Estampie Totally Explained

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ť This article is about the medieval dance; for the German band see Estampie (band).

The estampie (also estampida, istampitta, istanpitta and stampita) is both a medieval dance and musical form.

Musical Form

The estampie is an important form of instrumental music of the 13th and 14th centuries. It consists of four to seven sections, called puncta, each of which is repeated, in the form ť aa, bb, cc, etc..

Different endings (ouvert (open) and clos (closed)) are provided for the first and second statement of each punctum, so that the structure can be ť a+x, a+y; b+w, b+z; etc..

Sometimes the same two endings are used for all the puncta, producing the structure ť a+x, a+y; b+x, b+y, c+x, c+y, etc..

A similar structure was shared with the saltarello, another medieval dance.
The earliest reported example of this musical form is the song "Kalenda Maya", supposedly written by the troubadour Raimbaut de Vaqueiras (1180-1207) to the melody of an estampida played by French jongleurs. All other known examples are purely instrumental pieces. 14th century examples include estampies with subtitles such as Lamento di Tristano, La Manfredina, Salterello, Isabella, Tre fontane.
Though the estampie is generally monophonic, examples of two-voice compositions in the form of an estampie are also reported.

Dance Choreography

The idealized dance character of all these pieces suggests that the estampie originally was a true dance. There are no surviving dance manuals describing the estampie as a dance. Illuminations and paintings from the period seem to indicate that the estampie involves fairly vigorous hopping. Some estampies, such as the famous Tre fontane ("Three Fountains") estampie, contain florid and virtuosic instrumental writing; they may have been intended as abstract performance music rather than actual dance music.

Etymology

The etymology of the name is disputed; an alternative name of the dance is stantipes, which suggests that one foot was stationary during the dance; but the more widely accepted etymology relates it to estamper, to stamp the feet.

Further Information

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