{{Short description|Dance and associated melody and chord progression}} {{For|the regional language|Bergamasque}}
[[File:Bergamesca.png|thumb|330px|Bergamesca ('The Buffens'), ''Straloch MS.'', c. 1600<ref name="Times">(1916). [https://books.google.com/books?id=5o0PAAAAYAAJ&dq=bergamesca&pg=PA491 ''The Musical Times''], Volume 57, p.491.</ref> {{audio|Bergamesca.mid|Play}}.]] [[File:Bergamesca a.png|thumb|330px|Bergamesca variant, ''MS. Lute Book'', c. 1600<ref name="Times"/> {{audio|Bergamesca a.mid|Play}}.]]
'''Bergamask''', '''bergomask''', '''bergamesca''',<ref name="Times"/> or '''bergamasca''' (from the town of Bergamo in Northern Italy), is a dance and associated melody and chord progression.
==Reputation== It was considered a clumsy rustic dance copied from the natives of Bergamo, reputed, according to the ''Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition'', to be very awkward in their manners.<ref>{{EB1911|inline=1 |wstitle=Bergamask |volume=3 |page=772}}</ref>
The dance is associated with clowns or buffoonery, as is the area of Bergamo, it having lent its dialect to the Italian buffoons.<ref name="Times"/>
==Chord progression== The basic chord progression is I–IV–V–I:<ref>Apel, Willi (1969). ''Harvard Dictionary of Music'', p.91. {{ISBN|978-0-674-37501-7}}.</ref> :<poem> │⎸ I IV V I I IV V I :⎹⎸ I IV V I I IV V I ⎹│ </poem>
==Works== thumb|255px|{{center|Bergamask}}
Seventeenth-century Italian composer Marco Uccellini adapted the Bergamasca as a lively instrumental piece titled "Aria sopra 'la bergamasca.'"thumb|Marco Uccelini, Aria sopra la Bergamascathumb|center|500px|Marco Uccelini, Aria sopra la Bergamasca
Twentieth-century Italian composer Ottorino Respighi adapted the melody as the final movement of his Suite #2 of Ancient Airs and Dances.
''Bergomask'' is the title of the second of the ''Two Pieces for Piano'' (1925) by John Ireland (1879{{ndash}}1972).
The title of Claude Debussy's Suite bergamasque is a poetic reference and the piece is not related musically to the Bergamask described here. Likewise, the "Masques et bergamasques" of twentieth-century French composer Gabriel Fauré is musically unrelated.
The characteristic I-IV-V-I progression features in popular music of the late 20th century, for example the song "Twist and Shout."
==See also== *Moresca *Romanesca *''Masques et bergamasques'' *''Suite bergamasque''
==Sources== {{reflist}}
Category:Chord progressions Category:Italian dances Category:Renaissance dance Category:Clowning Category:European folk dances