La Folia

Folia (Portuguese), La Folía (Spanish), also folies d'Espagne (French), Follies of Spain (English) or Follia (Italian), is one of the oldest remembered European musical themes, or primary material, generally melodic, of a composition, on record. The theme exists in two versions, referred to as early and late folias, the earlier being faster.

The epithet "Folia" has several meanings in music.

Western classical music features both "early Folia", which can take different shapes, and the better-known "later Folia" (also known as "Follia" with double l in Italy, "Folies d'Espagne" in France, and "Faronel's Ground" in England). Recent research suggests that the origin of the folia framework lies in the application of a specific compositional and improvisational method to simple melodies in minor mode. Thus, the essence of the "early Folia" was not a specific theme or a fixed sequence of chords but rather a compositional-improvisational process which could generate these sequences of chords. The "later Folia" is a standard chord progression (i-V-i-VII / III-VII-[i or VI]-V / i-V-i-VII / III-VII-[i or VI7]-V[4-3sus]-i) and usually features a standard or "stock" melody line, a slow sarabande in triple meter, as its initial theme. This theme generally appears at the start and end of a given "Folia" composition, serving as "bookends" for a set of variations within which both the melodic line and even the meter may vary. In turn, written variations on the "later Folia" may give way to sections consisting of partial or pure improvisation similar to those frequently encountered in the twelve-bar blues that rose to prominence in the twentieth century.

Several sources report that Jean-Baptiste Lully was the first composer to formalize the standard chord progression and melodic line. Other sources note that the chord progression eventually associated with the "later Folia" appeared in musical sources almost a century before the first documented use of the "Folia" name. The progression emerged between the end of the 15th century and the beginning of the 16th century in vocal repertory found in both Italian (“Canzoniere di Montecassino”, “Canzoniere di Perugia” and in the frottola repertoire) and Spanish sources (mainly in the “Cancionero Musical de Palacio” and, some years later, in the ensaladas repertoire). Even though the folía framework appeared almost at the same time in different countries with numerous variants that share similar structural features, it is not possible to establish in which country the framework originated.

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