Klarinet Archive - Posting 000171.txt from 1994/01

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: Re: repeats in minuets
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 1994 05:49:08 -0500

Jim Langdell inquires about documentation in support of the hypothesis
about repeats/no repeats in minuets.

Very little, Jim. But there is one overwhelming incident in Mozart's
music that nails it.

In the string trio (violin, viola, cello), he has a minuet with trio.
At the end of the trio, Mozart writes "Da capo, le repliche piano".
The literal translation of this is "Da capo, the repeats piano." It
is the plural form "repliche" that is telling, for it implies (1) that
everybody knows that the repeats are to be played on the da capo, but
in this case they are to be played quietly (as opposed to normal
practice??), and (2) all the repeats are to be taken.

I once played the Beethoven septet (which has two minuets with trios,
though one of them is a scherzo) with a cellist who was very aged,
though still a competent player. He told me that in Vienna, during
the latter part of the last century, they played minuets and trios with
no repeats anywhere. That was the performance practice of that epoch
(and that geography).

I can hypothesize how the issue of repeats got turned upside down and
on its head over the last 2 centuries, but I really don't know. I doubt
if anyone does. It is one of the things that is simply lost to history,
despite the many speculations about how minuets were performed.

But that the practice was different than is almost a certainty.

====================================
Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
(leeson@-----.edu)
====================================