[6] Arabic theorists already in the early Abbasid period (AD 750–900) described modal rhythmic cycles (īqā‘āt), that included quintuple meters, though taxonomies and terminology vary amongst writers.
Al-Fārābī elaborated the rhythmic system established a century earlier by another important early Abbasid musician, Isḥāq al-Mawṣilī, who had based it on local traditions, without any knowledge of classical Greek music theory.
[9] This terminology and these definitions continued to be found as late as the 12th century in Muslim Spain, for example in a document by Abd-Allāh ibn Muḥammad ib al-Ṣīd al-Baṭaliawsī.
Quintuple meter is also occasionally found in folk music, with perhaps the most well-known example being the Eotmori (엇모리) rhythm (장단) often employed in Sanjo.
[19] Traditional dance songs of the Yupik of Alaska are accompanied by frame drums, beaten with a long thin wand, most commonly in a 58 crotchet–dotted crotchet (quarter–dotted quarter) pattern.
[21] In north-eastern Poland (especially in Kurpie, Masuria, and northern Podlaskie), five-beat bars are frequently found in wedding songs, with rather slow tempos and not accompanied by dancing.
The notation is problematic, however, and while several editors (Robert Eitner, Vincent d'Indy, Hugo Leichtentritt, and Carl Orff) have transcribed it in quintuple meter, others interpret it differently.
[31] Charles Burney found this whole scene admirable, as a portrait of Orlando's madness, but observed that "Handel has endeavoured to describe the hero's perturbation of intellect by fragments of symphony in 58, a division of time which can only be borne in such a situation".
[43] There appear to have been several motivations for composers to use quintuple time: firstly to demonstrate technical skill, as in the Tye and Correa de Arauxo examples, and secondly to produce an atmospheric effect, or to suggest unease or unusual excitement, as in Handel's Orlando.
[46] Although Reicha's fugue probably falls into the category of technical skill, the composer does mention taking as a model for the meter the Alsatian Kochersberger Tanz.
[47] In his next opera, Ruslan and Ludmila (1837–1842) Glinka repeated the effect in the opening of act 1, where the chorus sings an epithalamium to Lel', the Slavonic god of love, once again in quintuple time.
64 (1855) and Rhythmische Studien for piano,[31] a String Trio by K. J. Bischoff, which was awarded a prize by the Deutsche Tonhalle in 1853,[53] and Benjamin Godard's Violin Sonata No.
[54] The piano virtuoso Charles-Valentin Alkan showed an interest in unusual rhythmic devices, and composed at least four keyboard pieces in quintuple time: the first three of the Deuxième recueil d'impromptus, Op.
2 (1849), Andantino, Allegretto, and Vivace (the fourth and last piece in this collection is in septuple meter),[55] and a 54 "Zorzico dance" episode in the Petit Caprice, réconciliation, Op.
[58] At the very end of the century, Alban Berg used 54 meter throughout his song-setting of Theodor Storm's poem, "Schließe mir die Augen beide" (1900).
[59] Three of the best-known examples of quintuple meter in the symphonic repertoire are from late in the neoromantic (or post-romantic) period, which reaches from the mid-19th century through World War I: the second movement of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No.
[67] In the piano repertoire, the "Promenade", from Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition (1874), has five versions, in each of which 54 is mixed with other meters, regularly or irregularly: The opening measures are shown below: To this same period (and to the Russian tradition) also belongs "Prizrak" (Phantom), in 58 time, which is No.
Compound quintuple meter is less frequent, but an instance is found in the middle section of the third movement, "Andante grazioso", of Brahms's Piano Trio No.
[73] The common occurrence of quintuple meter in many folk-music traditions caused an increase in its appearance in the works of composers with nationalistic tendencies in the early 20th century.
2 from Maurice Ravel's song cycle Don Quichotte à Dulcinée (1932–1933),[76] and the first theme group of Carlos Chávez's Sinfonía india (1935–1936), which is predominantly in 58 time, but mixed with other meters.
[78] In his First Symphony, the Sinfonía de Antígona (1933), Carlos Chávez reworked incidental music he had composed in 1932 for a production of Sophocles' Antigone in the adaptation by Jean Cocteau.
[88] Igor Stravinsky's name is often associated with rhythmic innovation in the 20th century, and quintuple meter is sometimes found in his music—for example, the fugato variation in the second movement of his Octet (1922–1923) is written almost uniformly in 58 time.
[89] Much more characteristically, however, quintuple bars in Stravinsky's scores are found in a context of constantly changing meters, as for example in his ballet The Rite of Spring (1911–1913), where the object appears to be the combination of two- and three-note subdivisions in irregular groupings.
A rare exception is found in an early work by Steve Reich, Reed Phase (1966), which is built on the constant repetition of a five-note basic unit in steady eighth notes.
[107]Reich's 1979 Octet (originally scored for two pianos, string quartet, and two wind players who perform on both flutes and clarinets), revised and rescored as Eight Lines) is entirely in quintuple time.
Leonard Bernstein's Candide opened on Broadway in December 1956, and featured a variety of meters that Billy Rose's musicians would have found as impossible as Stravinsky's.
[113] Later examples in musical theater include the song "Everything's Alright", from Jesus Christ Superstar (1971), by Andrew Lloyd Webber, which is mainly in 54,[114] and "Ladies in Their Sensitivities" from Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd (1979), which is in 58.
[120] Brubeck had studied with the French composer Darius Milhaud, who in turn had been strongly influenced by Stravinsky, and is credited with the systematic introduction of asymmetrical and shifting rhythms that sparked a far-reaching surge of interest in jazz and popular music in the 1960s.
Shortly afterwards, Guarnieri released an album on BET records called Breakthrough in 5/4, which consisted of original compositions in 54, jazz standards changed to 54, as well as a version of Yesterday in 54.
His first quintuple-meter piece was "Azrael, the Angel of Death", written in 1968, and the meter cropped up again three years later in the opening instrumental section, "Eruption", of the title track and some later passages from the album Tarkus.