Interesting issue. I just played the Horses Branle for children in a school a few weeks ago. My playing speed started out about 90 and accelerated (deliberately) to 105, marginally faster than what Michael recommends, but perhaps given the audience and purpose (showing different playing styles for one tune), I might be forgiven for drifting past the 100 mark. (In this case the purpose was actually *not* dance.)
That said, my initial reaction to Michael's posting must reveal me as American: I found the statement, with its seeming implication that good taste in this issue must conform to what Michael thinks, a trifle, well, dictatorial, and I found Geoff’s response much more to my liking. (Michael, I am not saying *you* are dictatorial. Please do not misunderstand me: you were making an authoritative statement, but *I* took it another way.) But on further reflection I had to confess that Michael has a real overall point: many musicians equate playing quickly with skill. We stand in awe of the seeming wizardry evident in someone who can play a very fast piece. The danger then is that we try to play quickly to show skill, even though a pulled back playing style (where you know they *could* play something fast but they aren’t) usually sounds much better (even for very fast pieces, that sense of pulling back usually helps). So while I might disagree with Michael’s phrasing, it is well worth keeping his point in mind that most pieces have an internal logic and tempo that works best for them and that willy-nilly speeding things up *without understanding* is a bad thing. Where I would disagree with Michael’s words (although perhaps not his intent?) and agree with Geoff, however, is that for the musician who does things with care and understanding, things can be changed, even drastically. As an example, the received wisdom in the first half of the twentieth century was that Beethoven's Fifth should be performed at about 2/3 the tempo of current performance. It was positively shocking when the first performances were made at the current tempo, with some listeners appalled. Today we find the older performances to sound rather funereal. In the case at hand here, it could be very satisfactory for both player and dancers, for instance, to start out rather slowly and build up the tempo until things break down. In the right context, with willing dancers, I see no reason one could not gradually push Horses Branle up from a leisurely pace to 130 bpm, leaving everyone pleasantly exhausted and challenged. I have been a dancer for things like that that were great fun: at the end you no longer know how to move and that breakdown of knowledge and sense is very satisfying. Thus I think there are two dangers. One is when we assume we know the context or that only one context applies and make prescriptive, absolute statements (*this* is how Horses Branle should be played/danced) that place a single aesthetic ideal up at the ideal. The other is when we don't know the context of “standard” performance (which is prescriptive and to some degree absolute) and violate it in ignorance (e.g., I have no idea how Horses Branle is normally played, so I am going to treat it like a speed contest because I don't know any better). I can't speak for Michael, but I am assuming he is objecting to the latter, not to the player who knows what he or she is doing and deviates from the standard with intention, skill, and knowledge. If that is so, I would agree: we need to know the performance tradition and not be naive in our playing and having knowledgeable players give their view on the tradition has tremendous value. (It gets really fun, however, when knowledgeable players disagree in their interpretation of the tradition…) Best, Arle On 2012 Dec 17, at 23:05 , Geoff Turner <[email protected]> wrote: > You need to be careful when you say "played as it should be". Obviously when > playing for dancing the speed is set, but why else should it be? Music is > played by the player and enjoyed or not by the listener at their whim. As to > the number of parts in the horses branle it is generally played in England > different to France, but unless you are being a purist if you are playing > unaccompanied, play it how you feel. The horses branle exists in more than > one version from antiquity and they are quite different. > > Rant over. > GeoffGeoff -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "hurdygurdy" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/hurdygurdy The rules of posting, courtesy, and other list information may be found at http://hurdygurdy.com/mailinglist/index.htm. To reduce spam, posts from new subscribers are held pending approval by the webmaster.
