History of Freestyle Musical Dressage

While dressage has its roots in ancient Greece, it was in the seemingly magical demonstrations of horsemanship in Italy and France from the 16th to 19th centuries that haute ècole, or high school dressage and horsemanship to music, developed. . Northern Italy was the center of equestrian arts in Renaissance Europe in the late 16th century and it was here that what was to become musical freestyle in competitive dressage was born. Not in Pignatelli’s school in Naples, which is one of the most famous, but in the schools of Fiaschi and Fredirico Grisone, music was closely related to dressage. Both men wrote the first treatises on dressage and included the use of music. While Pignatelli is known for being the first to train horses on stilts, bringing a new aesthetic to horse training, it is the musical displays that have endured and made it an international competition.

In Italy in the 1500s, music was introduced to the equestrian arts, first to teach rhythm and tempo to horsemen, and soon after to accompany the lavish equestrian ballets. Grisone encouraged the use of the voice to help the horse’s rhythm. He wrote a treatise in 1550 that was soon translated into French and German. Fiaschi included in his 1556 treatise short musical melodies corresponding to the steps and movements of a horse. Thus, the first musical vocabulary for dressage was put on paper. Fiaschi encouraged his riders to learn music well enough to sing as they rode and ride as if he were playing rare and excellent music.

As early as 1548, in Lyon, France, costumed knights amazed the public with their horses leaping, turning, and leaping to the sound of bells attached to the horses: “So pleasantly do they resound that the harmony of their sweet sound did not tickle the spirits.” of the amazed.” the people, less than the sparkle of glittering gems, dazzled their eyes, so that those who watched did not know whether they dreamed or lived.” In 1602, La Broue wrote that without musical sensibility one could never have sensibility to rhythm and the horse’s tempo needed to ride well.

In a spectacular feat, Pluvinel, who reintroduced Xenophon’s gentle horse training techniques, created a horse ballet in 1612 to honor Louis XIII’s engagement to Anne of Austria. The ballet was just a few minutes in a long day and night of lavish pageantry, jousting, and a carousel. Pluvinel stole the show as the spectacularly dressed riders’ horses jumped, danced, twirled and leaped, captivating the audience.

Although dressage shares a long history with music, musical demonstrations were absent from the competitive arena until relatively recently. From the early 20th century, competitive dressage drew more from its military roots than its entertainment roots. In the 1980s, once again, horses seemed to dance in the arena as organizers brought musical freestyle to international competition dressage, aiming to bring spectators to what was often considered a rather unfair event. bored. The 1996 Atlanta Games were the first Olympics to add freestyle to the format and today musical freestyles draw huge crowds to watch the horses dance.

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