MEREDITH ELLIS LITTLE