Folia

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.

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 sets of variations on the "later Folia" may contain sections consisting of more freely structured music, even in the semblance of partial or pure improvisation (a practice which might be compared in structural concept, if very different in musical material, to the performance in twelve-bar blues and other standard chord progressions that became common in the twentieth century.)

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).

Plays of the renaissance theatre in Portugal, including works by Gil Vicente, mention the folia as a dance performed by shepherds or peasants.

Jean-Baptiste Lully, along with Philidor l'aîné[1] in 1672, Arcangelo Corelli in 1700, Marin Marais in 1701, Alessandro Scarlatti in 1710, Antonio Vivaldi in his Opus 1 No.

12 (which was, in fact, part of a collection of direct transcriptions of Corelli's violin sonatas), George Frideric Handel in the Sarabande of his Keyboard Suite in D minor HWV 437 of 1727, and Johann Sebastian Bach in his Peasants' Cantata of 1742 are considered to highlight this "later" folia repeating theme in a brilliant way.

Antonio Salieri's 26 Variations on La Folia, for orchestra, written towards the end of his career, is one of his finest works.