Bergomask

Bergamask, bergomask, bergamesca, 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.

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

The basic chord progression is I–IV–V–I:

│⎸   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).

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