Thanks, Chris and Howard - I like your answers. I must admit that my
curiosity will not be sufficient to motivate me to learn the dance ( I
attended dancing classes in elementary school, and haven't liked
dancing since! ) but your reasons for the dance possibly becoming a bit
slower are both interesting. Listening to a couple of different
performers play Galliards, I have the feeling that they find the
fastest tempo at which they can cleanly perform them and let that be
the tempo. Ok, I guess, but I still wonder how historically
representative. It does occur to me that - in the case of the Earl of
Essex Galliard - since it's an instrumental setting of the song
Can She Excuse My Wrongs, would it be appropriate to play/sing each at
about the same tempo?
Of course, jumping ahead a few hundred years and listening to
Toscannini and then Furtwangler performing Beethoven, one can see that
tempos are always going to be relative things. Even in spite
of composers' score notations.
Thanks for your responses. I'll just keep advancing the metronome
until my fingers refuse to follow. . .
Ned
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